Steam heirs

[dbt1949]

Now that we all are getting older what do you plan on doing with your Steam empire when your end of times come ? A lot of you have children that I assume will inherit it but what about the rest of you and how do you do that?

[Jaymann]

My son already has my Steam password. Surprisingly he doesn't game that much any more. When he visits he prefers to watch me play.

[jztemple2]

No children and the wife could care less about my gaming accounts. Unless somebody sucks up to me in the next few years my Steam empire will just sit in stasis forever.

I'm more concerned about my thousands of books, but that's the topic for a different thread.

[Jaddison]

I plan on having a thunderdome to determine who gets my account plus adding a codicil to my will that whoever inherits it must play every game I never played one minute of but bought anyway to completion or it is off to Squid Games

[Max Peck]

Technically/legally, the account cannot be transferred to anyone upon the death or mysterious disappearance of the owner.

Practically, the trick would be to ensure that the email address and probably the device used for 2FA to access the account would also need to provided to the designated heir. Even then they wouldn't be able to make purchases on the account without access to the established payment method. I'd expect that changing that would raise a red flag on the account if Steam or whoever is serious about accounts being nontransferable.

Of course, given the abject lack of digital privacy, it wouldn't surprise me if service providers will at some point receive notification of the deaths of their customers, resulting in the summary suspension of accounts.

[Isgrimnur]

...Have you never changed payment methods?

[Max Peck]

...Have you never changed payment methods?

Not to one that wasn't linked to a consistent identity (e.g. my credit card is linked to me, my Paypal account is linked to my credit card which is linked to me). My stated assumption was that Steam actually cares about preventing the transfer of the account to a different person. If Steam doesn't actually care about such things, then Bob's your uncle. I don't have access to a non-attributable party payment method so I can't actually test my assumptions. It's entirely possible that Steam would simply send an email notification or require a 2FA verification to allow the change in payment source to one associated with a different entity, but that would mean they aren't actually serious about preventing the transfer of accounts.

I'm sure there are ways around the (hypothetical) issue, but I've never looked into things like anonymized payment sources. Does Steam take Dogecoin?

[Smoove_B]

I haven't had a payment method associated with my Steam account since about 2008; they don't care. I'm guessing a period of inactivity is the most likely thing to cause an account to close, but even that seems unlikely. My guess is that if you just give the account info to someone and they're not a goon about it, they can enjoy a library of games forever.

[Max Peck]

Yeah, I was thinking in terms of the heir buying new games on the account. If they simply use the existing library then the whole hypothetical payment source issue goes away.

[Jaymann]

I put in my payment method every time I make a purchase and do not save it. If I ever get hacked they will have to use their own payment.

[Smoove_B]

Yeah, I was thinking in terms of the heir buying new games on the account. If they simply use the existing library then the whole hypothetical payment source issue goes away.

I just use pre-paid Steam cards or input keys from places like GreenMan or Fantatical.

We also set up the new family sharing option in my house earlier this year and it functionally made 90% of my Steam library accessible to anyone in my household.

[Madmarcus]

I doubt my kids would want my account. Both game but where are tastes are the same they already have the games and where are tastes are different they wouldn't care.

[Blackhawk]

Steam has a new family sharing system that essentially gives other people in the household full access to each others' entire libraries, with the only real limitation being that two people can't play the same 'copy' of a game simultaneously (if I launch Pants Pirates 3 from my account, my kids can't launch PP3 - but they can play any other game in my library.)

In other words, all an heir would really need to do is log into my account at their house once every few months, have full access to every game on my account through theirs, and make purchases on their own account.

As far as the alternative, there's absolutely nothing that would prevent it. It's against 'policy' to transfer an account, but it isn't something they check for. And I've had mismatched payment methods on accounts many times. Hell, if that was a concern, you could just shop through Steam cards. One caveat: If they ever lost access to that Steam account (like they fell for one of the many scams that results in a third party taking control), it would be very, very difficult to retake control of the account, as it is the only thing I've ever done on Steam that requires that the owner confirm their identity. It might be easy for the first few years, but once your IDs started to expire and mail in your name stopped arriving, it might become impossible. It's something they'd want to prepare for (like if you buy a Steam wallet card, redeem it, and then save both the redeemed card and the receipt, they'll take that as proof of account ownership, at least as of a couple of years ago.)

[GreenGoo]

What's the difference between this new "famiy sharing" and the old sharing system?

[coopasonic]

What's the difference between this new "famiy sharing" and the old sharing system?

In the old system if I was playing anything on steam my family was unable to touch any of my games, now the limitation is specific to the game so I can be playing one game and each kid can be playing a different game from my account. I can also play games from their accounts. Basically the "shared" accounts form a pool of keys that anyone in the group can use. Some games are excluded, like pretty much all ubisoft games as an example.

[Smoove_B]

Yeah,the new family sharing is so much better than the way it used to work.

[Holman]

The old system is why so few of my games reflect the actual time I've spent playing. Whenever possible, I played offline so that one of my kids could access my account. (Hours spent playing offline don't add to your Steam totals.)

As for the inheritance question, they'll probably add something to the terms of service at some point: if you go two or three years without actively logging into your account, you'll get a series of notifications that will eventually default to cancellation of the account. Unless your heirs are willing to check your email from time to time, the games will eventually disappear.

People will howl, but Valve will lobby that, while the account owner may have "bought" the games, the account itself is a "subscription" to Steam.

[jztemple2]

As for the inheritance question, they'll probably add something to the terms of service at some point: if you go two or three years without actively logging into your account, you'll get a series of notifications that will eventually default to cancellation of the account. Unless your heirs are willing to check your email from time to time, the games will eventually disappear.

People will howl, but Valve will lobby that, while the account owner may have "bought" the games, the account itself is a "subscription" to Steam.

Well, if I will my account to someone, they better damn well use it

[Max Peck]

People will howl, but Valve will lobby that, while the account owner may have "bought" the games, the account itself is a "subscription" to Steam.

Steam already says that you don't own the games you bought, just a license that doesn't guarantee access in perpetuity. If you want to own something "forever" you need to get it as a DRM-free standalone download, a la GOG.

Steam now explicitly states you don’t own the digital games you’re buying

Have you ever bought an app or game from a digital storefront, only for it to suddenly disappear and become inaccessible without warning? It’s both confusing and frustrating, which is why some governments are stepping in and hoping to make things clearer for consumers.

Gavin Newsom, governor of California, recently signed a new law (AB 2426) that involves the purchasing of digital goods and services. Under the new law, online storefronts that sell digital copies of video games, music, movies, TV shows, and ebooks must be explicit as to whether customers actually own what they’re purchasing.

Some digital services are already adapting to the new regulations, which aren’t set to be enforced until next year. Steam is one such company, having already implemented a change in the Steam storefront that explicitly notifies customers that they’re purchasing “a license for the product on Steam” and don’t actually own the game outright.

What does that mean for you? Well, a license is just permission for you to access content that’s provided by the service (i.e., the game). If the content is made unavailable for whatever reason, you aren’t entitled to access in perpetuity. (As opposed to buying a digital download, in which case you’re buying permission to download and keep said files.)

[Blackhawk]

That's always been true, clear back to the days of the floppy. The only difference was that, back then, there was no real way for the actual owners to revoke your copy.

[Max Peck]

Yeah, the only new thing is that they explicitly state that you aren't actually buying the game before you give them your money. Still, the point is that Steam doesn't need to lobby anyone about anything. The fact that you don't own your Steam library is a fait accompli.

[Holman]

Steam already says that you don't own the games you bought, just a license that doesn't guarantee access in perpetuity. If you want to own something "forever" you need to get it as a DRM-free standalone download, a la GOG.

If a nasty competitor bought out GOG and shut down their servers, would we have any way of playing GOG-bought games that weren't currently installed?

[Smoove_B]

They don't need to be installed. If you maintained your own digital archive of all the install files, you could keep playing your GoG titles indefinitely. When you reinstall, there's no check or "phone home" where GoG verifies the files you purchased are legit.

[Max Peck]

Steam already says that you don't own the games you bought, just a license that doesn't guarantee access in perpetuity. If you want to own something "forever" you need to get it as a DRM-free standalone download, a la GOG.

If a nasty competitor bought out GOG and shut down their servers, would we have any way of playing GOG-bought games that weren't currently installed?

GOG offers the option to download standalone install packages for each game you purchase there. There probably would be no way to download them if the servers go down, so the onus is obviously on the buyer to take advantage of that beforehand. I believe you have to download them individually for each game, although in an ideal world there'd be a Big Red Button in Galaxy that says "Download an archive of my entire library."

GOG.com: How do I download my purchased items?

2) Alternatively, you can install your games without the app, using the offline installer:

- access your GOG account with a browser (https://www.gog.com/account)
- select a game
- click 'DOWNLOAD OFFLINE BACKUP GAME INSTALLERS' and download all necessary setup files
- afterwards, open your download folder and run the install application
- after the game is installed, open it's directory and run the executable file

If you experience download corruption issues while downloading via browser, we recommend using a download manager which adds functions such as queuing, pausing and resuming downloads.

[GreenGoo]

What's the difference between this new "famiy sharing" and the old sharing system?

In the old system if I was playing anything on steam my family was unable to touch any of my games, now the limitation is specific to the game so I can be playing one game and each kid can be playing a different game from my account. I can also play games from their accounts. Basically the "shared" accounts form a pool of keys that anyone in the group can use. Some games are excluded, like pretty much all ubisoft games as an example.

Thanks. I had forgotten that part (locked library while 1 game is being played).

[Punisher]

Yeah, the only new thing is that they explicitly state that you aren't actually buying the game before you give them your money. Still, the point is that Steam doesn't need to lobby anyone about anything. The fact that you don't own your Steam library is a fait accompli.

I think that this is part of a new California law requiring this type of notice.

[Isgrimnur]

"This transaction is only a license purchase, does not transfer any rights of ownership, and is known to the state of California to cause cancer."

[dbt1949]

I was thinking about giving somebody my password so they can give it to a deserving person after I'm gone. I don't know how long you all would have to wait before claiming me expired. And I guess they would need my e-mail address too.
Or alternatively I could wait until the day before I die and then contact somebody here.

[Holman]

What if we all arranged to have our Steam IDs and passwords chiseled on our tombstones?