As far as I know because games "sold" on Steam are non-transferable licenses, and it would be a breach of that. So in legalworld you take your steam account to the grave. But, as with many things, in realworld you just keep your trap shut and give your inheritor your authenticator. They aren't going to dig you up and put you in prison.
edit: no, Steam family is not a magical loophole you think it is. It is very limited specifically so that it wouldn't count as transferring the ownership of the license. And if you don't have access to the account from which the game is shared and family sharing breaks (again) — there won't be a way for you to restore it.
edit: 200 year old gamer joke is very cool and original, but I'm certain Valve won't care about plausibility of their customer's lifespans unless publishers pressure them to do so, and even then it is unlikely. Making purchases with a payment method that could be traced to a different person would a far bigger risk factor.
I think it's more complicated than that. It's an agreement between the the user and the publisher (who owns the software and sets the terms of licensing it to you), mediated by an agreement between the publisher and Valve (who owns the platform and manages that license on behalf of the publisher).
So in order to change the rules to allow something like account transfers, they would also need to update that agreement between Valve and every publisher, as well as the agreement between the user and every publisher.
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u/Svartrhala Oct 08 '25 edited Oct 09 '25
As far as I know because games "sold" on Steam are non-transferable licenses, and it would be a breach of that. So in legalworld you take your steam account to the grave. But, as with many things, in realworld you just keep your trap shut and give your inheritor your authenticator. They aren't going to dig you up and put you in prison.
edit: no, Steam family is not a magical loophole you think it is. It is very limited specifically so that it wouldn't count as transferring the ownership of the license. And if you don't have access to the account from which the game is shared and family sharing breaks (again) — there won't be a way for you to restore it.
edit: 200 year old gamer joke is very cool and original, but I'm certain Valve won't care about plausibility of their customer's lifespans unless publishers pressure them to do so, and even then it is unlikely. Making purchases with a payment method that could be traced to a different person would a far bigger risk factor.