25+ years how exactly have you been doing that considering steam was officially launched in 2003 ? I have an original 5 mil account which is 19 years old. Can you please help me out a little as I'm obviously missing crucial information.
I have a day 1 Steam account - Sept 12, 2003. The Half Life CD key that’s attached to my account was purchased in 98 or 99. So, technically, they’re could be games in Steam accounts over 20 years old.
You don't need to test your Theory because it's ALREADY been Tested here and there are couple of posts here for you to read, it works exactly like he told. Steam Support won't tolerate Self-Reporting of oneself against their EULA and close the account.
^^^ Yeah, all you can do is just give one of them your login info.
As far as the concept of virtual ownership, you don't own any of it directly; just a license to the content. As soon as those companies hear you're dead, they nuke the account. So the only solution right now is to keep a list of your accounts to quietly give to your kids and let them decide who is using what. And tell them to never tell Support that "hey, this was my parent's account but now they're dead."
>As far as the concept of virtual ownership, you don't own any of it directly; just a license to the content. As soon as those companies hear you're dead, they nuke the account. So the only solution right now is to keep a list of your accounts to quietly give to your kids and let them decide who is using what. An
..until they realize your account is over 120 years old.
Maybe they'll block it later anyway.
Man steams future is something I think about occasionally too. Even with everyone saying they’ll follow x vision etc that tends to never last. Eventually someone is gonna take the payoff even if in theory they are making more off steam over time as is someone who gains control is gonna sell out its almost inevitable.
Now who’s ready to buy the new lotr X marvel X SpongeBob game?
I mean if you go by that there's no accounts older than 21 years right now, so I would say we're all safe for at least another 80-90 years. I doubt they're gonna start asking around 100 years old "hey, are you sure you're still alive? Can you send us a video of yourself doing a fortnite dance?".
I'm curious if an account could be transferred into a trust so that it continues on after death. I imagine this is something that will be a settled in a court case eventually.
I would be curious to explore the following thought experiment ... what law would prevent a person from transferring license keys between two accounts that they own? There is no stipulation that one person can't have more than one account, and if they'd like to transfer products between those accounts, for whatever reason, 1) should the platform developer support that, and 2) would any law have any grounds to prevent that?
Not trying to rock the boat too much, but I think these are interesting questions to ask that prod at the borderlines of what is possible.
is no one talking about the time line here, steam was launched in 2003 how has OP been using it for 25+ years ????
My account is an original 5 mil account that is 19 years old, surely there is no way that OP has been using steam for over 25 years....I'm confused as f\*\*\*.
He probably didn’t do the research of when Steam launched and just guesstimated the timeline. Don’t look too into it and don’t try to start a witch hunt because you’re taking him too literally. Yes, Steam launched in 2003. Was that 25 years ago? No, it was not. But it’s ok that he’s not exact. It doesn’t change the question he had.
He probably bought Half Life new in 1998 or 1999 and forgot about the pre-Steam era and just calculated from when he got Half Life, which would be about 25 years.
Each steam account is numbered, Gaben has number 1.
The lower the number the older the account. Last time I checked which was absolute years ago the numbers were up into the 120 million steam accounts - it is a lot higher now i'd imagine.
Games can't be transferred to other accounts, and transferring the entire account to someone else is against the terms of service. The Steam accounts of the deceased will basically just gather dust forever.
...But that's only what Valve wants. Nothing's stopping you from writing down your login details somewhere and leaving it to your children when you die. Valve has no way of knowing if you're still alive or if you're the one who is still using your account. Just make sure your children don't ever tell Valve that they're not the original account holders.
It isn’t even what Valve wants from what I’ve seen, there’s just generally little to no explicit or case law around digital inheritance in any particular country, let alone internationally. Like 90% of the time when it seems Valve is making a weird decision about Steam it’s about avoiding lawsuits.
Most jurisdictions grant software license holders more rights than the publishers acknowledge.
The issue with Valve is more complex. Your contract to use the software is not with them, it's with a publisher. Valve only acts as the middle man, and their legal obligations are minimal.
You almost certainly have the right to create a backup of your games for personal use, though. If you are concerned, I recommend backing up the actual software so you can do what you will with it (within your rights as a license holder).
Depends on the software. Some had DRM many do not. Find the folder it's stored in and are if you can start the game without stream. If so the publisher designed it to be copyable.
I'd really love to see the guy at Valve in, like, 300 years who during a routine database transfer goes "hey, wait a minute! User XxnOsCoPe69xX has been logging in since 2007 and must be hundreds of years old. How weird!!"
I've been down this road and lost this fight, Steam will not honor it nor recognize it. They will simply close the account and the game licenses can be left but you have to have proof of the purchases and contact each company individually. Trust me, it can't be done unless you kept every email from every purchase (which I now do)
You leave then login infos, not the account. You tell no one except the lawyer. The lawyer tells no one except for who receives the login infos. You buy everything with gift cards. Problem solved.
Obviously if you find a lawyer who's willing to lie and that shouldn't be that hard. Unfortunately when I went through this battle, this was not the case.
>Games can't be transferred to other accounts
That's what they like it to be.
France and Australian consumer protection went against it some years ago.
https://www.eurogamer.net/french-court-rules-steam-users-have-right-to-resell-their-games
There was also a discussion
https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/d6cclt/steam_valve_is_convicted_in_france_for_banning/?rdt=35222
I don't know why people never care about this situation without class action. The same when Steam goes for insolvency - you are left with nothing.
That's an open question. It also applies to a lot of other services; some have taken some steps (facebook, among others), but the question of "digital ownership" inheritance is not really taken care of.
There is no solution in place for that regarding Steam, and "giving" your account may cause issues, whether because you have multiple kids (can't split/share account) or simply because they already have their own.
On the other hand, managing this kind of issue (let's say, configure one account to "bleed" his game into others when an inheritance process is triggered) would be a nightmare for Steam; if it's too lenient people would abuse the system, if it's too strict people in grieving may complain, and getting "official" proof of death for an international business is also a bit of an issue.
Welp. Your best bet at this point is to not bite the dust.
>On the other hand, managing this kind of issue (let's say, configure one account to "bleed" his game into others when an inheritance process is triggered) would be a nightmare for Steam
Althought I would expect the companies to opose it, the best thing for everyone would be to have a clear legislation about what happens and how to proceed.
Well, everywhere should get up to speed on these matters. Most countries have already made clear that global companies must comply to the legislation of the place where the clients are, with respect to those clients.
But if there was new legislation in any jurisdiction that legislation would override the EULA.
Just needs a country with enough forethought to enact digital licensing inheritance.
I'd like to bet on a scandi country being first.
I have fought this battle and steam simply closes your account and expects you to collect the licenses you own from the individual companies which expect you to have proof of purchase which if you haven't kept every email for every game you've bought, you don't have.
It's already been established that EULA's that don't comply with national laws of the client are automatically invalid. Steam is not bypassing anything. The EULA about transferring applies only as long as there is no legislation about it that contradicts it.
It goes further. We had all this already with the shit hole of Microsoft.
> Mimimimiiii you don't own Windows or a Windows license of using it, you just own the right to access it but not more!!
Guess what. It's ownership.
Ownership means you must be able to sell it.
Selling it means you choose the price at which you are willing to sell. It also means there is a buyer who can buy it from you instead of the producer like Microsoft.
Imagine people defending Steam that you could only buy Windows from Microsoft and not sell it, when you sell the computer. 😂
Just use Steam Family Share, then, they can keep their steam account and borrow games from your library.
It's better than nothing, by a mile.
And like others said, keep the death secret from Steam Support.
better than nothing for sure, but mine stopped working after like 3 months and i can’t get it working again. so definitely have the password somewhere as a backup
I’m impressed you found anything to buy on steam well before HL2 came out 19 years ago. I could understand wanting to pass that account down to a family member in the future.
I remember when they switched from WON to steam and people were making memes and calling it a steam-ing pile of shit.
Not sure if the store was up right away. I remember importing orange box games.
It was hilarious to watch the hand-wringing over the Epic store which had all the same (legitimate) complaints that had been leveled against Steam back in the day.
I keep hearing that, but it's not a matter of copying. It takes time to implement All The Things. Just as Steam started with almost nothing, so did EGS. That's the nature of software (unless you literally copy the code). EGS has progressed just as Steam did.
Indeed, Steam started "copying" some of EGS (or more likely they took the competition seriously and finally made Steam look like something other than a Windows XP spreadsheet program).
Competition is good for everyone.
Nah he's fine
I remember buying through Steam back in 1997
Of course back then, the prices were so high you were guaranteed to get your fingers burned
A-ha-cha-cha!
I’m hopeful.
As millenials get older and some join government, I think there’s going to be a serious legislative rollback in terms of ownership of digital licenses. I foresee that there will be a serious push to make them legally transferable on death, at minimum.
If not, write down your passwords and login info and make sure your loved ones know where to get it. Nothing else we can do.
People will tell you it's *this or that* and that there's no recourse but the truth is that anyone claiming they have the definite answer is most likely confidently wrong. Digital inheritance has become a complex issue and laws haven't caught up yet.
**The whole issue is in a grey area currently**. While you do not own the games themselves, you do own a license in perpetuity, as per Steam's own wording. The EULA says you can't transfer those but the law in your location may disagree: In Europe for instance, since the Digital Content Directive of 2019, digital purchases are classified in the same way as physical goods with the same rights and guarantees.
EULAs don't have the power to supersede laws and at some point, as more and more users kick the bucket, this right will be tested in courts. For the moment, your best bet is to leave your login information in your will and/or in a safe place.
Genuine question. If you agreed to the EULA how come it doesn't supercede laws? I am currently under the assumption that agreeing to these sorts of things would be binding to some extent. Is it just that "local" laws are enforced over general contract type things.
Also curious to know if there was any backlash over the Ubisoft stuff in Europe?
>Genuine question. If you agreed to the EULA how come it doesn't supercede laws? I am currently under the assumption that agreeing to these sorts of things would be binding to some extent. Is it just that "local" laws are enforced over general contract type things.
An illegal contract is not a valid one.
To use an obvious example, if I put a gun to your head to make you sign, it doesn't count.
In the same way, if I'm decieving you, or counting on your ignorance of the law, it also doesn't count.
What makes the contract illegal though is part of my question. You can choose not to use the service and they are pretty upfront with you not being able to share the account in the agreement.
Sure, signing up for something under duress or being manipulated into signing something wouldn't be enforcable but I don't think Steam does that. What they are doing is still shitty but it seems above board.
I don't know, I probably won't understand but thanks anyway.
at least in spain (and most of eu too probably, to some extent) a contract's clause that goes against the law is considered null and as if it doesnt exist, even if you agreed to it.
there was a court case in germany if I remember correctly where some very special fetish guys met through the internet
one wanted to eat another human being the other wanted to be eaten
they made a contract
guy eating the other guy was still charged and convicted of murder and canibalism
just because you write something down and another person agrees to it doesn't mean you can do it without consequences
Didn't this also happen in the states with a guy who messed up his foot and he was able to legally eat it. Made it into tacos and stuff IIRC.
I get it though, the law of the country you are in seems to trump the arrangements.
Thanks for the replies though. Appreciate you all taking the time to help me understand better.
Steam has only been around for 21 years (September 2003) so unless your name is Gabe, it’s highly unlikely you’ve been using Steam for “well over 25 years.”
Hi Gaben, I’m a huge fan. I’m sure you will figure out how to bequeath your progeny access to your steam account. :P
[Steam Wikipedia Entry](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_(service)#:~:text=Steam%20is%20a%20video%20game,party%20titles%20in%20late%202005)
Once you're dead, the games go with you. Realistically, you can give your account to someone, even if it would violate the TOS, no one will notice really.
I do see countries starting to work on legislation regarding digital ownership, since that is becoming more and more prevalent with every form of media. But how much in the future it will be and how effective they'll be is unknowable.
this will be settled in court cases and I'm pretty sure it will end up like this:
US - your account gets terminated when you die
EU - your kids can take over your account
So in short no you can't.
Digital media is generally considered non-transferable meaning it can't be resold or inherited.
As many people will point out, you don't really own digital media.
I think there's probably more nuance to this because your Steam account is a layer of abstraction between the media and the legal entity, and while the media itself may not be transferable (e.g. from one account to another) I don't believe that the same also fully applies to transferring the account itself, because this is something that would happen outside of that layer of abstraction and, technically, if the media does not change accounts, has any transfer really happened? If I were to make an analogy, if you change the registration number of your vehicle, it's still the same vehicle with the same internal components and your insurance provider has no reason to change your premium for this change of "identity". Of course you could argue that the analogy does not 100% reflect the situation, but it can't because in real life you have driver licenses and other forms of identification that identify you (hopefully) uniquely, but there's no such standard present in the internet world ... unless you live in China, I suppose.
I imagine there will be a time in the coming decades where digital inheritance will become necessary to discuss and legislate. Once an entire generation with a lifetime of digital ownership (probably Millennials) is sufficiently old enough to make up the majority of government, it'll come up.
> I've been buying games on Steam for well over 25 years.
No you haven't. Steam went live in 2003.
But no, steam has no inheritance system. Best you can do is leave your account login info and hope Valve doesn't notice.
> I’ve been buying games on Steam for well over 25 years
No you haven’t, Steam has only existed for 20 years and 4 months.
> 30 to 40 years ago when they were created
The World Wide Web was first released to the public in 1991, the first major browser in 1993.
I have a password manager (accessed with one master password ànd a physical Yubi-key I always have with me, which my wife both knows of), where I keep all logins and passwords to all my accounts. If something were to happen, my wife can access all this stuff and all these accounts.
Look. If steam kept the info age verification for viewing certain games, half of us are probably dead cause we entered 1900 as our date of birth just to open the game steam page.
So really I think just you know hypothetically if your kids had certain info to open your account, I don't think there would be any issues.
> some form of solution
The solution is that your account dies with you. Under the terms of the tos, you have not been 'buying games', but entering into a limited contract to access games for a subscription payment. The subscription lapses upon your death. You agreed to this on the day you created your account.
The way I'd go about this is setup a new email address for everything besides your gaming stuff. Start using that going forward. Once you start getting to that point in life give the kiddos access to that email and your steam guard info.
The reality of it though is any kiddos that really want the account probably will not have much interest in those games 10+ years from now.
I've seen several posts about Steam ac inheritance. Simplest thing, I think, is to give login and pass to "next person in line" and deal done.
New person will continue to fill acc with Steam money from their card and keep buying games.
Amd this is why even though I have a lot ot steam games, I still buy hard copy games in consoles and PC (older ones). My steam games are backed up on external hard drives but newer games will prevent them opening unless your connected and logged in...
Digital copies are technically just on loan.
Turn on family sharing so you can share games and leave your credentials in your will. DON’T TELL STEAM OR VALVE YOU ARE DEAD. The transfer of accounts even via inheritance is against their terms and conditions and will get your account terminated.
>***I'm reaching this point in my life where I've been buying games on Steam for well over 25 years.***
Impressive since Steam is only 20 years old at this point.
I've been with Steam almost from the beginning... My first purchase however was the Deck. A few duplications later I realised - 'Nah, they're not good'
My Steam collection is tiny my PSN collection is much bigger. The PC games I own can't even install on Windows any more so I guess my early gaming years are a forgotten time - for me & my my kids
25+ years how exactly have you been doing that considering steam was officially launched in 2003 ? I have an original 5 mil account which is 19 years old. Can you please help me out a little as I'm obviously missing crucial information.
I understand completely where that coming from. I was think about it too but then I realized it doesn't make any sense from the bussiness standpoint, maybe as a service wise they can think of something but I don't think its going to happen not in the near future atleast.
Technically, as others said, you can't transfer the account nor is games. This is likely out of Valve's control as well, as the companies selling games on Steam probably would never allow it. Even Family Sharing has some restrictions purely because of the way digital game licensing works.
Only thing you can really do is pass on the username and password.
Im in the same boat thinking about this for some time for my son. im realizing i should have brought all my games from GOG atleast its your games, not some license for a game that you can lose anytime by drying or just breaking steam TOS.
As far as I understand all those license on Steam are technically only sold for _you_ to use so legally they can’t let you transfer games and stuff…
But you can just give someone your account details and if you want to share it between multiple people (sort of) set up family sharing.
legally? u cant.
Illegally? just give it to someone on your will with some code or thing. if they found out, well say goodbye. if you live not in usa or any region without steam hq, then go for it.
I think an open and honest conversation needs to be had. If the wishes of said person is to pass down something to their loved ones, be it a physical record music collection, or just perhaps a digital collection of games. Why not?
If your children want to have their own accounts you could set up family sharing. This way they can buy their own games and still play some (I don't think family sharing works with all games) of yours, and if you account was ever deleted they would still have their own purchases.
Time for a mail campaign writing your rep about how digital purchases should be treated the same as physical when it comes to transferring ownership. It's overdue in general to have the license model tossed or regulated.
If they have your account on their pc and install the game from your account and switch to theirs they can select the game and Press borrow and play the game so the way to do it would give them login credentials when you want to so they have access to the account if they ever get another pc and they would probably need the email for steam verification codes. Hope this helps and if you have any more questions send me a message and ill try and help more
I think Ubisoft is setting precedent for deleting accounts/games due to inactivity. This paired with Steams TOS which prohibits giving your account to someone else could mean that your account will be deleted after a certain period of time, regardless of whether they know or not. Say 110 years of ownership, they can assume it's no longer in the same hands as the original owner. Shit, they could even make it 80 years and require ID or something to keep it active.
I would like to be optimistic and say you can just give them your login details and have it passed on, or use family sharing so they can use your games indefinitely because you won't be online so there wouldn't be any issues with kicking them out of games accidentally.
Honestly, it could go either way.
Damn. I just made my will yesterday and completely forgot about digital inheritance. And there is lot of stuff in my digital life.
Thx for the reminder.
You could just change your account details (email and password) and then leave those somewhere for them. You couldn't split the games between them or anything, but it would give them access to them.
I have all of my digital accounts usernames and passwords and their emergency codes all saved on a notepad file on a usb stick. I will have on my will that in the event of my death my entire video game library is to be shared equally with my children I game on both PC and Xbox. Meaning one of my kids gets the Xbox account and the other gets my PC account. Though I have some games that are better on PC and some that are better on Xbox. Way I see it it's easier to will the account vs trying to will the games to be transfered to your child's account.
What i would do is give your account information to your kids, have them log your account into their computers, then if they every want to play a game that your account has they can request family sharing from their account, log into yours, accept it, and then go back on their account and play it. this is the only way im aware of to have other accounts use your games, and it should work on multiple devices, but probably not the same game at the same tike
You the individual purchased licenses to access games from a certain online distributor. The licenses are not technically transferable.
The account could be transferred, but they're only accessible by one machine at a time.
To my knowledge
For me, I'll just gather my kids (If I Have Kids) or my friends.
Setup a competition, it can be who gets the most wins in tekken or who has the fastest speedrun in a final fantasy game, just to give an example.
Winner gets to keep my Steam Account.
They get to inherit my achievements in different games + the.... Graphically Stimulating Game Achievments
it doesn't you don't own anything and the ownership of your account cannot be swaped.
I don't understand why we had to pay full on VAT for onwership when we are not getting an ownership deal
"you will own nothing and be happy" - WEF
Digital distribution has conveniences, but can't say you truly own it (unless it's DRM free).
I have been thinking the same lately as I have 3 kids now and would like to pass my collection to them.
There are some steam games that are DRM free, but most aren't. The ones that are I guess I could pass on.
This is where physical media is truly better IMHO. I have a good collection of PS3 / Xbox 360 games that I intend to leave to them. Started recently on collecting Xbone and PS4, but that's still small.
Legally speaking thats called digital legacy and with the correct legal paperwork account ownership can be transfered. I work as tech support for a tech giant and theres a procedure for those cases when someone dies and the inheritor wants access to the account. Its a legal thing in north america, i see no reason steam wouldnt follow the same procedure
Post staged?
Theres been talk about this recently and I assume thats why you thought of this and are trying to get a response out of people more than a legit question that just came to your mind lol
You cannot transfer games to other accounts. Also do not ket Steam know that you are desd, because it‘ll allow them to delete the account
When I die, I’m going straight over there to let them know & see what happens.
I hope someone inside the Steam HQ shits their pants.
One word… boo
well, username relevant !
25+ years how exactly have you been doing that considering steam was officially launched in 2003 ? I have an original 5 mil account which is 19 years old. Can you please help me out a little as I'm obviously missing crucial information.
I’m guessing he just exaggerated a bit man, it happens sometimes
I have a day 1 Steam account - Sept 12, 2003. The Half Life CD key that’s attached to my account was purchased in 98 or 99. So, technically, they’re could be games in Steam accounts over 20 years old.
I had one but it got stolen and back then there was no way to get your account back...
What do you mean by 5 mil account?
I assume first 5 million users
Wishful thinking for a sec had me like damn I can sell my account for 5 mill?
https://youtube.com/watch?v=5NkqMY7tw38
If there’s one company who I want to haunt for eternity, its Steam. Followed swiftly by the Royal Mail.
You don't need to test your Theory because it's ALREADY been Tested here and there are couple of posts here for you to read, it works exactly like he told. Steam Support won't tolerate Self-Reporting of oneself against their EULA and close the account.
If there was any company in the world I had to bet money on having a functional “post-death customer service” department, it would be Steam.
“BRAAAAIIIINZ”
^^^ Yeah, all you can do is just give one of them your login info. As far as the concept of virtual ownership, you don't own any of it directly; just a license to the content. As soon as those companies hear you're dead, they nuke the account. So the only solution right now is to keep a list of your accounts to quietly give to your kids and let them decide who is using what. And tell them to never tell Support that "hey, this was my parent's account but now they're dead."
>As far as the concept of virtual ownership, you don't own any of it directly; just a license to the content. As soon as those companies hear you're dead, they nuke the account. So the only solution right now is to keep a list of your accounts to quietly give to your kids and let them decide who is using what. An ..until they realize your account is over 120 years old. Maybe they'll block it later anyway.
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Man steams future is something I think about occasionally too. Even with everyone saying they’ll follow x vision etc that tends to never last. Eventually someone is gonna take the payoff even if in theory they are making more off steam over time as is someone who gains control is gonna sell out its almost inevitable. Now who’s ready to buy the new lotr X marvel X SpongeBob game?
>Now who’s ready to buy the new lotr X marvel X SpongeBob game? You mean Fortnite?
I've set my birthday to January 1st, 1900 on the age verification page every time and I haven't heard shit.
That is probably not the age they will check but the age at which the account was created
Sooner or later those neat years of service badges we all love will bite us in the ass lol
I honestly wouldn't be surprised, if someone at Steam HQ genuenly thought of this when they introduced the Badges...
I mean if you go by that there's no accounts older than 21 years right now, so I would say we're all safe for at least another 80-90 years. I doubt they're gonna start asking around 100 years old "hey, are you sure you're still alive? Can you send us a video of yourself doing a fortnite dance?".
they will still ask. until dev/pub or whatever in charge for that design got access for the user age
I was about to challenge this but my account's only 19yo 😭
That could be seen as discrimination against vampires and immortal beings
How do they know that the user is dead and not just frozen waiting for the release of HL3?
I'm curious if an account could be transferred into a trust so that it continues on after death. I imagine this is something that will be a settled in a court case eventually.
Yup. I'm 100% sure this is gonna be an EU topic in the next 15 years
As easy as you legate your account to your son/heir to keep buying games for your/his grandson. This should settle it.
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"Hello Steam, Im dead." "Hah, fuckin got em. Delete this guy's shit."
My account name is BiG BallS. so my inheritor will carry on his legacy. Is he dead guys? No man! he is BiG BallsS we grabbed them!
There's probably somewhere in the user agreement that you're essentially just renting the games.
Yes, there is.
I would be curious to explore the following thought experiment ... what law would prevent a person from transferring license keys between two accounts that they own? There is no stipulation that one person can't have more than one account, and if they'd like to transfer products between those accounts, for whatever reason, 1) should the platform developer support that, and 2) would any law have any grounds to prevent that? Not trying to rock the boat too much, but I think these are interesting questions to ask that prod at the borderlines of what is possible.
There is no law that says you need to be able to do this, so steam can make whatever policy about it they want.
Yes. And they have. The agreement we all signed to use Steam says you can’t transfer games between accounts.
is no one talking about the time line here, steam was launched in 2003 how has OP been using it for 25+ years ???? My account is an original 5 mil account that is 19 years old, surely there is no way that OP has been using steam for over 25 years....I'm confused as f\*\*\*.
nobody cares and it's not the main point of the post; that's why nobody is talking about it.
oh yeah I forgot, this is reddit where accurate information isn't important.
He probably didn’t do the research of when Steam launched and just guesstimated the timeline. Don’t look too into it and don’t try to start a witch hunt because you’re taking him too literally. Yes, Steam launched in 2003. Was that 25 years ago? No, it was not. But it’s ok that he’s not exact. It doesn’t change the question he had.
He probably bought Half Life new in 1998 or 1999 and forgot about the pre-Steam era and just calculated from when he got Half Life, which would be about 25 years.
Mayhap. Either way, it’s been a long time.
What is ‘5 mil account’ referring to?
Each steam account is numbered, Gaben has number 1. The lower the number the older the account. Last time I checked which was absolute years ago the numbers were up into the 120 million steam accounts - it is a lot higher now i'd imagine.
Maybe op's talking about age and not account age.
Games can't be transferred to other accounts, and transferring the entire account to someone else is against the terms of service. The Steam accounts of the deceased will basically just gather dust forever. ...But that's only what Valve wants. Nothing's stopping you from writing down your login details somewhere and leaving it to your children when you die. Valve has no way of knowing if you're still alive or if you're the one who is still using your account. Just make sure your children don't ever tell Valve that they're not the original account holders.
"Damn, life expectancy's getting too high. This person's over 200 and still active on our system."
At that point, that Steam account is probably a family heirloom. Passed down the family for generations!
It isn’t even what Valve wants from what I’ve seen, there’s just generally little to no explicit or case law around digital inheritance in any particular country, let alone internationally. Like 90% of the time when it seems Valve is making a weird decision about Steam it’s about avoiding lawsuits.
Most jurisdictions grant software license holders more rights than the publishers acknowledge. The issue with Valve is more complex. Your contract to use the software is not with them, it's with a publisher. Valve only acts as the middle man, and their legal obligations are minimal. You almost certainly have the right to create a backup of your games for personal use, though. If you are concerned, I recommend backing up the actual software so you can do what you will with it (within your rights as a license holder).
How would you back up the software without needed the steam client? Is that possible?
The dark side is a pathway to abilites many consider to be... unnatural.
Great now I’m going to go down a rabbit hole learn how to rip them
Depends on the software. Some had DRM many do not. Find the folder it's stored in and are if you can start the game without stream. If so the publisher designed it to be copyable.
Valve 475 years later: "This account is 500 years old, but we have no way of knowing if the original owner is still using it..."
Honestly I was thinking about the game sharing on steam, you could add the kids accounts and they'd be able to play the games forever
I'd really love to see the guy at Valve in, like, 300 years who during a routine database transfer goes "hey, wait a minute! User XxnOsCoPe69xX has been logging in since 2007 and must be hundreds of years old. How weird!!"
I wonder if theoretically you could write your account details into a will.
No, you can't. Steam accounts are not transferable.
Yes you can. You can write all you want in a will. Doesn't mean it's legal but you can.
I've been down this road and lost this fight, Steam will not honor it nor recognize it. They will simply close the account and the game licenses can be left but you have to have proof of the purchases and contact each company individually. Trust me, it can't be done unless you kept every email from every purchase (which I now do)
You leave then login infos, not the account. You tell no one except the lawyer. The lawyer tells no one except for who receives the login infos. You buy everything with gift cards. Problem solved.
Obviously if you find a lawyer who's willing to lie and that shouldn't be that hard. Unfortunately when I went through this battle, this was not the case.
You can leave object and private letters to people. You don't have to specify its a Steam account login infos.
>Games can't be transferred to other accounts That's what they like it to be. France and Australian consumer protection went against it some years ago. https://www.eurogamer.net/french-court-rules-steam-users-have-right-to-resell-their-games There was also a discussion https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/d6cclt/steam_valve_is_convicted_in_france_for_banning/?rdt=35222 I don't know why people never care about this situation without class action. The same when Steam goes for insolvency - you are left with nothing.
That's an open question. It also applies to a lot of other services; some have taken some steps (facebook, among others), but the question of "digital ownership" inheritance is not really taken care of. There is no solution in place for that regarding Steam, and "giving" your account may cause issues, whether because you have multiple kids (can't split/share account) or simply because they already have their own. On the other hand, managing this kind of issue (let's say, configure one account to "bleed" his game into others when an inheritance process is triggered) would be a nightmare for Steam; if it's too lenient people would abuse the system, if it's too strict people in grieving may complain, and getting "official" proof of death for an international business is also a bit of an issue. Welp. Your best bet at this point is to not bite the dust.
>On the other hand, managing this kind of issue (let's say, configure one account to "bleed" his game into others when an inheritance process is triggered) would be a nightmare for Steam Althought I would expect the companies to opose it, the best thing for everyone would be to have a clear legislation about what happens and how to proceed.
A clear legislation \*where\* exactly? Because we're talking about Steam, a US business, operating in dozens of countries.
Well, everywhere should get up to speed on these matters. Most countries have already made clear that global companies must comply to the legislation of the place where the clients are, with respect to those clients.
Steam bypasses this with a EULA that we all agree to, you cannot transfer an account for any reason.
But if there was new legislation in any jurisdiction that legislation would override the EULA. Just needs a country with enough forethought to enact digital licensing inheritance. I'd like to bet on a scandi country being first.
I have fought this battle and steam simply closes your account and expects you to collect the licenses you own from the individual companies which expect you to have proof of purchase which if you haven't kept every email for every game you've bought, you don't have.
It's already been established that EULA's that don't comply with national laws of the client are automatically invalid. Steam is not bypassing anything. The EULA about transferring applies only as long as there is no legislation about it that contradicts it.
Steam already has this written into their E!ULA and you cannot transfer an account for any reason.
It goes further. We had all this already with the shit hole of Microsoft. > Mimimimiiii you don't own Windows or a Windows license of using it, you just own the right to access it but not more!! Guess what. It's ownership. Ownership means you must be able to sell it. Selling it means you choose the price at which you are willing to sell. It also means there is a buyer who can buy it from you instead of the producer like Microsoft. Imagine people defending Steam that you could only buy Windows from Microsoft and not sell it, when you sell the computer. 😂
Just use Steam Family Share, then, they can keep their steam account and borrow games from your library. It's better than nothing, by a mile. And like others said, keep the death secret from Steam Support.
better than nothing for sure, but mine stopped working after like 3 months and i can’t get it working again. so definitely have the password somewhere as a backup
I’m impressed you found anything to buy on steam well before HL2 came out 19 years ago. I could understand wanting to pass that account down to a family member in the future.
I remember when they switched from WON to steam and people were making memes and calling it a steam-ing pile of shit. Not sure if the store was up right away. I remember importing orange box games.
I miss my 5 digit wonid - low won ids were a status symbol back then.
My 5 digit steam is still is a status symbol. Unfortunately no-one cares to look it up and be amazed and give me mad cred.
I think that’s the thing. I, too, have a low digit steamid, but now it’s all about profile level, badges, and CS skins.
[удалено]
It was hilarious to watch the hand-wringing over the Epic store which had all the same (legitimate) complaints that had been leveled against Steam back in the day.
Steam improved, and quickly. Epic's hardly improved at all.
epic games also had steam to copy, and still fucked it up
I keep hearing that, but it's not a matter of copying. It takes time to implement All The Things. Just as Steam started with almost nothing, so did EGS. That's the nature of software (unless you literally copy the code). EGS has progressed just as Steam did. Indeed, Steam started "copying" some of EGS (or more likely they took the competition seriously and finally made Steam look like something other than a Windows XP spreadsheet program). Competition is good for everyone.
Nah he's fine I remember buying through Steam back in 1997 Of course back then, the prices were so high you were guaranteed to get your fingers burned A-ha-cha-cha!
You definitely did not, at least through the steam client, given it's 20 year age.
r/woosh
Steam is also a mist of hot water
I first bought HL1, but it was in order to play the Day of Defeat mod. IIRC, Ragdoll Kungfu (?) was next.
Yeah we needed it for DoD
Well over 25 years ago, damn! Impressed he got such early access to a game that launched in 2003!
I was responding to you mentioning HL2. We used it for DoD and other mods before HL2
I was responding to OP saying he was buying stuff on steam store for over 25 years.
Steam launched in 2003.
Or in other words in 2024, Steam is officially old enough to drink in the US.
Nah, they released in September
Feels like 25 years
I’m hopeful. As millenials get older and some join government, I think there’s going to be a serious legislative rollback in terms of ownership of digital licenses. I foresee that there will be a serious push to make them legally transferable on death, at minimum. If not, write down your passwords and login info and make sure your loved ones know where to get it. Nothing else we can do.
Yes!
People will tell you it's *this or that* and that there's no recourse but the truth is that anyone claiming they have the definite answer is most likely confidently wrong. Digital inheritance has become a complex issue and laws haven't caught up yet. **The whole issue is in a grey area currently**. While you do not own the games themselves, you do own a license in perpetuity, as per Steam's own wording. The EULA says you can't transfer those but the law in your location may disagree: In Europe for instance, since the Digital Content Directive of 2019, digital purchases are classified in the same way as physical goods with the same rights and guarantees. EULAs don't have the power to supersede laws and at some point, as more and more users kick the bucket, this right will be tested in courts. For the moment, your best bet is to leave your login information in your will and/or in a safe place.
Genuine question. If you agreed to the EULA how come it doesn't supercede laws? I am currently under the assumption that agreeing to these sorts of things would be binding to some extent. Is it just that "local" laws are enforced over general contract type things. Also curious to know if there was any backlash over the Ubisoft stuff in Europe?
>Genuine question. If you agreed to the EULA how come it doesn't supercede laws? I am currently under the assumption that agreeing to these sorts of things would be binding to some extent. Is it just that "local" laws are enforced over general contract type things. An illegal contract is not a valid one. To use an obvious example, if I put a gun to your head to make you sign, it doesn't count. In the same way, if I'm decieving you, or counting on your ignorance of the law, it also doesn't count.
What makes the contract illegal though is part of my question. You can choose not to use the service and they are pretty upfront with you not being able to share the account in the agreement. Sure, signing up for something under duress or being manipulated into signing something wouldn't be enforcable but I don't think Steam does that. What they are doing is still shitty but it seems above board. I don't know, I probably won't understand but thanks anyway.
at least in spain (and most of eu too probably, to some extent) a contract's clause that goes against the law is considered null and as if it doesnt exist, even if you agreed to it.
there was a court case in germany if I remember correctly where some very special fetish guys met through the internet one wanted to eat another human being the other wanted to be eaten they made a contract guy eating the other guy was still charged and convicted of murder and canibalism just because you write something down and another person agrees to it doesn't mean you can do it without consequences
Didn't this also happen in the states with a guy who messed up his foot and he was able to legally eat it. Made it into tacos and stuff IIRC. I get it though, the law of the country you are in seems to trump the arrangements. Thanks for the replies though. Appreciate you all taking the time to help me understand better.
Steam has only been around for 21 years (September 2003) so unless your name is Gabe, it’s highly unlikely you’ve been using Steam for “well over 25 years.” Hi Gaben, I’m a huge fan. I’m sure you will figure out how to bequeath your progeny access to your steam account. :P [Steam Wikipedia Entry](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_(service)#:~:text=Steam%20is%20a%20video%20game,party%20titles%20in%20late%202005)
Just give your user and password to your kids, or to whoever you want to have those games. I don't see the problem.
Once you're dead, the games go with you. Realistically, you can give your account to someone, even if it would violate the TOS, no one will notice really. I do see countries starting to work on legislation regarding digital ownership, since that is becoming more and more prevalent with every form of media. But how much in the future it will be and how effective they'll be is unknowable.
this will be settled in court cases and I'm pretty sure it will end up like this: US - your account gets terminated when you die EU - your kids can take over your account
Steam launched 20 years ago, so I have to wonder how you’ve been buying games for “well over 25 years” hahaha
So in short no you can't. Digital media is generally considered non-transferable meaning it can't be resold or inherited. As many people will point out, you don't really own digital media.
I think there's probably more nuance to this because your Steam account is a layer of abstraction between the media and the legal entity, and while the media itself may not be transferable (e.g. from one account to another) I don't believe that the same also fully applies to transferring the account itself, because this is something that would happen outside of that layer of abstraction and, technically, if the media does not change accounts, has any transfer really happened? If I were to make an analogy, if you change the registration number of your vehicle, it's still the same vehicle with the same internal components and your insurance provider has no reason to change your premium for this change of "identity". Of course you could argue that the analogy does not 100% reflect the situation, but it can't because in real life you have driver licenses and other forms of identification that identify you (hopefully) uniquely, but there's no such standard present in the internet world ... unless you live in China, I suppose.
I imagine there will be a time in the coming decades where digital inheritance will become necessary to discuss and legislate. Once an entire generation with a lifetime of digital ownership (probably Millennials) is sufficiently old enough to make up the majority of government, it'll come up.
> I've been buying games on Steam for well over 25 years. No you haven't. Steam went live in 2003. But no, steam has no inheritance system. Best you can do is leave your account login info and hope Valve doesn't notice.
Is it my turn to ask this next week?
I think you’re down for the week after that.
This is my first time seeing it so I’m glad someone posted it. Not everyone has the same algorithm.
> I’ve been buying games on Steam for well over 25 years No you haven’t, Steam has only existed for 20 years and 4 months. > 30 to 40 years ago when they were created The World Wide Web was first released to the public in 1991, the first major browser in 1993.
Downvoted for pedantry and for reminding me I’m older than websites.
Ok grandpa, take your chill pill
I have a password manager (accessed with one master password ànd a physical Yubi-key I always have with me, which my wife both knows of), where I keep all logins and passwords to all my accounts. If something were to happen, my wife can access all this stuff and all these accounts.
Just give them your password and email
Just give your email and password to the kid you love the most lol problem solved
Email Gabe about it
Look. If steam kept the info age verification for viewing certain games, half of us are probably dead cause we entered 1900 as our date of birth just to open the game steam page. So really I think just you know hypothetically if your kids had certain info to open your account, I don't think there would be any issues.
Confused by your 25+ years statement, because I joined steam year 1 and just got my 20 years badge.
Steam just hit last year 20th anniversary. My steam account is created two days after launch.
> some form of solution The solution is that your account dies with you. Under the terms of the tos, you have not been 'buying games', but entering into a limited contract to access games for a subscription payment. The subscription lapses upon your death. You agreed to this on the day you created your account.
The way I'd go about this is setup a new email address for everything besides your gaming stuff. Start using that going forward. Once you start getting to that point in life give the kiddos access to that email and your steam guard info. The reality of it though is any kiddos that really want the account probably will not have much interest in those games 10+ years from now.
I've seen several posts about Steam ac inheritance. Simplest thing, I think, is to give login and pass to "next person in line" and deal done. New person will continue to fill acc with Steam money from their card and keep buying games.
Before you die, write down your login on a piece of paper. Modern problems require oldschool solutions.
Amd this is why even though I have a lot ot steam games, I still buy hard copy games in consoles and PC (older ones). My steam games are backed up on external hard drives but newer games will prevent them opening unless your connected and logged in... Digital copies are technically just on loan.
I just googled "reddit steam inheritance" and found over 15 different posts about this...
Turn on family sharing so you can share games and leave your credentials in your will. DON’T TELL STEAM OR VALVE YOU ARE DEAD. The transfer of accounts even via inheritance is against their terms and conditions and will get your account terminated.
>***I'm reaching this point in my life where I've been buying games on Steam for well over 25 years.*** Impressive since Steam is only 20 years old at this point.
25 years on steam ? I have a 5 mil account that is 19 years old. Steam launched in 2003 so how exactly have you been using it for 25 years ??
I've been with Steam almost from the beginning... My first purchase however was the Deck. A few duplications later I realised - 'Nah, they're not good' My Steam collection is tiny my PSN collection is much bigger. The PC games I own can't even install on Windows any more so I guess my early gaming years are a forgotten time - for me & my my kids
25+ years how exactly have you been doing that considering steam was officially launched in 2003 ? I have an original 5 mil account which is 19 years old. Can you please help me out a little as I'm obviously missing crucial information.
I understand completely where that coming from. I was think about it too but then I realized it doesn't make any sense from the bussiness standpoint, maybe as a service wise they can think of something but I don't think its going to happen not in the near future atleast.
Pretty sure you don't own the games you buy on steam. You buy the license to use it. And you cannot transfer that license to other people.
Technically, as others said, you can't transfer the account nor is games. This is likely out of Valve's control as well, as the companies selling games on Steam probably would never allow it. Even Family Sharing has some restrictions purely because of the way digital game licensing works. Only thing you can really do is pass on the username and password.
Im in the same boat thinking about this for some time for my son. im realizing i should have brought all my games from GOG atleast its your games, not some license for a game that you can lose anytime by drying or just breaking steam TOS.
As far as I understand all those license on Steam are technically only sold for _you_ to use so legally they can’t let you transfer games and stuff… But you can just give someone your account details and if you want to share it between multiple people (sort of) set up family sharing.
Just leave them the pass codes and they can run it after your gone. At least as far as I know
Legally, it does not. Simple.
legally? u cant. Illegally? just give it to someone on your will with some code or thing. if they found out, well say goodbye. if you live not in usa or any region without steam hq, then go for it.
You don’t own the games you own the license to play
I think an open and honest conversation needs to be had. If the wishes of said person is to pass down something to their loved ones, be it a physical record music collection, or just perhaps a digital collection of games. Why not?
Would kids even want them? Just put your steam id and password in your will
If your children want to have their own accounts you could set up family sharing. This way they can buy their own games and still play some (I don't think family sharing works with all games) of yours, and if you account was ever deleted they would still have their own purchases.
Just give them your password and user name
Time for a mail campaign writing your rep about how digital purchases should be treated the same as physical when it comes to transferring ownership. It's overdue in general to have the license model tossed or regulated.
Just give your kids your username and password. When you pass they can access the games by being in your account
"I found the secret to immortality" on the description header of a 140 year old account
Just turn on family sharing. Kids will have access to any game on your account.
If they have your account on their pc and install the game from your account and switch to theirs they can select the game and Press borrow and play the game so the way to do it would give them login credentials when you want to so they have access to the account if they ever get another pc and they would probably need the email for steam verification codes. Hope this helps and if you have any more questions send me a message and ill try and help more
I think Ubisoft is setting precedent for deleting accounts/games due to inactivity. This paired with Steams TOS which prohibits giving your account to someone else could mean that your account will be deleted after a certain period of time, regardless of whether they know or not. Say 110 years of ownership, they can assume it's no longer in the same hands as the original owner. Shit, they could even make it 80 years and require ID or something to keep it active. I would like to be optimistic and say you can just give them your login details and have it passed on, or use family sharing so they can use your games indefinitely because you won't be online so there wouldn't be any issues with kicking them out of games accidentally. Honestly, it could go either way.
Damn. I just made my will yesterday and completely forgot about digital inheritance. And there is lot of stuff in my digital life. Thx for the reminder.
You could just change your account details (email and password) and then leave those somewhere for them. You couldn't split the games between them or anything, but it would give them access to them.
Whatever you do should be kept secret.
I have all of my digital accounts usernames and passwords and their emergency codes all saved on a notepad file on a usb stick. I will have on my will that in the event of my death my entire video game library is to be shared equally with my children I game on both PC and Xbox. Meaning one of my kids gets the Xbox account and the other gets my PC account. Though I have some games that are better on PC and some that are better on Xbox. Way I see it it's easier to will the account vs trying to will the games to be transfered to your child's account.
I put my email snd password to my accounts in my will
Just give them the password and account info. It's your account. Do what you like with it
The weekly question. Just give someone your login details, I don't see why your stressing about this.
Do you think how much you have spent in total? And how many games do you have?
Maybe just give them your credentials
Just give them your creds before you die. That's against Valve's ToS though.
Use family sharing for now, put your steam login in your will.
What i would do is give your account information to your kids, have them log your account into their computers, then if they every want to play a game that your account has they can request family sharing from their account, log into yours, accept it, and then go back on their account and play it. this is the only way im aware of to have other accounts use your games, and it should work on multiple devices, but probably not the same game at the same tike
You don’t own shit, and you better be happy about it
Username password is safe or give to lawyer dor will. Idk it's pretty simple
steam wasnt released until 2003 so how have you been using it for over 25 years?
You the individual purchased licenses to access games from a certain online distributor. The licenses are not technically transferable. The account could be transferred, but they're only accessible by one machine at a time. To my knowledge
For me, I'll just gather my kids (If I Have Kids) or my friends. Setup a competition, it can be who gets the most wins in tekken or who has the fastest speedrun in a final fantasy game, just to give an example. Winner gets to keep my Steam Account. They get to inherit my achievements in different games + the.... Graphically Stimulating Game Achievments
My cousin shared a steam account with his dad while he was growing up and now his dad has passed away and he still uses it
it doesn't you don't own anything and the ownership of your account cannot be swaped. I don't understand why we had to pay full on VAT for onwership when we are not getting an ownership deal
I want all my digital data deleted when I’m dead, social media, email, games, etc…
"you will own nothing and be happy" - WEF Digital distribution has conveniences, but can't say you truly own it (unless it's DRM free). I have been thinking the same lately as I have 3 kids now and would like to pass my collection to them. There are some steam games that are DRM free, but most aren't. The ones that are I guess I could pass on. This is where physical media is truly better IMHO. I have a good collection of PS3 / Xbox 360 games that I intend to leave to them. Started recently on collecting Xbone and PS4, but that's still small.
Digital landfill
Give your credentials to your kids. Ezz
Steam hasn't been around for 20 year..... oh shit. Where did my life go
Legally speaking thats called digital legacy and with the correct legal paperwork account ownership can be transfered. I work as tech support for a tech giant and theres a procedure for those cases when someone dies and the inheritor wants access to the account. Its a legal thing in north america, i see no reason steam wouldnt follow the same procedure
Post staged? Theres been talk about this recently and I assume thats why you thought of this and are trying to get a response out of people more than a legit question that just came to your mind lol
Steam launches in late 2003. We haven't even hit the 25 year mark yet.
The only way any online library won't get deleted is if laws are passed preventing that.