You can't take it with you, but you can't leave it for someone else either: Valve says you aren't allowed to bequeath a Steam account in a will
You can't take it with you, but you can't leave it for someone else either: Valve says you aren't allowed to bequeath a Steam account in a will
All these unfinished, 75% off, 7/10 RPGs will be lost to time, like tears in rain.
You can inherit their debt, but you can't inherit their video games. What a time to be alive.
216Most debt actually can't be inherited, instead debt collectors get first dibs on inheritance assets until they're made whole or the estate runs out of assets, whichever comes first.
That doesn't mean that debt collectors won't try to convince family members to pay. Just tell them where they can shove it.
71System is broken that's for sure
27You can't inherit debt in the US.
20
How the hell can they know though?????
54They can't, but if you don't give you password and safety codes away before you die they can't legally let you transfer ownership of the games. Just don't tell them and arrange for all your emails, security keys, and 2FA keys to be safely transfered to your children.
57
Damn...makes me want to take the time to pirate games I already bought and own...
And then write it in my will that those who inherit my few earthly possessions have to play through each of my games at least once in front of a lawyer in order to receive their inheritance. Lol, I kid, 😂...or am I 😈?
45This is why I buy GOG first where possible. You can block my account, but ya can't take my hard drive.
13Meh I haven't even played each of my games, or probably even half
4Honestly, me neither. Lol.
1
You child boots up "Kabuki Fursona 7" with tears in their eyes as the lawyer just laughs.
3Then they boot up Spiritfarer and everybody sobs. Lol.
1
Highly doubt this would hold up in court, but then again no one has challenged these digital market places. If you buy the game on their platform it should be legally yours and you can do what you want with it.
41How will they control if someone other continue with your account when you die?
36Same as any other illegality. It's legal until you get caught. The account will work fine until for one reason or another it becomes obvious you're not the original owner of the account, and then it's banned. Billing changes, location changes, ip changes, confession, etc.
31Maybe some generations later in the future it becomes suspicious. Valve want gain money and there is no reason that it will deep investigate if the downloads are still paid from the same account and paid with the same banc account, irrelevant if it's from a different IP or ISP, that are things that can change even with the same user (transladet to other city, changing provider or PC, etc).
6
Shame. It would be a good way to know if you are their favorite child lol. All joking aside, I think this is a compromise as others have alluded deep in comments. Valve likely doesn't care or enforce it, but they don't want to be responsible for account transfer due to games licensing and other legal shenanigans.
25Is this any different from selling an account, which I presume you're not allowed to do?
17It's probably they don't want to dive nose deep into all individual cases and local shenanigans* about that and probable scams that can occur. You can take other person's account if you have both password and email access, they don't oppose that under the table, but they don't want to be a party in account transit because it makes them responsible for that.
* Is it legal what's described in one's last words, can these games be lawfully transfered as they are under both legal code and game licensing agreements? If there's no more living relatives, would Steam transfer your purchases to the government? Or if the inheritance is disputable between two parties, should it decide anything there? They let anything happen as long as they aren't involved.
27As another poster alluded to, digital goods aren't really considered property in the traditional sense. Digital property is protected under copyright (and other IP laws). The owner could sell the game, but then they wouldn't own it anymore (e.g. when one game studio buys another, they are buying the games as well). Instead, they grant a licence to use the game, which is how Steam works as well.
If Steam let you transfer your account to someone else (e.g. bequeath or sell it), then they would need this in the licence (which they could do in theory). Other than the logistics of that (especially how to handle people selling accounts - and the scammers that inevitably come with that), the AAA publishers are unlikely to agree to those terms. Ultimately the Steam licence is likely a compromise between Steam's vision and all the AAA publishers that wouldn't publish on Steam if they didn't get the licence they wanted. A bit like how Netflix doesn't really care if you use a VPN, they just have to enforce it so studios will let them use their content.
6
Not really, and I'm guessing it's part of their decision here since it could open them to possibilities they don't like if they say that an account is an asset. It's also probably fairly complicated, legally; they need to understand how estates are settled in every country they do business, open themselves up more to scammers, etc.
I doubt they're going to enforce this if you were to give your credentials to someone else. They're just not going to voluntarily provide the credentials for you.
9I would say in one sense yes, because typically property being bequeathed follows different customs than property being sold for profit.
But the point in this case is that your Steam library is not even "property" to begin with, it is a contract that becomes invalid when one of the parties (the customer) dies.
7Yes in that you have to be dead to do this which is something most people can only do once.
5
Ahh, let the Ensh*ttification of all these platforms wash over you.
8Would be kind of funny to see the different stats that would change if a family was able to pass on the full account. Like maybe one child didn't give a fuck about games (outside of just signing in here and there to keep it alive and update stuff like email and security) and no other activity. But then their kid goes hard into games and see the gaps of time. There would be lots of accounts that may have super awkward stuff like hentai visual novels. lol. But seeing some stupid high amounts of achievements and total hours of play time would be neat.
But not exactly shocking that these digital accounts would not have the ability to go much past your death. Unless we see the very deep change of all companies allowing people to remove a game and basically "gift" it. Which I can't see happening. Even physically having discs/carts hits a limit after so long. Normal wear of use and the material rotting does mean it is likely those would also not survive past a couple of generations. And that ignores the same issues afflicting the consoles needed to play the media.
So basically the real solution to both the digital and physical passing games (or music/movies) is to rip DRM-less copies and keep the needed tools to either use the game without having the disc or needing to register to a server that is likely gone. Might be a good idea to leave ReadMe instructions along with the iso/rom and copies of the official and community patches that help with new OSes. After that it is basically just down to needing virtual machines or some other PC emulators to run old emulators.
7Well, this is disappointing.
-8Why is the cc-by-nc-sa license disappointing? Is your disappointment exclusive to version 4.0?
6Why is the cc-by-nc-sa license disappointing? Is your disappointment exclusive to version 4.0?
My only disappontment is with those humans (and humans who use ""humans"") who side with AI model using corporations that steal other people's content to train said models for profit, over regular everyday people.
-3
blockchain would solve a lot of these issues but IP owners and even steam likely, appear to be allergic to the idea of digital ownership. i wonder why?
-14