Your Steam games will go to the grave with you
Great, then I’ll finally have some time to play them…
finally some cloud gaming
The only cloud gaming I will accept
Wait a minute… why is it so hot here? That can’t be good for the… Windows Vista computer?! Where the heck am I?
You got Vista? I got Windows ME!
That’s what heathens like yourselves deserve for living lives full of sin. True servants of God like myself have been rewarded with the almighty TempleOS
I clearly am a heathen because I’ve never even heard of TempleOS
I’ve been playing Hades, we got this.
It’s just Diablo… the new fully-immersive experience.
Ah, so that’s what they use in a cremation chamber nowadays…
Only if you have broadband in the grave with you.
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.
While this may be a concern I highly doubt it’s a primary motivating factor
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.
I don’t really think they need to allow folks to migrate your purchases. I think they should allow you to pass on your account however.
Transferring ownership of the account also transfers the game license owned by the account. Still upset publisher
I get that, I’m just saying that should be how it is.
Still applicable
Isn’t this all already possible in Germany? I’m pretty sure I remember a story about valve losing a lawsuit some years back so in Germany people are allowed to transfer their games.
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?
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.
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.
Copyright is automatically applied rather you want it or not. Licenses are granting you permissions to use the media without violating their Copyright. Having a physical copy simply means a publisher cant restrict access to your copy because they turned off their servers… (atleast before the age of zero day patches…).
Just FYI, you mean day zero patches. Zero days are something else entirely.
Actually the original meaning was the way I intended.
The term “zero-day” originally referred to the number of days since a new piece of software was released to the public, so “zero-day software” was obtained by hacking into a developer’s computer before release.
Using “updated” terms intending them as their original meaning is not usually the best plan… Like me saying “that’s an awful haircut” but using awful as the near synonym for awesome.
Which is why those license agreements generally had a clause that if you disagreed you could return the software with all the media for a full refund.
I’m not saying it’s the right way, just that’s how it’s been structured legally. Of course, in the days of physical media with software that couldn’t phone home it was harder to enforce those licenses if people didn’t strictly adhere to them. The software companies didn’t generally find it worth going after individuals if they found out about violations either. Corporations, on the other hand… I worked once at a media company that Adobe caught running a lot of unlicensed software. The story went that it was so bad at the main office their auditors found a copy of After Effects or something similarly ridiculous on a computer that was used as a cash register in the corporate cafeteria. That was very much worth Adobe’s time and money to get the lawyers involved, and became a very expensive problem for my employer. I wasn’t involved in the problem, but I had to check and clean my local office, where we found about a half-dozen computers with unlicensed software.
It makes no difference.
They’re trying to impose an obligation or task on a customer after the purchase, even if it’s only the customer having to go through the trouble of getting the refund (which is a task they were not informed about before the purchase).
If it’s not before the sale it’s void and even in some cases before the sale (for example bait and switch, were you’re mislead with fake contract conditions until the last minute) it’s void.
The whole point is that they must be clear upfront about any conditions attached when the customer is making the decision to buy and adding any conditions after the sale is not acceptable even if the seller gives options (such as refunds) because the customer has a right to use the product under the conditions at the time of the sale and cannot legally be forced otherwise, including forced to refund.
Owning media and owning the copyright to the media aren’t the same thing. There is a well recognized right to resell and transfer physical media, regardless of what the EULA says. You can’t sell more copies, but you absolutely sell (or gift, or leave in a will) the copy you have. The question here isn’t whether you should have a copyright on your digital purchases, it’s whether your rights to digital purchases should be analogous to your physical purchases.
Realistically, the transfer would likely need to be set up ahead of time via the account holder. For instance, my password manager has a function to allow me to designate a beneficiary. But importantly, that beneficiary assignment must come from my account before I die. If I die without designating a beneficiary, there’s nothing my family can do to gain access to my password vault. Only the accounts I have designated will be able to gain access.
In other words, in order to falsely designate a beneficiary, they would already need access to my account. And at that point, they wouldn’t need to deal with death certificates and beneficiaries, because they already have access to my account.
I’d like you to read what you just wrote very slowly and imagine it’s somebody else saying it, just to visualize if it’s an absolutey bonkers thing to say.
There’s also items in people’s accounts
I’d like you to read what you just wrote veeeeery slowly…
Yes, I know, and people should have access to them. Just share passwords with loved ones and they can take the items out eventually. Steam needs to do things like this because publishers are assholes who want it.
This is absolutely not true. The publishers get very little of a say on what Steam does, as evidenced by the fact that a bunch of them, including Activision and EA, arguably the two most powerful third party publishers, left in a huff over fees and microtransaction revenue splits… and then came back because Steam is the only game in town.
So no, Steam isn’t the good guy having their arm twisted by evil publishers, they are a large corporation that invented most of the practices in both digital distribution and games as a service, including this one.
Give your kids your passwords, folks
Gotta have kids for that
New tinder bio: “need a woman to birth me a child that will inherit my Steam account on the day of my demise”
Better yet: “… on the day of my inevitable demise.”
Sounds more dramaticWe’re all gonna die so it’s still a very much true statement
And I agree, much more dramatic
Between my birthday of 1/1/1901 and unlicensed game inheritance, shit is going to go down in the next 50 years. We’ll have AI legal reps for powerful firms requesting a statement of all software licenses by the deceased, challenging them, and then having a court order the rest null.
I hate that I will be right about that.
Will valve allow accounts to exist indefinitely? Will they create an expiration policy, like accounts being closed after 100 years
Steam isn’t going to exist until you die anyway. At some point they will exitscam
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.
That’s a lot of effort just to play HuniePop
ya, but as an LLC you get a lot of rights that you didn’t have before!
I kind of want one anyway. Is there a real reason I shouldn’t do this?
Disclaimer this was a joke I’m not a lawyer and I have no idea if this would actually work… 😆
Would be hilarious if it actually does and everyone starts doing it…
“Your honor, ‘bonerdragon6969420 llc’ has a long and industrious history…”
I am now curious how and if Steam bothers to deal with business licensing? If they do, it’s probably way pricier than what you’re normally paying.
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As others have pointed out - costs a few bucks annually,and requires beneficial ownership report (free IIRC).
Otherwise, it’s a tried and true tactic to pass businesses down through generations. An LLC vs. a corp vs a trust is a convo to have w/ lawyer barred in your state but the general premise is vaguely sane.
Personal use of business assets is generally frowned upon by the IRS.
That’s why I’ll only play during work hours.
Tldr: Don’t do this unless you have a business that requires a steam account for tax purposes. It doesn’t need to be successful but it does need to be real.
Trusts are probably a better option for this sort of thing than a LLC.
Just do benchmark videos on youtube or something. Then rake in the sweet, sweet business losses.
You normally pay an annual fee to keep your LLC registered.
There’s at least 10 states with no annual fee. Arizona is $50 to file, $0 annual fees, and no annual report to file.
If you’d prefer your company to have voting rights, you can file in Rhode Island, and your company can vote in local and state elections without ever stepping foot in the state. Hooray late stage capitalism 😞
There’s a good chance the original commenter is not from the US
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Also I think you are required to submit yearly financial reports.
Not in Arizona. You don’t even have to live there, just have to file there.
Completely depends on your country
$800/year is a lot to save maybe $1000 worth of games. At least that’s what an LLC costs where I live.
Woah, that’s expensive AF. I think forming an LLC in my state is like $25 and then nothing except tax burdens on revenue.
1k worth of games? Oh my sweet summer child
Almost 10 times less where I live, but not sure because I don’t know which dollars you’re referring to
Register a religious organisation/church worshipping digital media and proclaim that this account is part of religious rituals of your church. In the United States, freedom of religion is a constitutionally protected right provided in the religion clauses of the First Amendment.
just share your login lol
Gabe is riding to your house in a SWAT van as we speak. Resist, or don’t, your death is inevitable either way.
It’s a bit more complicated. Besides the Steam credentials, you also need to share your email and its password. You need to provide your mobile phone unlocked or share its password (for SMS and two-factor authentication).
I’ll be dead. They can have all of that.
Better setup some dead-man-switch ASAP just in case.
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"
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?
Bro, a real bro doesn’t ask these questions.
Yeah, bro. Bro is wanking in the afterlife now
Master Kaio is not happy about it, but he is not surprised either.
You just keep the wishlist private and zero it out. You got the answers to those questions. That’s private info your bro rusted you to die with.
Summary:
- This means that when a Steam user passes away, their entire game library and account cannot be bequeathed or transferred to their loved ones.
- The gaming community has expressed frustration over this policy, with some suggesting workarounds like sharing login credentials, but these may only be temporary solutions.
- This issue highlights the broader problem with digital purchases, as users do not truly “own” the content they buy, but rather have a license to access it.
Oh I didn’t own my steam account it was created for my future children. it’s a trust.
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.
The small print just says “lol gottem”
I understand for the life of the company. But it’s not even my steam account. It’s my child’s who’s currently -5 years old (give or take). I did create it on their behalf a decade ago to redeem the free games on their behalf and gift them games I think they’ll enjoy.
“Add to Cart”, “Continue Shopping”, “Purchase for myself”, “Purchase as a gift”, “Purchase”.
Who knows, one day a court may find these terms could lead people into believing they’re buying a game and force some companies to allow us to to trade or resell them (an EU court most probably).
“yes, you made a purchase. But what you purchased were tickets. Tickets to specific rides at a theme park. You did not buy the rides. You bought tickets for the rides. Those tickets are valid for your personal use. If you are not the one using them, they are not to be used.” –Their argument in court probably.
You can resell Windows CD keys legally in the EU as the courts rejected the “only for you” part of the argument: invalidating that part of the EULA. I probably have the right to resell my Steam game tickets.
Purchased should mean what it means for other things like cars or apples…you get a copy of an apple via a purchase and you are guaranteed to be able to use that apple in any manner you please. So for example, you could eat it, ferment it, store it in resin for posterity and for future humans to recreate it. There aren’t any limits to a purchase. So I agree, maybe we need ask the supremes of the supreme court if purchasing means different things. So if I purchase sex from a prostitute legally in Las Vegas, does that prostitute need to specifically state what activities I will own? Or if I go to Costco and buy a fried chicken, does Costco need to specifically state that the chicken is not just a rental but a final exchange between you and Costco, money for dead poultry. More relatable, a screw driver from home Depot, that thing will last a few uses, so do you still own it if home Depot goes down? Can you still rotate screws with it?
Software can be both a product and a service:
- it’s a product when running on my computer (i.e. the game)
- it’s a service when running on their computer (i.e. providing the hosting for downloading, multiplayer client-server hosting).
The issue preventing one practically enacting on software is that copyright defaults to preventing you redistributing it, and you need the source code to be able to modify (fully). Thankfully some games are free software/open source when you can act on your ownership.So that should be “I purchased a game” when you got a detached product that is functional forever… unless the makers make a deal with Microsoft to fuck it up on the next illegally forced update or with Nvidia to change the next card such that it is unplayable.
And it should be “I purchased…I subscribed to this online game” when you know that shit is not yours, so don’t expect it to last.
That would at least be more honest… from my perspective anyway. The games industry has done this for so long that this is the norm for generatations who grew up with consoles being online - this is “purchasing” to some as words have usages and not inate meaning.
It would be better if they just stopped doing that but you get more money that way.
For the life of the trust. Could span generations.
When you’re dead but someone has got into your steam account and is about to find all of your anime titty games
what are these im interested
Try
Nekopara
Doki Doki Literature Club
Boko No Piku
All great games with lots of tiddy.
One of these things is not like the other. One of these things just isn’t the same.
Ah, the olde “fuck me up for life” trifecta.
Boko Piku xD
Good one. 🤣
“And to my son, I bequeath my steam account - user is blah and password is blah”
Checkmate steam
The article goes into that and states password sharing is against the Eula so technically they can kick you off the service if they find out… IF they find out wink wink
I mean it is not sharing if you are dead, it is bequeathing
I bequeath deez nutz to Jo mama
You can’t just bequeath bankruptcy!
I bequeath bankruptcy!!!
Dang, they’ll kick my corpse off Steam…
Old and busted: Pretending someone’s alive for their Social Security check
New hotness: Pretending someone’s alive for their Steam account
4 generations later: “I’ve inherited my father’s steam account just as he inherited it from his father and so on. The library has grown ever larger, and yet so many remain untouched. The summer sales have sustained my forefathers and yet I feel hollow. Each year, more games are added to this historic account, but each year brings more regret as the purchases go untouched. I shall make a promise to myself: finish the extensive library, honor my family, complete the library. But first, some more Counter Strike.”
How thwy wanna find out though? Not like my computer can snitch that part (yet).
blah!@birthday-ssn
Bury me with my backlog.
And browser history
I have reached a place where I genuinely don’t care about anyone seeing my browser history.
FBI: “Mr. JoMiran, did you spend an hour browsing through Peggy Hill cosmic horror hentai?”
Me: “Meh. I found most of the tentacle detail work lacking and the exaggerated breast size off-putting.”
Yeah but what about the Sonic inflation comics?
Nah we deleting that and then denying it
He died doing what he loved more, creating more backlog.
Who’s notifying Valve someone with an account has died? Link the dead person’s account to a steam family and enjoy the inheritance.
This isn’t a huge deal yet but I suspect that if it becomes a huge deal we might see companies start trying to verify their oldest accounts.
You’re account is tied to an email address, you just give the email address as well.
If you will a steam account to someone, there is a chance that there are disputes/claims for the account that need to be settled in court.
The interesting question is what happens if Valve is still around after all of us are long gone and there are millions of 150+ year old accounts, many under active use?
In a world that isn’t drowning in late stage capitalism what we call that is the overwhelming gift given to us by the generations before us so that we may in turn give it to the next generation. Video games are only a tiny subsection of those gifts compared to everything else we just get handed for free.
Wealthy US boomers brutally executed that way of looking at the world though, so literally any form of passing on gifts to the next generation other than being rich as fuck and directly leaving an unbelievable amount of money to your kids is unfathomable or framed as unfair or absurd in modern day society.
Half Life 3
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.
Well, if you’re stupid enough to tell valve about the death that is
Hey valve, I died…
“… I got better.”
Hey valve, so, Uhr… Funny thing… I’m actually… Uh
… kinda dead
I’m totally 132 years old tho
With the amount of people that made their account with a fake DOB of like 1900 or something to get around mature content I’m sure they already see plenty of users that age lol
Imagine tomb raiders of steam accounts in the future ☠️
“This account is 132 years old, it is worth it to hack it”.
So sad I won’t be able to bequeath “Fifty Shades of Fur - Gay Erotic Visual Novel 18+” to my grandchildren
