When Resetera forum user delete12345 asked Steam support earlier this month if he could include his Steam library in his will, the staff at Steam provided confirmation. Unfortunately, the support member informed him that Steam games and accounts are non-transferable, meaning that users are unable to combine their contents with those of another account or grant someone else access to their account. “I regret to inform you that your Steam account cannot be transferred via a will,” was the reply.
The news upset the gaming community as a whole, with many asking whether there are any workarounds that will enable their departed loved ones to continue playing their games after they pass away. Some, on the other hand, have responded to the news with indifference, saying that it is simple to go around the policy by just giving another user the login information. After that, the inheritor can modify the credit card and other information without notifying Steam to the account’s ownership change.
Although this looks to be a workable solution for Steam’s limitations, several users have noted that this might just be a temporary fix. They said that if an account is used for longer than the usual lifetime of a person, Steam may look into it. The account may even be terminated in accordance with the terms and conditions of the company if they discover that the original user is no longer alive or in control of it.
Gamers won’t be able to officially transfer their Steam account to anyone as long as the current rules are in effect, however it’s unclear if Steam will change its policy on this topic in the future. This difficulty also draws light to the basic issue with digital purchases in general, which was brought to light more than ten years ago when actor Bruce Willis discovered he could not leave his daughters with his vast library of iTunes songs.
It is noteworthy that Steam users will now be able to share games with friends and family thanks to a new feature that Valve recently showed. Called “Steam Families,” it is restricted to Steam beta clients and is still in testing. It is expected that once it comes out of beta, Steam Family Sharing and Steam Family View will be replaced throughout the whole Steam ecosystem.