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After you die, your Steam games will be stuck in legal limbo
(arstechnica.com)
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I think everyone is eager to have Steam let them "pass on" their games...but if that happens, there'll probably be a lot of...
It'd be nice if there were an easy solution, but I don't think there is one.
I'm not even defending Steam here. If you want DRM-free games, buy from GOG. Steam has more games, and sometimes lower prices...but you're not buying a game that you own. It was never a secret. Hence why they marketed it as a Steam Library. You can use whatever you want in the library, but you own none of it.
A lot of the problems are already solved by probate/estate/etc.
Like, if you had property at a bank, you'd need a death certificate which you'll have requested tons of if someone you loved died... along with potentially some sort of proof that you were the rightful heir (Worst case, you'd establish this through probate, likely going to end up being a simple document). This would be more overhead for steam, but usually not complicated documents once everything is settled. As for splitting up the account, your steam account would probably be classified as a singular item and any attempts to break it up in a will would likely just end up being void.
Agreed on both counts
OTOH, Steam is an international company, and there are different standards and such for death certificates across the world. So Steam would have to have some expertise in verifying death certificates from any country they operate in.
Increasing overhead and liability when they'd probably earn very little good will is usually not the best business strategy. I don't think they'd do it unless they were legally compelled to.