The Irrevocability of Steam: Rules Against Transferring Accounts or Games to Others, Even with Testamentary Provisions in Place.

Last week on ResetEra, users discussed the issue of transferring digital game rights on the Steam platform following a user’s passing. Steam’s support team responded that Steam accounts and games cannot be transferred to others, even if the account owner has passed away or designated an heir. In practice, Steam does not know if users have left their login information for their heirs, but the Steam Subscriber Agreement clearly states that a Steam account is strictly for the legal user only. Sharing login information with heirs would violate the terms of the agreement.

Going back to 2013, an article in the Santa Clara High Technology Law Journal expressed the opinion that digital content can be transferred to the heirs of deceased users if a legal copy of the content is on a device like iPods or Kindle e-readers. However, if the heirs want to download games to a different device or reinstall in case of a hard drive failure, legally they are not allowed to do so.

In a similar vein, in the past year, The Completionist YouTube channel purchased and downloaded all digital games for 3DS and Wii U onto their device before the Store closed. The intention was to donate these games to the Video Game History Foundation, but platform usage agreements prevented him from doing so.

Source – ResetEra via Arstechnica

TLDR: Steam does not allow the transfer of accounts or games to heirs after a user’s passing, despite legal opinions on digital content transferability.