this post was submitted on 27 May 2024
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[–] [email protected] 304 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Your Steam games will go to the grave with you

Great, then I'll finally have some time to play them....

[–] [email protected] 115 points 6 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 35 points 6 months ago (1 children)

The only cloud gaming I will accept

[–] [email protected] 27 points 6 months ago (6 children)

Wait a minute... why is it so hot here? That can't be good for the... Windows Vista computer?! Where the heck am I?

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[–] [email protected] 179 points 6 months ago (8 children)

If steam did allow transfers this way, I can imagine it being a new type scam where people fabricate death documents to steal steam accounts.

[–] [email protected] 109 points 6 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 35 points 6 months ago (5 children)

Oh for sure, but it's definitely a concern for stuff like this. It's a lot easier for valve to just expect people to pass login info down as a way to pass on an account.

Valve actually migrating purchases from one account to another risks upsetting publishers, and requires whole new policies on how to verify death and verify who should receive the account. Finally there's the risk of scams and having to resolve them. Overall it's a lot of headache for valve, I'm not surprised they're not jumping to offer it officially.

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[–] [email protected] 67 points 6 months ago (1 children)

True but ultimately this is about ownership - we don't own our games. We license them - that is what is lost with Steam and DRM, and moving away from physical media.

GOG is an alternative in that you can download and back up the installers for your games (mostly) but even then do you own your ganes?

[–] [email protected] 35 points 6 months ago (2 children)

You’ve never owned your games. You owned the media they came on but legally you only ever had a license to use the software. Depending on the license agreement (the thing where most people click “I agree” without reading) you had more or fewer rights, such as transfer of license, but the way things work legally ownership of software seems to mean the more of the copyright ownership. Maybe like a book: you own your copy of the book but you don’t have the rights to print more books or make a movie based on the book.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 6 months ago (6 children)

With physical media those licenses didn't materially matter though because a contract you can't read until after a purchase is automatically void in court.

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[–] [email protected] 129 points 6 months ago (25 children)

Life Pro Tip: Register an LLC to buy your steam games under. The LLC will never die and you can transfer ownership of the business entity while it retains control of the steam account.

[–] [email protected] 83 points 6 months ago (1 children)

That's a lot of effort just to play HuniePop

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[–] [email protected] 109 points 6 months ago (4 children)
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[–] [email protected] 106 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

Do they check? Or can i just give my password to my homie in a letter

"Dear homie,

if you are reading this, it means that i'm on the long path to meet with master Kaio to train my ass off to death in the afterlife. Until we meet again, this is my user and pass of my steam account.

PS: i didn't bought the porno VR games. Someone gifted them to me.

Your bro in eternity,

Siegfried"

[–] [email protected] 65 points 6 months ago (3 children)

Bro, but what about the credit card receipt for porno VR games, signed by Siegfried? What about the warranty card for the porno VR games, filled out by Siegfried? What about the book "Porno VR Games and Me (This Sort of Thing is my Bag, Baby!)" by Siegfried?

[–] [email protected] 39 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Bro, a real bro doesn't ask these questions.

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[–] [email protected] 90 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Oh I didn't own my steam account it was created for my future children. it's a trust.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 6 months ago (11 children)

Lol. That's hilarious. But unfortunately you never owned the games in the first place. You rented the privilege to play the game for life?...life of the rental company or your life only? Oh man, we gotta go thru the small print on this.

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[–] [email protected] 85 points 6 months ago (6 children)

When you're dead but someone has got into your steam account and is about to find all of your anime titty games

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[–] [email protected] 77 points 6 months ago (10 children)

“And to my son, I bequeath my steam account - user is blah and password is blah”

Checkmate steam

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[–] [email protected] 67 points 6 months ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 25 points 6 months ago (3 children)
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[–] [email protected] 66 points 6 months ago (5 children)

Who's notifying Valve someone with an account has died? Link the dead person's account to a steam family and enjoy the inheritance.

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[–] [email protected] 52 points 6 months ago

Assuming that the world continues to exist in a way that lets me have a steam account at the time of my natural lifespans average end (another... 46 years):

My steam library grows at a slower rate than my mass storage has, and I'm quite confident that one will be able to fit my entire steam library as it currently is on a normal and affordable drive in at most 15 years.

With those two facts in play I can remain confident in my ability to crack everything I own (assuming I even want everything) and safely store it for at-will passing down to as many people as I want.

But thanks for the reminder to not blindly trust you, Valve. Always useful to have those.

[–] [email protected] 51 points 6 months ago (6 children)

Well, if you're stupid enough to tell valve about the death that is

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[–] [email protected] 48 points 6 months ago

So sad I won't be able to bequeath "Fifty Shades of Fur - Gay Erotic Visual Novel 18+" to my grandchildren

[–] [email protected] 45 points 6 months ago

Once again further diluting the meaning of the words "bought" and "sold"

[–] [email protected] 45 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (6 children)

They also don’t let you transfer purchases if for instance you’re being stalked

Had a friend lose a thousand games that way

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[–] [email protected] 45 points 6 months ago (4 children)
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[–] [email protected] 43 points 6 months ago (3 children)

Sounds ripe for a legal challenge, but neo-ownership of digital-goods is already so fragile.

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[–] [email protected] 43 points 6 months ago (6 children)

I really feel like this won't/can't be enforced.

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[–] [email protected] 42 points 6 months ago (1 children)

To be absolutely clear, this is not new. Steam accounts being non-transferrable and not your property has always been how Steam's terms work. It's not even the first time the death situation comes up.

Because digital ownership sucks, and that absolutely, very much includes Steam. If you can't keep an offline copy you don't own it.

But honestly, given the new family groups Steam came up with this gets weirder now. Other accounts that are more closely tied to hardware are one thing, and I do wish we had a more effective and reliable way to hand over passwords and credentials to relatives in case of emergency, but it's so weird that now your mom can have an accident and you slowly see the games she was sharing with you over that system fade away as her account gets shuttered. It's such a grim, sci-fi distopian piece of minutia. This is not a great timeline we landed on.

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[–] [email protected] 39 points 6 months ago (3 children)

So you can inherit a house, but not a freakin' game... is that even legal?

[–] [email protected] 35 points 6 months ago (2 children)

The issue is that steam (like the other stores except gog) doesnt sell games, they sell licenses.

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[–] [email protected] 39 points 6 months ago (3 children)

Does this apply to developer accounts? Because if so this would be dumb as fuck.

[–] [email protected] 35 points 6 months ago

I'd argue that it's dumb as fuck either way.

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[–] [email protected] 38 points 6 months ago

Rare steam L

[–] [email protected] 34 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (10 children)
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[–] [email protected] 31 points 6 months ago (5 children)

Seems like a shitty hill to die, sacrificing entire generations of family remaining on your platform over old obsolete games on a subscription service. Tell me the video game industry is stale without telling me the video game industry is stale.

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[–] [email protected] 30 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I’d like to see them try stopping me giving my kids my password.

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[–] [email protected] 30 points 6 months ago (2 children)

What they dont know wont hurt you

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[–] [email protected] 26 points 6 months ago (2 children)

I had been literally planning on putting my Steam account in the will...

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