r/Steam • u/Lee__Everett • 3d ago
Discussion We should unironically be allowed to give out our Steam accounts in our will…
Yes, I’m not joking. My Steam library is something very personal to me, it’s literally a collection of who I am as a person, the things that I’ve played and enjoyed ect.
I unironically believe we should be allowed to leave our Steam accounts with our password and login info so that it helps people grieve and bring back postive memories.
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u/Snake-Eyes21 3d ago
Um, just put your steam info in your will and leave it to whoever you want to leave it to lol
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u/sockpuppets 3d ago
Put a post-it note on your PC. Congratulations, you've made a Steam will.
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u/SurgicallySarcastic 2d ago
My guess is the EU will somehow fuck this up trying to help the consumer, like age verification, and older accounts will end up getting deleted. Right now there’s no protocol for finding dead people’s accounts. Steam and Valve don’t give a shit unless the account gets reported.
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u/SoundandVision47 2d ago
Correct me if I’m wrong, but is an account not just an account? Even if it’s 150 years old what’s the problem?
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u/yourmom1034 2d ago
Giving your account to someone is tos, this includes dead relatives i would assume
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u/miedzianek 2d ago
Tos cant be over law
In Poland/EU in general, you can give anything at your last will(as game licenses are transferable by european union law)
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u/Little-Avocado-19 2d ago
Yes so you can give the account in your will in Poland. Steam can't stop you do it. But then they can ban it because someone else is using that account. It's not against the law and follows tos
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u/miedzianek 2d ago
Its still against law. Its called abusive clause, because they let you do this but same time they wont
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u/Long_Push562 5h ago
Steam Will sounds like an ability some character would use in a Steampunk rpg or something.
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u/Hexagon37 3d ago
By steam TOS this isn’t allowed, so when they see your account is active and 140 years old they’ll likely just delete it.
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u/Ascend 3d ago
In 120 years, good chance that laws change, or Steam may not even exist. 30 years ago we were using Windows 95, who knows what'll happen in a 4x longer period.
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u/Narradisall 3d ago
I just assumed Gabe would ascend to a type of tech godhood and be incorporated into the steam OS where he will issue bans to the non believers and steam sale discounts to the believers.
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u/TheGamingBoss20 3d ago
Like what Cave Johnson was wanting to do, let's just hope that Gabe lives long enough for a team of scientists to pour his brain into a computer.
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u/theLastZebranky 3d ago
In 120 years people will either be able to get these games as easily as you can download a torrent of every NES ROM today, or they'll be ringing their yards with barbed wire to stop bandits from stealing their rainwater barrels and potato plants
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u/KnoblauchNuggat 2d ago edited 2d ago
Living in the European Union(EU) you should never use a Torrent. If you have to, use a VPN, or the Tor Network with an external VPN.
Torrent is always sharing the data with others. You download and share your upload on the data. And that is illegal in EU with copyright stuff. They can and will track the IP.
If you use VPN with DDL(direct download) you are good to go. You are not sharing the copyright files and they have a really hard time(impossible) to track your download through the VPN.
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u/Kaining 3d ago
Honnestly, the future is looking blight on all front so i'd be happy if get 10 more years, let alone 20 or 30 tbh...
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u/radioheadfan0615 3d ago
very easy workaround for that person is to get on your account, make a steam family and add themself to it then thats that
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u/nothankyouthankyou 3d ago
My husband died in 2020. I was on his Steam family account but they updated the Steam Family at some point only like 1.5 years later. I lost access, and they’ve reverted to how it worked in 2020, but I don’t have access.
I would love it if there was a permeate version for the Steam Family, for members who have passed away.
I can’t fathom losing his Playtimes and profile… It’s important to me that his name and account stays up.
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u/Dapper_Preference907 3d ago
Wow. There is no way my wife would even think to memorialize my steam/Xbox/RuneScape accounts. That is really cool that you even thought about that.
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u/Lone_FighterSR 3d ago
I feel like they might just still delete the account after an amount of time is up. we won't know until steam get around being 80+ years old.
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u/radioheadfan0615 3d ago
if steam stays with the same amount of customer support they have now i doubt it. by then the games on the account will be dirt cheap anyway so it wont matter much to steam i dont think
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u/Lone_FighterSR 3d ago
as I said, we won't know how it all will playout for certain until many long years into the future, I'm hopeful I can pass on my stuff.
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u/rsjur 3d ago
How many of those games will still be playable in 60 years from now?
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u/SteamedGamer 13700k / 3080ti 3d ago
This is PC gaming. All of them will be, via patches, mods, remasters, or emulators.
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u/rsjur 3d ago
Not all. Remasters are also generally a different game.
I'm all for preservation of gaming, but I think it's silly to assume within 60+ years of legal, hardware/software advancements, every game on your current steam library will be playable let alone people will want to. I'm very happy GoG exists and only time will tell what happens.
I can easily see a world where you are forced to use roms to play the games instead of playing them from your steam library within a couple decades. Especially as more games are needing servers to even play single player games like 007 First Light.
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u/ShinyGrezz 3d ago
It's against TOS to stop you selling or "transferring" your Steam account. Steam hasn't existed long enough for this to be something that they could reasonably be concerned about. If Steam still exists in 60 years, where accounts could actually feasibly be owned by 90-100 year-olds, they'll almost certainly just facilitate some form of transfer at death. It's likely happened many, many times already, where someone dies and they just leave their account info with a friend or family member, and Valve does nothing to stop it from happening. In fact, Valve basically facilitates it already given Family Sharing is a thing.
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u/Jenna_84 3d ago
My stepdad is in his late 70s and plays games on steam daily so it's not implausible to happen sooner
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u/ShinyGrezz 3d ago
Yes but if he died today his account would be, max, 23 years old. I realise I misspoke - account will be able to be owned by 90-100 year-olds who've had the account for as long as possible, from when they were kids, not from a 70 year old who made an account in his late 40s. Thus, getting to the point where it is not actually reasonable for a person to have held the account for that long.
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u/HighlyRegardedOne 3d ago
You know China had something like this go through or is currently in their legal system LMAO
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u/Kirschpunkt 3d ago
They still check over eighteen years old accounts in areas which recently implemented age restrictions, from what I gathered. So I wouldn’t bank on anybody really doing this kind of checking, if the services run to that point at all anyway.
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u/saul2015 3d ago
eventually steam will end up in the hands of someone terrible and they will require ID verification after a certain point
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u/Mmmafan4594 3d ago
One problem.. Every single pirchase has a lifetime of 99 years and then it disappears fron your account. Leaving an account on the will should be made in such a way that the life of the games get reset by 99 more years. Only then, leaving the account in will, might help the descendents enjoy that collection of games
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u/LeGoatBronzo 1d ago
At that point it doesn't matter since most games copyright will only last 95 years.
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u/Prestigious-Ebb-3845 1d ago
Ya the 99 year thing is a myth it's a permanent license, the only things that can actually just vanish are online only games.
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u/JarlFrank 3d ago
China recently ruled that digital accounts containing things of value, such as games, movies, ebooks, etc which are tied to the account, are inheritable. Heirs have a right to these accounts and it is now illegal by Chinese law to forcibly delete someone's account in the case of death.
So if you're Chinese, you're in luck.
Perhaps the rest of the world will catch up eventually.
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u/salad_tongs_1 https://s.team/p/dcmj-fn 3d ago
Preface: I AM NOT A LAWYER. THIS IS NOT LEGAL ADVICE.
I'm gonna first just say, if someone in your family has your login info after you pass, it is not like Steam is going periodically check to see if they are the actual owner (If they need to open support tickets though, it could get trickier, they'd have to pretend to be you). I must emphasis that you still cannot do this. It is against the Subscriber Agreement. Not that they'd actually check. No transferring accounts. How would they know anyways? Don't do it. (DO YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT I AM SAYING?). Now if you did family sharing of your account before you died (time is made up), your family could still access most of your games.
I see a few other hurdles with this suggestion.
1 - Publishers would have to agree to this. Much like family sharing. They'd have to be given the option to opt-out. The way it works with licenses makes this kind of a shit show.
2 - Valve would need to implement and make a way to legally verify someone is dead, and confirm with the estate the person the account goes to has rights to it. This could potentially open Valve up to extra legal costs and hassle.
3 - Valve is a corporation. Corporations are not your friends. Corporations want your money. Yes this would be great for consumers. But there isn't much of a financial incentive for Valve to make such a thing possible.
In summary: It'd be a shame if you accidentally left your credentials to someone after you passed considering they couldn't use the account since Valve doesn't really check those things...
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u/Ciph3rzer0 3d ago
Yeah, we need to restore consumer rights and not let corporations restrict them with "licensing" scams
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u/CowabummerBatman 3d ago
I think even if Valve knew what was happening they wouldn’t care. They do not go after people for petty shit like this, I’m sure if this case ever were to happen and the person in question were to provide some sort of familial relationship, Valve would be ok with it.
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u/TheShadowman131 3d ago
No, they absolutely do care. You can even look on this subreddit and find instances of people admitting to steam support that it's their deceased relatives account, then getting locked out because it breaks their ToS.
All that being said, there's nothing stopping you from doing this, but the moment Valve is aware of it they will take action.
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u/CowabummerBatman 3d ago
I wasn’t aware of cases like that. Fucking sucks, I thought they had a little bit of class when it comes to account transfers like that.
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u/TheShadowman131 3d ago
I mean, they won't go hunting you down, just don't tell them anything they don't need to know.
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u/saul2015 3d ago
eventually steam will end up in the hands of someone terrible and they will require ID verification after a certain point
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u/That_guy_from_Poland 3d ago
Wasn't there court ruling in china exactly about that?
They decided that steam account has value to the family so it can be passed down as an item in the will
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u/ItsEvochron 2d ago
how would steam even know if we gave an account away? if they have all info about the account they would have no idea who uses the account
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u/No_Rise942 2d ago
Because people can't live 120 years?
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u/WhirledNews 2d ago
I consistently tell the Steam age check that I am well over 100 years old, it has no problem with that.
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u/DrMercio 2d ago
Do steam accounts have some sort of life span written in the contract?
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u/StormerSage https://s.team/p/hnck-ngk 3d ago
Just leave them the login info and don't tell anybody.
I'm pretty sure the reason for this is that Steam doesn't wanna touch probate court with a ten foot pole.
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u/tuff67mangomustard 3d ago
Is there anything stopping you from writing your username and password down and giving it to whoever you'd like to have it upon your death?
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u/MirthlessArtist 3d ago
I think technically it’s against terms of service
if I recall correctly, there have been a few complaints as well where steam support deleted an account because the user accidentally let slip that they were using an account owned by someone who passed away
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u/JohnHurts 3d ago
Under German inheritance law, what Valve has written in its terms of service is irrelevant. From a legal standpoint, a Steam account is just as much a part of the estate as a house, a car, or a Facebook account.
So the situation here is likely to vary by country.
Currently, there are only court rulings regarding a Facebook account, but that suggests that a similar ruling is likely to be made in the case of Steam.
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u/TheOneFriendYK 3d ago
It is, yeah, but who will gonna Stop you ? Steam Just Sees, that Somebody is using your Account, they can't See If it's u or Somebody you gave the Account to.
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3d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/c093b 2d ago
Not just Steam, but the whole of internet. It's still only about 40 years old. It has existed within one lifetime. Most social media sites aren't much older than 20 years. It's wild to think that if these companies still exist far into the future and their sites are still up, you'll be coming across photos, videos and comments that were made 100 or 200 or 300 years ago. Diving into "internet archeology" to find the oldest content, cultural behaviors, social media trends, trying to decipher what information from the past was factual and what was made up. Being able to look up your great great great grandfather's internet footprint, log into their Steam account and play their videogames. Or at what point will these companies just start deleting old data? Just wiping said history from existence? When will *ancient games no longer be purchasable, downloadable and playable? Also, subscribe to your great great great nan's OF?
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u/Ominoiuninus 2d ago
Usernames is the main thing. Those will absolutely be inherited down if they are unique / “rare” as they will have considerable value due to that
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u/Amogus279 3d ago
Just give them the username and password
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u/hongkong_97 2d ago
But then they need access to the email address to get verified, and likely also the mobile authenticafor app to get in. Guess you somehow have to disable 2FA right before you die.
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u/Adamantium47 2d ago
In this case too, comment still stands.... Give them the password to your phone
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u/SmolTittyEldargf 2d ago
All easily sorted.
Give email / password. Give recovery code for 2FA. As mentioned give phone for 2FA.
If someone is already going through the steps to pass on an (steam) account they may as well pass on everything else needed for it.
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u/brick_gnarlson 3d ago
Unironically? What purpose does this word serve in your sentence? Could you ironically give away your steam account?
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u/Ineedanswers24 3d ago
Yeah this is word is a bit trendy on the internet. It's often used in the incorrect context.
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u/FreeJulianMassage 3d ago
Say you’re giving them a steam account and when they open it up it’s actually an inaccessible EA Origin account.
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u/EtrnL_Frost 2d ago
I emailed Gaben with the idea that we could purchase a hard copy of our cloud saves/settings, so I could pass it on to my kids.
I'd love to will my library (1300), but I also kind of get it.
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u/altoshyft 2d ago
I grew up playing on my dads steam. He passed away awhile ago but i tried to shoot my shot to preserve his account but oh well
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u/Better_Run8 1d ago
I accidentally told steam I got my dads account they said it’s against the rules but did nothing
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u/Mortal_Smell 2d ago
Just bequeath to them all the relevant info they need in your will, e.g passwords for Steam and email, and have them change the payment method. How would Valve ever know? I guess once the account is over a century old? Will Valve last a century? How weird a thought is that? A century old video game company. Technically, Nintendo is well past a century old already at 137.
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u/Nattisonata 2d ago
When my dad died, I emailed Steam and they transferred his games over to my account. It was really easy.
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u/CL4P-TP-Minionn 2d ago
This is how you do it, just email them and figure out a way to make things work, companies like steam are very forgiving when you ask nicely
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u/razulebismarck 3d ago
Countries have laws stating you can do this.
The account has value and works like any other inheritable item.
My Steam Library has over 1,000 games in it. I’ve probably spent over $6,000 on my collection if not over $10,000.
That’s not a small amount.
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u/Ciph3rzer0 3d ago
What we need is the restoration of consumer rights. If you actually owned copies of the game, you could do what you want with YOUR property, including resale
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u/Lumpy_Employer_217 3d ago
Bro I do not want resale of digital videogames no one would buy games directly anymore singleplayer games would die over night. The only games that would be profitable to make money would be loaded with microtranactions because you would only be able to buy it from the developers. I remember Rockstar having the excuse that they are waiting to release on PC because PC players are cheap and wait out sales and buying stolen copys through G2A. Now imagine that after the first month every videogame that isn't loaded with microtranactions just stops being profitable. Developers would stop porting to PC all together
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u/MasterpieceThis3740 3d ago
Are we allowed to ironically give away our steam accounts?
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u/ahhowwitburns 3d ago
I die and my family's only inheritance is a digital copy of goat simulator 3
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u/Clothes_Chair_Ghost 3d ago
I mean you still can. Just don’t tell steam you are dead.
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u/GoldenMarky 3d ago
All you need is email and password. Steam wont know who is using it
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u/AzulZzz 2d ago
I think they'll suspect something when a 140-year-old player keeps logging into the account to play.
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u/buffaloguy1991 2d ago
If they ask I'll tell them to just tell valve I eat vegetables and don't smoke
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u/DonQuix0te_ Don’t make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back! 3d ago
In some countries, you ARE unironically allowed to do this, and the only reason steam doesn't honor it is because nobody has dragged valve to court yet.
IN germany for example the law is unabiguous. The person that inherits enters into the deceased's contracts in the deceased's stead.
This means, that legally speaking, the Inheritor BECOMES the contracting party. There is no legal mechanism for Steam to say "Nope, the account doesn't belong to you"
Of course, Valve CAN refuse to let you into the account you legally inherited!
And of course, any court would tell them to fuck off with that bullshit, grant access, or face the consequences.
But as long as nobody brings a case, no court will issue a ruling!
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u/Mertoot 2d ago
As someone who lives a very dangerous lifestyle and could die any day, I wholeheartedly agree
This is one of the major flaws of Steam currently
Like why can't I legally leave my account with all its history and value to a family member in the case of my death?
It deserves to live on and provide value to people coming after me
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u/nabrok 2d ago
I feel like it's less a flaw of steam and more a flaw of the law.
Not just for steam either, but any digital content.
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u/DarthKarver 3d ago
What about Family Sharing? If your family member has a Steam account, they can have access to all your games.
The thing is I have no clue whether account gets suspended or something if you're not active for a year or so, because in that case the login would indeed needed to be passed down the generations.
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u/bloodjunkiorgy 3d ago
I'm pretty sure nobody would know if you left your account to somebody. There's basically no enforcement.
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u/Gendreau113 3d ago
Other then steam has a badge showing your years of service, and I feel like someone might have a few questions when it says "113 Years of Service" 😂
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u/Alita-Gunnm 3d ago
By then life extension will be further along. Maybe we can upload ourselves to Steam for a backup.
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u/I_follow_sexy_gays 2d ago
No you see this was never my steam account i actually bought this for my future grandchild, im just buying some games for them. And I gotta test the games so I can tell them which ones are good
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u/Vanman04 3d ago
What's stopping you?
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u/laplongejr 3d ago
Forbidden by Steam's TOS. Your "purchases" are lost upon death.
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u/DasFroDo 3d ago
As it turns out I’m eternal and only completely change my personality every ~80 years. Isn’t that wild?
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u/mr_mlk 3d ago
Way way back in 2013 I looked into this for different digital estates, out of the services I used (1), only iTunes at the time supported inheritance of digital content.
I suspect the case is worse now with many platforms now using subscription models.
- To save a click: Dark Horse Comics, Comixology, iTunes, Amazon, Google and Steam.
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u/Stormsword14 2d ago
Can people not just give someone their login information? I don't understand how they would enforce this.
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u/daban9 1d ago
The discussion that's been going on recently is about the fact that in the steam user agreement they state that you are not allowed to give someone your account under any circumstance, which brought up the fact that you won't be able to leave your account to your relatives when you die. As for how they'll enforce it, they probably won't be able to do it reliably, they'd have to go by a case by case basis which wouldn't be worth it. However, the discussion is more about how things will be in the future, like when an active account is 100 years old, they'll know it's not being used by the person who created it. And that's when they'll have to make the decision on wether to enforce it on a large scale or not.
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u/PlayerOne_X 3d ago
Not gonna lie, but if my dad gives me his account, I'll get a few thousands worth of games. He's been built games during sales when they're at their lowest for years now and has over 300 games with only around 800 to 900€ spent on his account, and he has some real bangers
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u/Sufficient-Power6809 3d ago
I have 579 games with only 380$ spent on them lol, bug part of it is adding anything free to library though, but I do like and play almost all of them so it still counts
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u/dacamel493 3d ago
You can tell how much you've spent on games on an account?
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u/AnimuuStew steamcommunity.com/id/AnimuuStew 3d ago
If you go to Steam Support > Data related to your Steam account > External funds used, you can see exactly how much you've spent on Steam. It doesn't count things like what you've bought through selling on the Steam market though.
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u/Action_Man_X 3d ago
Steam DB has a calculator specifically to tell you how much you've spent on an account.
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u/LordOfHamy000 2d ago
My understanding is value don't forbid giving away the account, they just won't change the associated email? So if you give someone the email address value aren't going to come knocking to take the account away.
They just don't want the liability of the transfer.
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u/Danny_ZL 2d ago
Valve lets you change your email, password, phone number, Steam Guard, country, payment method, and username; the only thing you can't change is your account name (something only you can see and it's the name you use to log-in)
Valve gives you all the tools to transfer your account and doesn't require identity verification or biometric fingerprinting
The fact that this activity is prohibited in their terms of use is primarily a legal recourse; if you don't say anything, Valve doesn't do anything
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u/lost-plot 3d ago
My brother LOVED the Need for Speed series, he spent a lot of time making really intricate designs on his cars, if I had the ability to log into his games and look at them, it would be, just, everything. I remember his excited smile as he would show me the newest one he made. I wish I had paid more attention.
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u/Personal_River_4908 21h ago
Sadly on Steam you've 0 ownership, yall give up ownership when you gave up dvds
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u/SamDragontear 13h ago
If buying isn't owning piracy isn't stealing. Probably the only perk of everything being online is it's easier to get for free in some cases.
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u/LadyAelanu 3d ago
I mean...just leave the username, password, and phone with the authenticator attached (with pin/pattern code) in your will. Problem solved.
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u/Available_Budget_805 3d ago
yes I want my children to be able to play the full Brazilian drug dealer trilogy
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u/JohnSmithDogFace 3d ago
You wrote this like you thought it was going to be controversial, but no one thinks this is controversial. It's against Steam's TOS, but it's not really enforceable.
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u/Spirited_Switch2903 2d ago
Needs to be a new law. You should also be able to sell, trade or simply give away any game of your choosing. Actual ownership instead of this current clown shit.
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u/Gaming_with_Hui 🌈Gamer Girly~🌸 3d ago
I mean.... Couldn't you just give all the login information in the will?🤔
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u/Vesper_Fall_Rift 3d ago
The password is the easy part. Steam Guard codes go to your email, so if whoever ends up with the account can't also get into that inbox, the password won't do them much good.
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u/CosmicBewie 1d ago
I’ve had the same issue, you ask one person for help they say no. Then ask if you can speak with someone else and they help you out.
It’s absolutely wild how different customer service is person to person in the same company.
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u/tominicz 1d ago
Be careful what you wish for. POOF
Now your account is able to be passed to somebody after your death, but it is wiped of all purchased content due to licensing and this happens automatically thanks to centralized system that services periodically ping to know if you died.
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u/Aleister_Growley 3d ago
We should start a petition, how else will I be able to leave my futa hentai games to my nephew?
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u/Big-Reporter3498 3d ago
Just leave all your passwords in a safe place where family or friends can find them once your gone.
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u/West-Objective-6567 3d ago
This is one of those things that’s against policy but not strictly enforced, leaving your log in info in your will really won’t cause any issues
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u/KalElKent821 3d ago
I just want my son to have my games when I die. Thankfully I have tons of games on gog too but still
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u/TheSpoonyCroy 3d ago
Gog has the same tos term as well sadly. This can only really be changed when the laws are changed to enforce digital ownership
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u/zveti 3d ago
I think, the best solution, would be to create a steam family, invite the people you want your games to share with.
This way, your games won’t collect digital dust for an eternity. It’s better than nothing.
Otherwise I agree, we should be allowed to give our Steam account to our kids, once we go into the great beyond.
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u/Sea_Shirt9900 3d ago
You can just leave them a letter with the account names and passwords and everything else they would need to sign in and reset the email
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u/M0rg0th1 3d ago
You can do it. Leave your account information to whomever you want to pass it on to.
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u/Inky-The-Cephalopod 3d ago
I don't want people to see the games I have in my account
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u/PlayerOne_X 3d ago
I don't think I want to see the games you have on your account after reading this
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u/xXInfXx 3d ago
It's called a Will. As in, you will something to happen.
You don't HAVE to put your Steam account in the will.
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u/CHILLAS317 3d ago
This reads like it was written as a hot take, but I doubt you'll find anyone who thinks otherwise outside of Valve's legal team
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u/xclame 3d ago
It's not really up to Valve though. If Valve wanted to do this they would only be able to let you pass your account with your Valve games. With all the other games, the publishers would need to allow that to happen and none of them would allow that because it means less game sales for them.
But like others are saying, there is nothing stopping you from just leaving the log in info behind. Valve isn't going to go checking obituaries to check if you died and as long as you don't tell them you will be fine.
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u/raw-power 3d ago
It’s back to the “if buying isn’t owning” argument. If you own the games, you can bequeath them to whomever you want.
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u/bdu-komrad PC and Steam Deck 3d ago
Except for the hentai tentacle games. Those should be deleted.
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u/Far_Bar_7020 3d ago
I don’t know if I want to bequeath to my kids and my grandkids the UNHOLY BACKLOG.
I say this jokingly of course. I have yet to process the reality of digital profiles persisting after death.
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u/tchernobog84 3d ago
We should, but this would need legislation support. Contact your representative
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u/BringMeBurntBread 3d ago edited 3d ago
I still honestly think that only reason Valve explicitly says you can't do this, is because they don't want to be held liable for someone's Steam account after their passing. It opens up Valve to a shit load of legal headaches if they openly supported people being able to transfer their accounts to other people as if it were a title of ownership.
I'm almost certain that if you actually did this, and gave a family member your Steam account login details, Steam isn't actually going to do anything about it. They just don't want to be involved, that's all. That's why they say you can't do it, so they can't be held liable for whatever happens.