So much for your descendants posthumously clearing out that massive backlog...
With Valve's Steam gaming platform approaching the US drinking age this year, more and more aging PC gamers may be considering what will happen to their vast digital game libraries after they die. Unfortunately, legally, your collection of hundreds of backlogged games will likely pass into the ether along with you someday.
The issue of digital game inheritability gained renewed attention this week as a ResetEra poster quoted a Steam support response asking about transferring Steam account ownership via a last will and testament. "Unfortunately, Steam accounts and games are non-transferable" the response reads. "Steam Support can't provide someone else with access to the account or merge its contents with another account. I regret to inform you that your Steam account cannot be transferred via a will."
I get this is an issue of digital distribution and digital content.
Are we supposed to believe Valve would continue to distribute games for eternity? That's a great deal for your USD$60 games, not so great for Valve.
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People, this is why DRM is bad and freedom is important. I'll never have this problem because all the games I play are free-as-in-freedom.
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And that's why I buy almost all of my games in physical format.
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One of the reasons why I still buy physical media even if I make digital copies of them. Another is I believe there will be more instances in the future of governments and corporations altering original copies of older content to shape certain narratives or due to cultural sensitivities.
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Disney does it all the time. But nobody seems to care.
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