• Fubarberry@sopuli.xyz
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    5 months ago

    If steam did allow transfers this way, I can imagine it being a new type scam where people fabricate death documents to steal steam accounts.

      • Fubarberry@sopuli.xyz
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        5 months ago

        Oh for sure, but it’s definitely a concern for stuff like this. It’s a lot easier for valve to just expect people to pass login info down as a way to pass on an account.

        Valve actually migrating purchases from one account to another risks upsetting publishers, and requires whole new policies on how to verify death and verify who should receive the account. Finally there’s the risk of scams and having to resolve them. Overall it’s a lot of headache for valve, I’m not surprised they’re not jumping to offer it officially.

    • BananaTrifleViolin@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      True but ultimately this is about ownership - we don’t own our games. We license them - that is what is lost with Steam and DRM, and moving away from physical media.

      GOG is an alternative in that you can download and back up the installers for your games (mostly) but even then do you own your ganes?

      • jqubed@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        You’ve never owned your games. You owned the media they came on but legally you only ever had a license to use the software. Depending on the license agreement (the thing where most people click “I agree” without reading) you had more or fewer rights, such as transfer of license, but the way things work legally ownership of software seems to mean the more of the copyright ownership. Maybe like a book: you own your copy of the book but you don’t have the rights to print more books or make a movie based on the book.

        • CheeseNoodle@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          With physical media those licenses didn’t materially matter though because a contract you can’t read until after a purchase is automatically void in court.

          • piccolo@ani.social
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            5 months ago

            Copyright is automatically applied rather you want it or not. Licenses are granting you permissions to use the media without violating their Copyright. Having a physical copy simply means a publisher cant restrict access to your copy because they turned off their servers… (atleast before the age of zero day patches…).

          • jqubed@lemmy.world
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            5 months ago

            Which is why those license agreements generally had a clause that if you disagreed you could return the software with all the media for a full refund.

            I’m not saying it’s the right way, just that’s how it’s been structured legally. Of course, in the days of physical media with software that couldn’t phone home it was harder to enforce those licenses if people didn’t strictly adhere to them. The software companies didn’t generally find it worth going after individuals if they found out about violations either. Corporations, on the other hand… I worked once at a media company that Adobe caught running a lot of unlicensed software. The story went that it was so bad at the main office their auditors found a copy of After Effects or something similarly ridiculous on a computer that was used as a cash register in the corporate cafeteria. That was very much worth Adobe’s time and money to get the lawyers involved, and became a very expensive problem for my employer. I wasn’t involved in the problem, but I had to check and clean my local office, where we found about a half-dozen computers with unlicensed software.

            • Aceticon@lemmy.world
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              5 months ago

              It makes no difference.

              They’re trying to impose an obligation or task on a customer after the purchase, even if it’s only the customer having to go through the trouble of getting the refund (which is a task they were not informed about before the purchase).

              If it’s not before the sale it’s void and even in some cases before the sale (for example bait and switch, were you’re mislead with fake contract conditions until the last minute) it’s void.

              The whole point is that they must be clear upfront about any conditions attached when the customer is making the decision to buy and adding any conditions after the sale is not acceptable even if the seller gives options (such as refunds) because the customer has a right to use the product under the conditions at the time of the sale and cannot legally be forced otherwise, including forced to refund.

        • MudMan@fedia.io
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          5 months ago

          Owning media and owning the copyright to the media aren’t the same thing. There is a well recognized right to resell and transfer physical media, regardless of what the EULA says. You can’t sell more copies, but you absolutely sell (or gift, or leave in a will) the copy you have. The question here isn’t whether you should have a copyright on your digital purchases, it’s whether your rights to digital purchases should be analogous to your physical purchases.

    • PM_Your_Nudes_Please@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      Realistically, the transfer would likely need to be set up ahead of time via the account holder. For instance, my password manager has a function to allow me to designate a beneficiary. But importantly, that beneficiary assignment must come from my account before I die. If I die without designating a beneficiary, there’s nothing my family can do to gain access to my password vault. Only the accounts I have designated will be able to gain access.

      In other words, in order to falsely designate a beneficiary, they would already need access to my account. And at that point, they wouldn’t need to deal with death certificates and beneficiaries, because they already have access to my account.

    • MudMan@fedia.io
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      5 months ago

      I’d like you to read what you just wrote very slowly and imagine it’s somebody else saying it, just to visualize if it’s an absolutey bonkers thing to say.

        • MudMan@fedia.io
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          5 months ago

          I’d like you to read what you just wrote veeeeery slowly…

          • Kairos@lemmy.today
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            5 months ago

            Yes, I know, and people should have access to them. Just share passwords with loved ones and they can take the items out eventually. Steam needs to do things like this because publishers are assholes who want it.

            • MudMan@fedia.io
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              5 months ago

              This is absolutely not true. The publishers get very little of a say on what Steam does, as evidenced by the fact that a bunch of them, including Activision and EA, arguably the two most powerful third party publishers, left in a huff over fees and microtransaction revenue splits… and then came back because Steam is the only game in town.

              So no, Steam isn’t the good guy having their arm twisted by evil publishers, they are a large corporation that invented most of the practices in both digital distribution and games as a service, including this one.

      • Lad@reddthat.com
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        5 months ago

        New tinder bio: “need a woman to birth me a child that will inherit my Steam account on the day of my demise”

    • pdxfed@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      Between my birthday of 1/1/1901 and unlicensed game inheritance, shit is going to go down in the next 50 years. We’ll have AI legal reps for powerful firms requesting a statement of all software licenses by the deceased, challenging them, and then having a court order the rest null.

      I hate that I will be right about that.

  • Baggins [he/him]@lemmy.ca
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    5 months ago

    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.

      • orrk@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        ya, but as an LLC you get a lot of rights that you didn’t have before!

          • Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works
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            5 months ago

            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.

          • Kirca@lemmy.world
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            5 months ago

            “Your honor, ‘bonerdragon6969420 llc’ has a long and industrious history…”

      • ____@infosec.pub
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        5 months ago

        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.

      • FireTower@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        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.

        • shottymcb@lemm.ee
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          5 months ago

          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 😞

          • shottymcb@lemm.ee
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            5 months ago

            Not in Arizona. You don’t even have to live there, just have to file there.

      • AppleMango@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        Almost 10 times less where I live, but not sure because I don’t know which dollars you’re referring to

        • SymbioteSynapse@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          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.

    • Emmie@lemm.ee
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      5 months ago

      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.

  • Siegfried@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    Do they check? Or can i just give my password to my homie in a letter

    "Dear homie,

    if you are reading this, it means that i’m on the long path to meet with master Kaio to train my ass off to death in the afterlife. Until we meet again, this is my user and pass of my steam account.

    PS: i didn’t bought the porno VR games. Someone gifted them to me.

    Your bro in eternity,

    Siegfried"

    • udon@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      Bro, but what about the credit card receipt for porno VR games, signed by Siegfried? What about the warranty card for the porno VR games, filled out by Siegfried? What about the book “Porno VR Games and Me (This Sort of Thing is my Bag, Baby!)” by Siegfried?

    • Agent641@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      Gabe is riding to your house in a SWAT van as we speak. Resist, or don’t, your death is inevitable either way.

    • lawrence@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      It’s a bit more complicated. Besides the Steam credentials, you also need to share your email and its password. You need to provide your mobile phone unlocked or share its password (for SMS and two-factor authentication).

      • Jo Miran@lemmy.ml
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        5 months ago

        I have reached a place where I genuinely don’t care about anyone seeing my browser history.

        FBI: “Mr. JoMiran, did you spend an hour browsing through Peggy Hill cosmic horror hentai?”

        Me: “Meh. I found most of the tentacle detail work lacking and the exaggerated breast size off-putting.”

  • Lad@reddthat.com
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    5 months ago

    When you’re dead but someone has got into your steam account and is about to find all of your anime titty games

  • Reminds_Me_Of_Reddit@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    Who’s notifying Valve someone with an account has died? Link the dead person’s account to a steam family and enjoy the inheritance.

    • ssj2marx@lemmy.ml
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      5 months ago

      This isn’t a huge deal yet but I suspect that if it becomes a huge deal we might see companies start trying to verify their oldest accounts.

      • telllos@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        You’re account is tied to an email address, you just give the email address as well.

    • Takumidesh@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      If you will a steam account to someone, there is a chance that there are disputes/claims for the account that need to be settled in court.

  • MudMan@fedia.io
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    5 months ago

    To be absolutely clear, this is not new. Steam accounts being non-transferrable and not your property has always been how Steam’s terms work. It’s not even the first time the death situation comes up.

    Because digital ownership sucks, and that absolutely, very much includes Steam. If you can’t keep an offline copy you don’t own it.

    But honestly, given the new family groups Steam came up with this gets weirder now. Other accounts that are more closely tied to hardware are one thing, and I do wish we had a more effective and reliable way to hand over passwords and credentials to relatives in case of emergency, but it’s so weird that now your mom can have an accident and you slowly see the games she was sharing with you over that system fade away as her account gets shuttered. It’s such a grim, sci-fi distopian piece of minutia. This is not a great timeline we landed on.

    • Jesus@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      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.

      • crossmr@kbin.social
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        5 months ago

        https://publicknowledge.org/eu-court-when-you-buy-software-you-own-it/

        The EU has already taken care of it.

        The Court of Justice of the European Union found that a
        copyright owner exhausts the right of distribution to a copy of a computer
        program once he sells, or authorizes the sale of, the copy. This means that whoever purchased the
        computer program can resell it and the copyright holder cannot control the
        resale of the copy. The Court found that
        this exhaustion principle applies whether the copy is on a tangible medium like
        a CD-ROM or DVD or an intangible download from the Internet, and it also
        applies to corrected and updated programs that the copyright owner sells. Furthermore, the Court made clear that contract
        clauses that deny the customer the right to transfer his copy of the computer
        program are void.

        • Sanctus@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          So, we can in the EU? But they provide no way of doing so without giving the account over.

          • crossmr@kbin.social
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            5 months ago

            Yes, like refunds it’ll probably get sorted the first time someone’s estate with a bit of money tries to will it to someone and then they take Valve to court/make a complaint to the EU.

      • tias@discuss.tchncs.de
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        5 months ago

        When you buy something you should be able to pass it on or sell it to someone else. This “the software not sold, only licensed” BS should be illegal. Either you rent with a monthly fee, or you buy it and own it. Owning something means you can sell it to someone else.

  • xia@lemmy.sdf.org
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    5 months ago

    Sounds ripe for a legal challenge, but neo-ownership of digital-goods is already so fragile.