I’m guessing Steam decided against being able to leave your games to somebody else when you die because of how most EULAs I’ve read work: they are often non-transferrable licence and so in most cases the store has no choice in the matter. Now GOG are willing to say they will do what they can given this limitation, but I can see why Steam wouldn’t: it’s a whole lot of work for realistically not much benefit. It’s probably easier for Valve to gift the same games over to the new person.
And from the corporate side of things, it’s not very business savvy to miss out on an entire generation or two of gamers buying games.
If you and I are parents and our Steam library has 1,000+ games, our child likely wouldn’t buy those games. But if they need to create a steam account for themselves, now those games are back on the table, securing future revenue for Valve.
There’s workarounds sure, like family sharing or just ignoring the ToS and sharing passwords. I think the real tell will be for our grand/great grandchildren, for once we are 100 or 120 then Valve will probably start wondering… Is averyminya really still alive and kicking, or did he share his library?
“In general, your GOG account and GOG content is not transferable. However, if you can obtain a copy of a court order that specifically entitles someone to your GOG personal account, the digital content attached to it taking into account the EULAs of specific games within it, and that specifically refers to your GOG username or at least email address used to create such an account, we’d do our best to make it happen. We’re willing to handle such a situation and preserve your GOG library—but currently we can only do it with the help of the justice system.”
That’s a very fancy way of saying “we’ll comply with a court order”, which is what any business would do.
This is marketing fluff. DRM free is good enough reason to like them without framing them as fixing literally every problem with steam.
I’m guessing Steam decided against being able to leave your games to somebody else when you die because of how most EULAs I’ve read work: they are often non-transferrable licence and so in most cases the store has no choice in the matter. Now GOG are willing to say they will do what they can given this limitation, but I can see why Steam wouldn’t: it’s a whole lot of work for realistically not much benefit. It’s probably easier for Valve to gift the same games over to the new person.
Aren’t all the games on GOG DRM-free? If so, there’s not much difference here than giving someone a USB drive filled with the installers.
No, they’ve had DRM games for many years now.
Not many, but some.
And from the corporate side of things, it’s not very business savvy to miss out on an entire generation or two of gamers buying games.
If you and I are parents and our Steam library has 1,000+ games, our child likely wouldn’t buy those games. But if they need to create a steam account for themselves, now those games are back on the table, securing future revenue for Valve.
There’s workarounds sure, like family sharing or just ignoring the ToS and sharing passwords. I think the real tell will be for our grand/great grandchildren, for once we are 100 or 120 then Valve will probably start wondering… Is averyminya really still alive and kicking, or did he share his library?
That’s a very fancy way of saying “we’ll comply with a court order”, which is what any business would do.
This is marketing fluff. DRM free is good enough reason to like them without framing them as fixing literally every problem with steam.