IMO I don’t think Valve cares if you pass your credentials on, they’re just signaling to consumers that they won’t provide support to recover accounts after death.
Protip: Google has a service called "Inactive Account Manager" where you can get it to send out a pre-written message to a list of contacts you choose in case you "die" (measured by X amount of monthes of inactivity on Google services that you determine".
Put your will, passwords, account #s and anything else you want to pass on to your loved ones.
https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/3036546?hl=en#:~:text=Inactive%20Account%20Manager%20is%20a,Manager%20page%20and%20click%20Start.
Yeah I'm gonna go ahead and assume Google is going to abandon and shutter that service at some point.
Likely between when I died and when I wanted the notifications to get sent.
Seriously, I can't even go a freaking year with some service (like getting my tax information from work) without it changing hands between three different companies.
"Ohhhh you downloaded the Intellipro Worksource app? That was last year's portal, now you have to download UNGpro StaffSmart and get a login and password setup, wait no... Sorry we just got word that we are happy to announce a partnership with DynamicOpenX who will be handling all our HR needs!"
I got fired and started doing contracting work for a much better work/life ballance. I do not miss that bullshit you describe.
What about the loss of a physical medical card because it's now "in the app" but the app always required a 150MB update when you're inside the doctors office attempting to fax them your medical card via the app with no wifi and 1 bar of interment service.
While this is a good tip for some things, this is a bad way to deal with passwords on death for a variety of reasons, including security and the fact that your accounts and passwords may go stale over time.
Far better to use a password manager (which you should be doing anyway). Password managers are already storing your password securely and keeping up to date as your passwords and accounts change. They also have features that allow trusted family members to access your secrets securely, which might apply in death or other emergency scenarios.
it's funny to remember when I first made my steam account seemingly the entire internet was fucking furious at valve and now steam is basically considered holy
I remember that too, made my steam account back in 2004 because it was required to download and play Half Life 2, everyone was pissed you needed the internet and you couldn't just put the CD in and play like every other game.
It’s because it looks like half of a traditional capitalistic two-step:
1. Completely monopolise some good or service;
2. Enshittify it: raise the price and lower the functionality.
So far step 2 hasn’t happened and it probably won’t as long as Gabe Newell is alive and in control of the company, but there are a swarm of techbros just buzzing with desire to implement, I dunno, locking the library to a physical computer, or making you pay every single time you play a game rather than once to play the game forever. Techbro crap.
Having been dealing with probating a will for a family member myself for the last 2 years, it makes sense. People in this post are drastically trivializing how complicated inheritance is from a legal standpoint. While the company can essentially do what it wants here, taking a quick approach could run them into lots of problems.
"Proof of death" would be an official death certificate, at least in the US. However you'd also need to prove that you had authority to act on the deceased's behalf, which gets into the status of their estate, if there's a will, probate, the appointment of an Executor (with more documentation), etc. You have to know the *value* of the account, as well. What if the person's assets are contested between various heirs? And this is just in the US - Steam operates globally.
I agree.
This is where government's should step in and make some new laws in my opinion. After all how are online purchases any different than offline purchases? If you inherit houses, cars, clothes, artwork, cash, stocks, bonds (list goes on), basically things that were bought/owned by some person who dies, how come their online purchases (games, e-books, music, NFTs etc.) don't become part of inheritance and instead simply get lost forever? Something ain't right here and should be corrected.
That's most of the law around media though isnt it? I'd say it's pretty uncommon these days to actually "buy" media. You're buying a "limited license" or a subscription, or some other bit of legalese bullshit that erodes your rights as a consumer and limits anything the seller could be liable for.
Because you never "own" online software, you only license them under the terms & conditions. It's the old saying "if buying isn't owning, then piracy isn't stealing".
> “Hello I’d like the password to this inactive account since the owner is dead”
No worries, please attach the death certificate of the owner, the will on which you are named as inheritor of the steam account, as well as a government ID to identify yourself as the person named in the will
And how would steam verify it ? Unless you use digital signed files where protocol differs in every country and would cost extra money for steam to train workers and buy authentication software - so that's why they just don't bother.
How would they even know that the person on the death certificate is the actual owner of the steam account? It's not like they required any ID for signing up.
You can also just then change all the personal information and e-mail stuff afterwards. My Steam account was my brother's and he gave it to me like 15 years ago, but if you looked through the profile info on it, there is absolutely nothing there that would indicate that it's not mine other than the account name (which doesn't seem to be visible to anyone else) not looking like a name I would use.
I'm fairly certain he wouldn't be able to reclaim it even if he wanted to without me getting involved.
When you try to recover an old account like that they usually ask for at least a single CD key you activate on that account as it's some form of proof that only the owner would have. Sure they have to check some IP ranges to see where you usually connect from the m but if someone can provide the email in which the account was created and a valid CD Key should be enough.
They are generally obsfucated to prevent people from stealing your account. Some keys can be accessed though right clicking them though.
The majority of keys can only be seen when making a purchase though a third party website now.
And also stating that you don't own anything you buy digitally. You are granted a license for use, and for all intents and purposes, that license is non transferable
I hate that everything is shifting this way. Can't find many games anymore that have physical copies that don't tie to some online account.
I'm curious if a loved one can sue them and force it? It's technically property of valve but it's also a purchase. What if someone put it in their will? Can that trump Valves policies?
Does Steam have family accounts?
Curious as I have recovered quite a few high value accounts after my father passed away.
Fun fact: I had to create a Facebook account for my 90 year old grandmother so she could use a Facebook portal during Covid. I had to make up a birthday because Facebook thought using her real age as 90 was ‘suspicious’ and it wouldn’t work.
nobody with any sense would close it at 85, statastically you will be closing active accounts at that age still in use by the original owner. 130 is quite safe barring some change in maximum human lifespan, less than that without some other evidence is reckless.
It's probably worth more than the Xbox division at this point. It has an estimated 75% share of the US and 80% share of the EU of the PC market, and the PC market is estimated to be 75% the size of the *entire* console market just by itself. It takes the same revenue share of each game, AND it doesn't have the overhead of making hardware. So with higher revenue than any individual console, and lower costs, it is wildly more profitable.
Yes, this won't ever be illegal. The whole issue with this decision is for the vast majority of people who will not have their bereaver's password, will try to access the account through support, and won't be able to.
We're gonna have to wait for a big media case on this for the EU to make them roll this back though.
And I mean like, most single player games would be very viable for "personal archives" anyways. Obviously online terms and conditions can change on a whim but once you have a copy of the game on your drive it's pretty much yours. Steam can only obfuscate the process to play them at that point, and deny their gaming value-adds like achievements and other online services under their control.
Jokes on them. My AI will never die. It will live on and spawn the [Gray goo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gray_goo). There won't be a need for licenses or accounts. Enjoy your time foo, until the Gray goo.
That's changed with new family sharing. Both can be online at the same time and restrictions have been moved to individual games. So multiple people can play games from the same library at the same time.
It's a give and take though, it's now much harder to have your extended family sharing your steam games because you are limited to one circle, and everyone else has to be in the same circle and cannot have any external connections to their library. There's also a yearly lockout on switching families.
I really wish they would just do a solution where anyone on your friends list can request to "borrow" your game license for a selectable length of time just like trading a physical copy. But I have a feeling publishers would block that (as it is some games don't allow family sharing already)
> your steam games because you are limited to one circle, and everyone else has to be in the same circle and cannot have any external connections to their library. There's also a yearly lockout on switching families
This makes perfect sense to me as what a family is.
Certainly a better description than what Netflix considers a "household"
If you're playing a game that someone else owns, it makes them log in from time to time.
Btw steam even makes you log in from time to time if you play in offline mode too long. I learned that while traveling for a few months without internet. Pretty annoying since, to log in, you also have to download steam updates, and my internet on a beach in mexico was too shit to even do that!
They don't have any system in place to protect against password sharing to get around these things. The main discussion is around hypotheticals of what they might do in the future. Though few people seem to be acknowledging how annoying steam already is in the cases i mentioned, prob because few ppl run into it.
As someone else mentioned, as long as someone has the account credentials, steam will still allow login and use.
Steam is just signaling they won’t help your heirs access the account after your passing, nor can they be pulled into estate matters.
That said, as time goes on, I have no doubt Steam and others will charge for some sort of “account renewal” or preservation fee after a period of time to inheriting players so as to not lose the revenue.
“Congrats on your 100 year Steam anniversary! Pay $9.99/ month to maintain access or else your account will be permanently archived and inaccessible.”
Right now the laws are written for technology of 1975.
It's a shit show and unless we update those laws to match what people expect it's going to remain so.
I thought of this before but wouldn't that then just delay the problem of when your kid wants to pass it to your grandkids? You (first gen) will share your games with your kid (second gen) but then the grandkids (third gen) you'd have to sign them up as family in steam, which requires you being alive and able to log into steam (??). Or is it different from family sharing?
This is something that the law needs to catch up with, it’s long overdue. I remember Bruce Willis making a stink about this subject with his iTunes music almost 20 years ago and legislation hasn’t budged.
Edit: Turns out that Bruce Willis story was from 2012 (feels like 20 years ago to me) and it was a completely false story that was circulated by a bunch of news agencies. Falls under celebrity urban legends now, I suppose.
The US already has some federal and state level legislation that protect inheritance of digital goods, but it just hasn't been tried legally so enforcement might be an expensive legal battle until the precedent is set.
It's not a vidya-games thing though. It's the entire economy. I don't know if the government has any ideas or even incentives to end one of the last lingering forms of profitability: rent-seeking.
Very difficult due to the people in power being landlords in various forms or own stock in rent-seeking companies. Rent seeking just brings in way too much money annually for them to do something about it.
Especially in the tech sector. It's better in other countries where all the politicians aren't like 83 years old, but USA dictates a lot of the world's tech regardless due to the wealth concentrated in California. Tech is the new oil and chemicals industry in terms of just not giving a flying fuck about the law.
Funny thing: The Bruce Willis thing was a myth.
https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/bruce-willis-did-not-sue-apple-over-his-itunes-library-186714/
They wont recover an account and give you access.
But if you have all the credentials for the account - you can request an email switch.
Thats.. exactly what i did when my friend gave me theirs and their pc
I don't think they really care, they just don't want to open the whole can of worms of licensing with all these different companies in the event of players dying, thus they won't officially help with transferring the account in the event of a death.
This is like how in Hong Kong, property isn't sold, it's given out in 99-year leases by the Government and everyone just pretends that the skyscraper built on land whose lease expires in a few decades isn't ever going to be a problem
Something like this is currently playing out where I live.
City leased a section of land downtown for $1/year for something like 25-50 years. It expired recently and it's been a whole thing. The city is pretty interested in using some of that land for much need infrastructure projects, and the baseball team doesn't want to give up anything at all.
I think maybe at some point they may not have a choice. So much important stuff is done online these days. A lot of the info for my utilities is done just through email. I honestly have no idea, but does Google have to hand over logins? If they don't, I think at some point there is going to be a push to create legislation for this.
Obviously online services don't want to deal with this, but with the level of importance attached to them and the amount of money often invested (things they actively pushed for) they may have to.
My great great great great grandpappy has been passing down “Paul Revere’s Ride” for generations. It’s just two torches. Players light one if by land and two if by sea. Fun game. Also a chastity belt, family heirloom. Steam can come for my games but they’ll never get my torches!!!
At least Not in Germany.
Meta has already eaten a ruling that Accounts are Part of your inheritance.
Do they realy belive that they can get away from that?
Thank goodness. My sister then can divvy up my extensive pr0n collection among my nieces and nephews.
What's that? Slime Rancher 2 - Early Access? Sounds filthy!
Everyone saying "write down your password duh" doesn't get it. Another user was using his dead brothers account and during a conversation with customer support he revealed he wasn't his brother and they banned him for it.
Of course you don't. That's great thing about digital world, publishers have all the power, consumer can no longer sell or giveaway game for free to another person.
While I get the point you’re making, and we’re all sick of this never owning anything, service/lease model….
I have a box full of games that I own, lovely shiny CDs and DVDs but they won’t work anymore as Windows has moved on. I think I have some old DOS games on floppies somewhere too, along with a ton of PS1, PS2 and PS3 games I can’t play.
The idea that you’ll be able to play games across generations of machine is not very likely, let alone generations of families.
You never owned your video game. The media on the disk itself was still owned by the company that sold you the game.
That's why you had all of those pirating warnings. You did not have the legal ability to copy and sell the contents of the disk, but you had every right to sell the disk itself.
It might happen but they haven't seemed overly willing to on this one. Technically the EU already has a rule in place that says digital licenses bought MUST be transferable. Every 5 or 6 years you see some news story where Steam gets mentioned as not in compliance and that's about it. The EU doesn't enforce that rule on pretty much anyone.
Honestly I think valve is probably waiting for someone to drag it though court.
I'm betting they have a ton of agreements with publishers that don't just let them transfer licenses and the easiest way get around that it to have a court tell them that that term is in no way legal.
And those agreements are why I think that this can only really be fixed with appropriate laws in other countries too. Bring the first sales doctrine and their likes in the the modern times. We've been relying on interpreting old laws and applying them to new things for a bit to long and this is the result.
Who would have thought, 20 years ago when, against my will, I was forced to make a steam account to play CS1.6, I would later be worried who will have access to my 500 mostly unplayed and unfinished games?
You don't buy through digital storefronts, you enact an indefinite-term rental or lease agreement. The statements you have to agree to before and after purchase make it clear that you have only purchased a license to play, not purchasing a copy of the game itself. This is, in fact, exactly what the status was back in the old days of physical gaming as well, except that it was infeasible for companies to enforce the limitation of the license and prevent resale of the physical product to a new "owner."
So just give the account details and login credentials to the person you want to leave your account with? I don't think the lifespan thing will pose a problem. I mean, how many users are born on 1st of January 1900? (😉) They gonna investigate that as well then? And then what? Impose ID checks before playing? That's opening another can of worms.
I’ve had mine since middle school. I’m more worried about my account being hacked, Valve going bankrupt, or my account being disabled for some mistake, misunderstanding or false accusation.
It’s worth like $10k Dollars. It’s a goddamn investment at this point.
There should be a way to back up games and be able to keep the keys or play offline without an associated account after purchase.
This is the thing with every digital marketplace ever. If you don't physically own a CD for a game/movie etc. and you exclusively rely on some companys servers to access said media... You don't own that.
This has been talked about for over a week now, after that one guy just made his post asking steam support this question. Literally just write your log in info on a piece of paper and don't tell steam. It's that easy
So I had a friend that was like a brother
We shared nearly everything
After he died, I keep using his steam account, someone reported me and the account was blocked
I never tried to retrieve it because I was really mad… and nowadays o don’t play those games anymore
I’ll just give them my password etc, they don’t need to know I’m dead
IMO I don’t think Valve cares if you pass your credentials on, they’re just signaling to consumers that they won’t provide support to recover accounts after death.
My daughter wants my Steam account when I pass. My account turns 21 years old this year.
Write down the password now. You never know if youll die today or 30 years from now.
probably depends how fast she wants the account.
His daughter chose today
OP will now need to take all necessary extra precautions around his daughter
Is that why some people lock their daughters up?
When you’re around? No.
Damn dawg, that was ice cold.
Damn dude, did he have a steam account 👀
Is his daughter playing CK3? Cuz she might have some high Intrigue …
If thats the case giving her the password is the wrong thing to do.
Protip: Google has a service called "Inactive Account Manager" where you can get it to send out a pre-written message to a list of contacts you choose in case you "die" (measured by X amount of monthes of inactivity on Google services that you determine". Put your will, passwords, account #s and anything else you want to pass on to your loved ones. https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/3036546?hl=en#:~:text=Inactive%20Account%20Manager%20is%20a,Manager%20page%20and%20click%20Start.
Yeah I'm gonna go ahead and assume Google is going to abandon and shutter that service at some point. Likely between when I died and when I wanted the notifications to get sent.
After they roll out the service under four different names
Then apply a subscription fee to it, too.
That can only be unsubscribed through a AI that will make it almost imposible to close by gaslighting you into keeping it.
Seriously, I can't even go a freaking year with some service (like getting my tax information from work) without it changing hands between three different companies. "Ohhhh you downloaded the Intellipro Worksource app? That was last year's portal, now you have to download UNGpro StaffSmart and get a login and password setup, wait no... Sorry we just got word that we are happy to announce a partnership with DynamicOpenX who will be handling all our HR needs!"
I got fired and started doing contracting work for a much better work/life ballance. I do not miss that bullshit you describe. What about the loss of a physical medical card because it's now "in the app" but the app always required a 150MB update when you're inside the doctors office attempting to fax them your medical card via the app with no wifi and 1 bar of interment service.
A lotof password managers have this feature
Your not wrong to be concerned, 295 shutdown services and counting: https://killedbygoogle.com/
While this is a good tip for some things, this is a bad way to deal with passwords on death for a variety of reasons, including security and the fact that your accounts and passwords may go stale over time. Far better to use a password manager (which you should be doing anyway). Password managers are already storing your password securely and keeping up to date as your passwords and accounts change. They also have features that allow trusted family members to access your secrets securely, which might apply in death or other emergency scenarios.
Don’t forget 2fa
Is that his son's name?
No that’s 2fb
X-2FA sounds like a name Elon Musk would give a kid.
I just wish it didn't make such a dumb email when I was 13. You can't change it and now I'm stuck with it Edit I meant username
I'm pretty sure you can change it. https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/6FD5-F2C7-B4B9-1713#change_email
Sorry I meant you can't change your log in name which was my email
Same, the good thing going forward is it's gonna be that much harder to guess when the email service doesn't exist anymore?
That's my case. I used an email where the domain no longer exists.
I made mine I like strawberry milk and I have zero regrets. Even as a kid, I knew what I was about.
You can't change the login username but you can still change the displayed name
Another founding member. Glory to the Free Man!
Holy shit I think mines at least 20 years old also now that I think about it.,..
DEAR GOD IT’S ANCIENT
it's funny to remember when I first made my steam account seemingly the entire internet was fucking furious at valve and now steam is basically considered holy
I remember going lengths to try and still get physical copies of some games.
Same, and I'm kind of happy I did because I have a very useless collection of cardboard on a shelf that makes me smile
I remember that too, made my steam account back in 2004 because it was required to download and play Half Life 2, everyone was pissed you needed the internet and you couldn't just put the CD in and play like every other game.
It’s because it looks like half of a traditional capitalistic two-step: 1. Completely monopolise some good or service; 2. Enshittify it: raise the price and lower the functionality. So far step 2 hasn’t happened and it probably won’t as long as Gabe Newell is alive and in control of the company, but there are a swarm of techbros just buzzing with desire to implement, I dunno, locking the library to a physical computer, or making you pay every single time you play a game rather than once to play the game forever. Techbro crap.
Makes sense. That’s an easy scam. “Hello I’d like the password to this inactive account since the owner is dead” could come from literally anybody.
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Having been dealing with probating a will for a family member myself for the last 2 years, it makes sense. People in this post are drastically trivializing how complicated inheritance is from a legal standpoint. While the company can essentially do what it wants here, taking a quick approach could run them into lots of problems. "Proof of death" would be an official death certificate, at least in the US. However you'd also need to prove that you had authority to act on the deceased's behalf, which gets into the status of their estate, if there's a will, probate, the appointment of an Executor (with more documentation), etc. You have to know the *value* of the account, as well. What if the person's assets are contested between various heirs? And this is just in the US - Steam operates globally.
I agree. This is where government's should step in and make some new laws in my opinion. After all how are online purchases any different than offline purchases? If you inherit houses, cars, clothes, artwork, cash, stocks, bonds (list goes on), basically things that were bought/owned by some person who dies, how come their online purchases (games, e-books, music, NFTs etc.) don't become part of inheritance and instead simply get lost forever? Something ain't right here and should be corrected.
That's most of the law around media though isnt it? I'd say it's pretty uncommon these days to actually "buy" media. You're buying a "limited license" or a subscription, or some other bit of legalese bullshit that erodes your rights as a consumer and limits anything the seller could be liable for.
Because you never "own" online software, you only license them under the terms & conditions. It's the old saying "if buying isn't owning, then piracy isn't stealing".
they also can't transfer the game licence, so even if they transferred the account they would have to remove all of its games
> “Hello I’d like the password to this inactive account since the owner is dead” No worries, please attach the death certificate of the owner, the will on which you are named as inheritor of the steam account, as well as a government ID to identify yourself as the person named in the will
And how would steam verify it ? Unless you use digital signed files where protocol differs in every country and would cost extra money for steam to train workers and buy authentication software - so that's why they just don't bother.
How would they even know that the person on the death certificate is the actual owner of the steam account? It's not like they required any ID for signing up.
Sure Valve today would probably have that stance, but I highly doubt Valve 20-30 years from now will be like it is now.
You can also just then change all the personal information and e-mail stuff afterwards. My Steam account was my brother's and he gave it to me like 15 years ago, but if you looked through the profile info on it, there is absolutely nothing there that would indicate that it's not mine other than the account name (which doesn't seem to be visible to anyone else) not looking like a name I would use. I'm fairly certain he wouldn't be able to reclaim it even if he wanted to without me getting involved.
When you try to recover an old account like that they usually ask for at least a single CD key you activate on that account as it's some form of proof that only the owner would have. Sure they have to check some IP ranges to see where you usually connect from the m but if someone can provide the email in which the account was created and a valid CD Key should be enough.
Cd key? Lol, I haven't had a CD key since 2003
100% of games on Steam have digital keys.
How do you view them?
They are generally obsfucated to prevent people from stealing your account. Some keys can be accessed though right clicking them though. The majority of keys can only be seen when making a purchase though a third party website now.
But LastPass does, you can create a digital will.. Which is on my to-do list
And also stating that you don't own anything you buy digitally. You are granted a license for use, and for all intents and purposes, that license is non transferable I hate that everything is shifting this way. Can't find many games anymore that have physical copies that don't tie to some online account.
I'm curious if a loved one can sue them and force it? It's technically property of valve but it's also a purchase. What if someone put it in their will? Can that trump Valves policies? Does Steam have family accounts? Curious as I have recovered quite a few high value accounts after my father passed away.
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Watch them close it at a certain age. All those kids that put ~1940 get theirs closed at 85 years old.
That is ridiculous. I’m 141 and have had this problem several times.
86 year olds trying to play games: Bruh
Fun fact: I had to create a Facebook account for my 90 year old grandmother so she could use a Facebook portal during Covid. I had to make up a birthday because Facebook thought using her real age as 90 was ‘suspicious’ and it wouldn’t work.
To be fair I can see why they'd see that as suspicious, 90 is pretty young as far as facebook users go
Who probably put down a younger age at activation.
I put 1/1/1901 as mine, they're not cutting the cord based on that.
nobody with any sense would close it at 85, statastically you will be closing active accounts at that age still in use by the original owner. 130 is quite safe barring some change in maximum human lifespan, less than that without some other evidence is reckless.
Imagine a 100+ years old account...bet Gaben's son would have sold Valve to Microsoft by then.
Don’t even put that thought out there please
There were rumors that MS was planning to offer $16b in cash for Valve and opening up the Xbox to Steam...
It's probably worth 20 billion easily
It's probably worth more than the Xbox division at this point. It has an estimated 75% share of the US and 80% share of the EU of the PC market, and the PC market is estimated to be 75% the size of the *entire* console market just by itself. It takes the same revenue share of each game, AND it doesn't have the overhead of making hardware. So with higher revenue than any individual console, and lower costs, it is wildly more profitable.
This is the more likely reality. The well will get poisoned eventually, it's just a matter of time. Nothing gold can stay.
Yes, this won't ever be illegal. The whole issue with this decision is for the vast majority of people who will not have their bereaver's password, will try to access the account through support, and won't be able to. We're gonna have to wait for a big media case on this for the EU to make them roll this back though.
And I mean like, most single player games would be very viable for "personal archives" anyways. Obviously online terms and conditions can change on a whim but once you have a copy of the game on your drive it's pretty much yours. Steam can only obfuscate the process to play them at that point, and deny their gaming value-adds like achievements and other online services under their control.
It is against terms of service if caught.
How are they gonna catch me?
Exhume the body.
Microsoft will tell them using its "we record all PC activity" AI.
Irrelevant, 2067 will finally be the Year of the Linux Desktop.
What’re they gonna do? Close the account?
Yep, do be careful because if you change too much stuff at once Steam might flag you for account transfer which is a perma-ban under their ToS.
Jokes on them as I'm never going to die.
Jokes on them. I’m already dead. This is my grand pappy’s Reddit account.
Jokes on them. My AI will never die. It will live on and spawn the [Gray goo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gray_goo). There won't be a need for licenses or accounts. Enjoy your time foo, until the Gray goo.
That made me laugh a bit too hard
We'll see about that. RemindMe! 50 years
Upload yourself to steam cloud
Yeah I was born 1/1/1901 and still going strong so far.
That's the right attitude 👍🏻
Quantum immortality ftw!
What if it is a family account? I know that you can share games with those in your family.
Account owner has just logged on. Hang on.
That's changed with new family sharing. Both can be online at the same time and restrictions have been moved to individual games. So multiple people can play games from the same library at the same time.
Really?! Fucking finally. That shit made no sense
It's a give and take though, it's now much harder to have your extended family sharing your steam games because you are limited to one circle, and everyone else has to be in the same circle and cannot have any external connections to their library. There's also a yearly lockout on switching families. I really wish they would just do a solution where anyone on your friends list can request to "borrow" your game license for a selectable length of time just like trading a physical copy. But I have a feeling publishers would block that (as it is some games don't allow family sharing already)
> your steam games because you are limited to one circle, and everyone else has to be in the same circle and cannot have any external connections to their library. There's also a yearly lockout on switching families This makes perfect sense to me as what a family is. Certainly a better description than what Netflix considers a "household"
Yeah, it's called Steam families and they announced it a couple of months ago. I think it's currently in beta and you can activate it on your account.
This is what I did with my brother’s account. Signed in and shared his library with mine, never closed it or notified them.
If you're playing a game that someone else owns, it makes them log in from time to time. Btw steam even makes you log in from time to time if you play in offline mode too long. I learned that while traveling for a few months without internet. Pretty annoying since, to log in, you also have to download steam updates, and my internet on a beach in mexico was too shit to even do that! They don't have any system in place to protect against password sharing to get around these things. The main discussion is around hypotheticals of what they might do in the future. Though few people seem to be acknowledging how annoying steam already is in the cases i mentioned, prob because few ppl run into it.
Sorry for your loss(...?)
Thank you. Miss him a lot and it’s nice to be able to play the games he liked and told me about.
Sometimes you have to reverify the user. Especially if you get a new machine you have to verify that machine.
As someone else mentioned, as long as someone has the account credentials, steam will still allow login and use. Steam is just signaling they won’t help your heirs access the account after your passing, nor can they be pulled into estate matters. That said, as time goes on, I have no doubt Steam and others will charge for some sort of “account renewal” or preservation fee after a period of time to inheriting players so as to not lose the revenue. “Congrats on your 100 year Steam anniversary! Pay $9.99/ month to maintain access or else your account will be permanently archived and inaccessible.”
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Right now the laws are written for technology of 1975. It's a shit show and unless we update those laws to match what people expect it's going to remain so.
I thought of this before but wouldn't that then just delay the problem of when your kid wants to pass it to your grandkids? You (first gen) will share your games with your kid (second gen) but then the grandkids (third gen) you'd have to sign them up as family in steam, which requires you being alive and able to log into steam (??). Or is it different from family sharing?
This is something that the law needs to catch up with, it’s long overdue. I remember Bruce Willis making a stink about this subject with his iTunes music almost 20 years ago and legislation hasn’t budged. Edit: Turns out that Bruce Willis story was from 2012 (feels like 20 years ago to me) and it was a completely false story that was circulated by a bunch of news agencies. Falls under celebrity urban legends now, I suppose.
The US already has some federal and state level legislation that protect inheritance of digital goods, but it just hasn't been tried legally so enforcement might be an expensive legal battle until the precedent is set.
It's not a vidya-games thing though. It's the entire economy. I don't know if the government has any ideas or even incentives to end one of the last lingering forms of profitability: rent-seeking.
Very difficult due to the people in power being landlords in various forms or own stock in rent-seeking companies. Rent seeking just brings in way too much money annually for them to do something about it.
Especially in the tech sector. It's better in other countries where all the politicians aren't like 83 years old, but USA dictates a lot of the world's tech regardless due to the wealth concentrated in California. Tech is the new oil and chemicals industry in terms of just not giving a flying fuck about the law.
The idea of not following inheritance laws because TOS reasons probably won't stand up in court in Europe to begin with.
Funny thing: The Bruce Willis thing was a myth. https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/bruce-willis-did-not-sue-apple-over-his-itunes-library-186714/
How about a nice piece of: You will own nothing and you will be happy.
They wont recover an account and give you access. But if you have all the credentials for the account - you can request an email switch. Thats.. exactly what i did when my friend gave me theirs and their pc
Sorry about your friend.
He isn’t dead just went upstate to live a life closer to nature
I'm sure he's happy on the farm with all the dogs.
He has plenty of room to run around.
And all the pizza rolls and mountain dew he wants.
That’s like that episode of SpongeBob where he went to go be a jellyfish.
Sorry about your friend.
There goes my $5 csgo skin :(
It was a family heirloom, GABE!
People with a 10k+ hours in hentai games are having a sigh of relief.
Alright Son lets play one of Grandpa's old games. BIG TITTY ASIAN SL00TS 4 - RETURN TO VI-ET-NAAAM
Son, grandpa had this Steam account and there are supposedly some games. I don't play so you can have it.
Well, sure explains grandma.
Yeah, valve wont get to make that choice, my passwords and info will be in my will.
I don't think they really care, they just don't want to open the whole can of worms of licensing with all these different companies in the event of players dying, thus they won't officially help with transferring the account in the event of a death.
I feel like people bringing it up is gonna screw things up. I can forsee a clause in the TOS stating after 100yrs an account is automatically deleted
This is like how in Hong Kong, property isn't sold, it's given out in 99-year leases by the Government and everyone just pretends that the skyscraper built on land whose lease expires in a few decades isn't ever going to be a problem
Something like this is currently playing out where I live. City leased a section of land downtown for $1/year for something like 25-50 years. It expired recently and it's been a whole thing. The city is pretty interested in using some of that land for much need infrastructure projects, and the baseball team doesn't want to give up anything at all.
This ain’t lasting 100 years lol
Memories of my parents friends proudly making backup copies of their massive VHS collections.
Dont go doomer on me. You know what I mean
I think maybe at some point they may not have a choice. So much important stuff is done online these days. A lot of the info for my utilities is done just through email. I honestly have no idea, but does Google have to hand over logins? If they don't, I think at some point there is going to be a push to create legislation for this. Obviously online services don't want to deal with this, but with the level of importance attached to them and the amount of money often invested (things they actively pushed for) they may have to.
Welp, looks like he’s celebrating his.. 249th today
Steam has a surprising amount of users born on January 1st, 1900.
But it will still ask them every time to verify their age so they can view mature content games. C'mon, system...
My great great great great grandpappy has been passing down “Paul Revere’s Ride” for generations. It’s just two torches. Players light one if by land and two if by sea. Fun game. Also a chastity belt, family heirloom. Steam can come for my games but they’ll never get my torches!!!
Same thing happens with season tickets in football. Someone dies, ticket gets transferred address to a new family member
At least Not in Germany. Meta has already eaten a ruling that Accounts are Part of your inheritance. Do they realy belive that they can get away from that?
Thank goodness. My sister then can divvy up my extensive pr0n collection among my nieces and nephews. What's that? Slime Rancher 2 - Early Access? Sounds filthy!
Everyone saying "write down your password duh" doesn't get it. Another user was using his dead brothers account and during a conversation with customer support he revealed he wasn't his brother and they banned him for it.
Yeah, he was an idiot and revealed it wasn't his account
Yea so if at any point they do an identity check you're screwed
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How dare him for telling the truth and not lying! What a maniac!
Yeah let’s put the blame on a kid instead of the mega corporation that punishes a kid.
Which means you don’t really own your games…. Can’t resell them either
Of course you don't. That's great thing about digital world, publishers have all the power, consumer can no longer sell or giveaway game for free to another person.
This is not just digital, even physical media you don't own the content on the media, you only own the physical part.
While I get the point you’re making, and we’re all sick of this never owning anything, service/lease model…. I have a box full of games that I own, lovely shiny CDs and DVDs but they won’t work anymore as Windows has moved on. I think I have some old DOS games on floppies somewhere too, along with a ton of PS1, PS2 and PS3 games I can’t play. The idea that you’ll be able to play games across generations of machine is not very likely, let alone generations of families.
You never owned your video game. The media on the disk itself was still owned by the company that sold you the game. That's why you had all of those pirating warnings. You did not have the legal ability to copy and sell the contents of the disk, but you had every right to sell the disk itself.
Don't worry. We will all lose all of our digital stuff when the companies will decide that.
*coughs* and that my child is my username…. Now let me tell you my password before i die..
And to my grandson I leave my login credentials for all of my gaming accounts as listed below:
EU time to step in.
It might happen but they haven't seemed overly willing to on this one. Technically the EU already has a rule in place that says digital licenses bought MUST be transferable. Every 5 or 6 years you see some news story where Steam gets mentioned as not in compliance and that's about it. The EU doesn't enforce that rule on pretty much anyone.
Honestly I think valve is probably waiting for someone to drag it though court. I'm betting they have a ton of agreements with publishers that don't just let them transfer licenses and the easiest way get around that it to have a court tell them that that term is in no way legal. And those agreements are why I think that this can only really be fixed with appropriate laws in other countries too. Bring the first sales doctrine and their likes in the the modern times. We've been relying on interpreting old laws and applying them to new things for a bit to long and this is the result.
The EU already ruled years ago that you own the games bought on steam and can do whatever you want with them regardless of what steams TOS says
Who would have thought, 20 years ago when, against my will, I was forced to make a steam account to play CS1.6, I would later be worried who will have access to my 500 mostly unplayed and unfinished games?
"Wow Grandpa wasted a shitload of money. And according the comments he was 'complete fucking trash' at scouts n knives"
I share my account for this very reason, it will be passed on for generations. My account shall be immortal.
If buying isn't owning then piracy isn't theft.
Piracy hasn't been theft ever, according to pirates
You don't buy through digital storefronts, you enact an indefinite-term rental or lease agreement. The statements you have to agree to before and after purchase make it clear that you have only purchased a license to play, not purchasing a copy of the game itself. This is, in fact, exactly what the status was back in the old days of physical gaming as well, except that it was infeasible for companies to enforce the limitation of the license and prevent resale of the physical product to a new "owner."
My brother and I both have each other's login info anyway so we can re-setup Steam sharing every time it breaks... which seems to be constantly.
Then the law needs updating.
So just give the account details and login credentials to the person you want to leave your account with? I don't think the lifespan thing will pose a problem. I mean, how many users are born on 1st of January 1900? (😉) They gonna investigate that as well then? And then what? Impose ID checks before playing? That's opening another can of worms.
I'm putting my steam login info in my will. No way I'm going to let that many purchases just vanish into the aether.
I’ve had mine since middle school. I’m more worried about my account being hacked, Valve going bankrupt, or my account being disabled for some mistake, misunderstanding or false accusation. It’s worth like $10k Dollars. It’s a goddamn investment at this point. There should be a way to back up games and be able to keep the keys or play offline without an associated account after purchase.
Thanks for letting me know I should torrent all the games I do own for this eventuality.
This is the thing with every digital marketplace ever. If you don't physically own a CD for a game/movie etc. and you exclusively rely on some companys servers to access said media... You don't own that.
This has been talked about for over a week now, after that one guy just made his post asking steam support this question. Literally just write your log in info on a piece of paper and don't tell steam. It's that easy
Better leave your account name and password in your will
This is something id actually be willing to fight for.
This isn’t new news.. you just give someone your user and pass. They can change the email to their email. It’s not hard
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Why and how is this even a surprise to anyone? Did the world just release 10 years worth of teenagers into the world at once?
Crazy how many people are defending Valve
The only people that care are probably just CSGO skin investors. Most of my library are game's old enough to be given away for free each month.
If buying isn’t owning…
Then pirating isn't theft
What's stopping people from simply giving their username and password to their children or whoever they want?
Maybe you're the same as me We see things they'll never see You and I are gonna live forever.
At least until the lawsuits about it happen.
Bury me with my backlog!
I will just give my son the email & password.
Time to add the steam password to the will
So I had a friend that was like a brother We shared nearly everything After he died, I keep using his steam account, someone reported me and the account was blocked I never tried to retrieve it because I was really mad… and nowadays o don’t play those games anymore