“And to my son, I bequeath my steam account - user is blah and password is blah”
Checkmate steam
blah!@birthday-ssn
The article goes into that and states password sharing is against the Eula so technically they can kick you off the service if they find out… IF they find out wink wink
Old and busted: Pretending someone’s alive for their Social Security check
New hotness: Pretending someone’s alive for their Steam account
4 generations later: “I’ve inherited my father’s steam account just as he inherited it from his father and so on. The library has grown ever larger, and yet so many remain untouched. The summer sales have sustained my forefathers and yet I feel hollow. Each year, more games are added to this historic account, but each year brings more regret as the purchases go untouched. I shall make a promise to myself: finish the extensive library, honor my family, complete the library. But first, some more Counter Strike.”
Dang, they’ll kick my corpse off Steam…
I mean it is not sharing if you are dead, it is bequeathing
You can’t just bequeath bankruptcy!
I bequeath bankruptcy!!!
I bequeath deez nutz to Jo mama
But I was already planning on leaving mine to my son.
Guess he just gets my username and password.
Note to self, turn off 2fa before I die
I left the 2fa on! Too la
Can you be in the steam family group with a dead person?
Yea but you need the owner account to authorize the computer. So next time you upgrade or wipe your gaming rig you’d be screwed unless you find a bypass and if you’re working that hard, just have the password+mfa
Check out the new Steam Family Beta. My friends and I are now a polyamorus “family” as far as Steam is concerned. I can play their games, they can play mine, didn’t have to touch each other’s computers, and live in separate households.
oh I do hope they have improved it. When we started with steam the game borrowing was pretty great but now she can’t be online when I borrow a game which is just dumb.
The new system is “they can’t be playing the game you want to borrow at the same time”. My friend and his partner were awkwardly sharing a copy of BG3 before we tried the Family Sharing beta, now if I’m playing something else they can both play at the same time using my copy.
What Stream support have sent that person is probably an accurate representation of what happens when you apply their policies as written. Write another article if they are seen enforcing it.
Luckily, SteamDRM is usually easy to bypass, so if that happens one could prepare accordingly.
The difference is that your Steam account is probably holding thousands of dollars in value while your pirated copies of Steam games are worth nothing. And presumably that whichever of your grandchildren gets nerdy gran’s stash will likely not care to reverse engineer your warez archives just to play Bioshock again in 2075.
It’s not about access to the games, it’s about whether you own what you buy.
I personally don’t value them differently, but I see your point.
The wonky ownership of these games is actually the reason I’ve been pretty much exclusively buying stuff on GoG for a few years. I don’t know their stance on inheritance, but at least the hypothetical grandchild won’t need perpetual access to the account to keep playing the games.
In the end, clear legislation is kinda the only thing that can resolve this mess.
These days a will should include documentation of logins. No need to bypass Steam DRM when my relatives have my phone’s PIN and email credentials to just access all games. Pretty sure my local laws cover digital inheritance.
Yeah, my point was, if they do try to enforce their policies, we could probably find a way to work around it. It’s probably cheaper and easier than for your heirs to test those digital inheritance laws in court.
Life Pro Tip: Register an LLC to buy your steam games under. The LLC will never die and you can transfer ownership of the business entity while it retains control of the steam account.
Register a religious organisation/church worshipping digital media and proclaim that this account is part of religious rituals of your church. In the United States, freedom of religion is a constitutionally protected right provided in the religion clauses of the First Amendment.
$800/year is a lot to save maybe $1000 worth of games. At least that’s what an LLC costs where I live.
Almost 10 times less where I live, but not sure because I don’t know which dollars you’re referring to
US dollars. I’m in California, which is probably one of the most expensive states to get an LLC but still. Even at $100/year I’m probably not getting my money’s worth. Digital games don’t hold their value unfortunately.
Woah, that’s expensive AF. I think forming an LLC in my state is like $25 and then nothing except tax burdens on revenue.
I kind of want one anyway. Is there a real reason I shouldn’t do this?
Tldr: Don’t do this unless you have a business that requires a steam account for tax purposes. It doesn’t need to be successful but it does need to be real.
Trusts are probably a better option for this sort of thing than a LLC.
Just do benchmark videos on youtube or something. Then rake in the sweet, sweet business losses.
Disclaimer this was a joke I’m not a lawyer and I have no idea if this would actually work… 😆
Would be hilarious if it actually does and everyone starts doing it…
I am now curious how and if Steam bothers to deal with business licensing? If they do, it’s probably way pricier than what you’re normally paying.
“Your honor, ‘bonerdragon6969420 llc’ has a long and industrious history…”
You normally pay an annual fee to keep your LLC registered.
There’s at least 10 states with no annual fee. Arizona is $50 to file, $0 annual fees, and no annual report to file.
If you’d prefer your company to have voting rights, you can file in Rhode Island, and your company can vote in local and state elections without ever stepping foot in the state. Hooray late stage capitalism 😞
Also I think you are required to submit yearly financial reports.
Not in Arizona. You don’t even have to live there, just have to file there.
Personal use of business assets is generally frowned upon by the IRS.
That’s why I’ll only play during work hours.
As others have pointed out - costs a few bucks annually,and requires beneficial ownership report (free IIRC).
Otherwise, it’s a tried and true tactic to pass businesses down through generations. An LLC vs. a corp vs a trust is a convo to have w/ lawyer barred in your state but the general premise is vaguely sane.
That’s a lot of effort just to play HuniePop
ya, but as an LLC you get a lot of rights that you didn’t have before!
And to my treasured grandson, I leave my steam account details written on an old napkin.
Damn, I guess I am living forever now.
It’s unlikely that would survive a lawsuit. If they claim the games have value, as evidenced by then having a price, then that value can be transferred.
Not in the US at least, no. Our media ownership rights are non-existent.
All I have to do is leave the username and password to my steam account and email address to someone else in my will. 🤦♂️
Shhh take your sensible nonsense somewhere else, we want outrage and shitting on everything here
Having a workaround doesn’t mean there’s no problem
R U SERIUSSS?!!1 wait a minute, I don’t have a steam account…dag nabbit…
Does this apply to developer accounts? Because if so this would be dumb as fuck.
Does steamworks not have a notion of a parent organization or enterprise? That’s what most other design and development tools do.
If someone leaves, the parent enterprise remains, and new people can be added to the enterprise and can be granted rights over the content.
I’d argue that it’s dumb as fuck either way.
Why is there even a debate about this? You need emulators to play 10 year old games, maybe twenty. In 60 years you’ll need who knows what to be able to play it. The question is whether people will want play them at all. There might be a VR with anally plugged interface which would lack support for hand controllers.
What they dont know wont hurt you
But I want to hurt them, a lot
Then do it anonymously
Then come fucking stop me
So sad I won’t be able to bequeath “Fifty Shades of Fur - Gay Erotic Visual Novel 18+” to my grandchildren
