Checkmate Valve

Nahh dude has a bigger years of service then steam's age
- This screenshot is from 100 years in the future.
- If you look very closely, you can see its Photoshop!

Another example of a company making clear that we don't truly own the games we play on their platform.

The solution is GOG (their business model).

You get the individual keys, no DRM.

A couple of years ago my gog exceeded my steam library. Pretty good considering I have around 500 on steam.
.... But wait till you find out how many of those I've actually played... 🙃😓😢
- And to how many already played games you return to bcs not enough energy to start a brand new game (especially with rich/complex lore).
  Yeah.

Yeah my kids basically took over my steam account already on the family gaming computer. Alas.

Your gaming alias now is a generational family name. All hail the House of Sparkles.
- I look forward to the day when I pass my screen name on to my son...

The family sharing works okay but the old school way is good too.

I think they might start getting suspicious when the account age is double the average human lifespan and is still in use.
- Not true as I've often been born on January 1st in the early 1900's.
- Assuming valve still exists at that point.
- but by that point, whoever the inheritors of the account were have probably been paying money and adding new games to it for decades. why would valve destroy their relationship with that customer just because they might still technically have access to some hundred year old games that either don't even run on modern systems, or might even be public domain by that point?
- Nah, because while it would be very easy to implement something like that, it would require specifically doing it. Programmers have 3 reasons for writing code
  It's cool. It's necessary. I was told to do it in exchange for money
  (And the secret fourth reason, it just kinda happened. I was building this related thing and I realized it'd be stupid easy to toss it in...I was in a fugue state and I have no idea what I wrote, but it's some of my best code ever)
  Devs don't generally care about this kind of thing, and most of the time neither do the business folk. This kind of unnecessary crackdown only comes up when consultants like McKinney, who I've recently learned are the reason everything sucks
- By that time, all the games you bought now will be public domain.
- But will they care if the account continues buying games? Is it easier to let it slide, or force someone to make a new account, there by pissing them off?
In Australia we don't have family sharing for some stupid reason
- I dunno if it's "family sharing" or some other thing, but I can play games from my sister's library through some means that I set up a couple of years ago.
I cannot imagine they’re going to keep family sharing as is - currently a couple of buddies and I shared a family account and now we all have access to over 700 games. I only had to coordinate with one of them, we all basically chained off each other. The abuse must be massive.
- I was under the impression that if someone is playing a game from your library you can't access it unless you boot them out (or you put steam in offline mode, meaning no updates or multiplayer for the duration). Is that no longer true?
- How is that abuse? Imagine how many viruses you'll be avoiding by legitimately sharing games with your friends.
- I started elden ring from a family share recently, friend hasn't gotten the dlc so I'm just getting to experience the main game for free before deciding if I actually want to spend 80 on the game and dlc

That won't work for long. With the way things are going, we may get expiring accounts after 100 years from your date of birth you registered with.

That's not gonna stick, steam can't remember birthdays. And I'm pretty sure everyone told it multiple times we were born January 1 1901
- I would trust steam wouldn't do it but epic and Microsoft will
1901-01-01?

I think they said you can't transfer the license between accounts, but they never said anything about turning over the account

Transferring your account to another person is against the TOS of most services.
- Only if they catch me ;)
I think the TOS include that you are not allow to tell your login credentials to anyone?
- Good luck to anyone trying to enforce that lol
- Sssssshhhhhh steam doesn't need to know

Your children can inherit your GOG library. Buy DRM free!

Or just pirate lmao

That’s how we’re still using my Dad’s account, it’s mostly used by my brother, but shared with the other gamers in the family

This policy is literally against the law in the EU... Wait... double checks notes In the.. US? huh... normally it's the European Union protecting us from big tech bullshit

I got three kids, I wrote down my steam login in all their baby books page 1.

I hope the password is kid friendly
- Bignutsforchicks9000

GOG being the absolute BOSS; u will be able to leave your library as your legacy for future generations.

Well yeah, you just get the non DRM installer and dump it in your NAS, done
Anyone know how well GOG can work on Linux? Steam+Proton works really well with very little tinkering
- Their Galaxy client seems like it'll never get there. Fortunately we have Heroic Launcher, and it pretty much rocks! I'm fully confident I can enjoy the vast majority of my games on Linux now.

Where did they say this?

In response to a customer support message. https://www.resetera.com/threads/to-anyone-who-is-curious-no-you-cannot-transfer-your-steam-account-via-a-will-you-can-only-take-your-games-to-your-graves.875634/
- I think this is more of a defence against scammers honestly, with a convincing enough scam you could make valve belive an account holder was dead and you're a family member wanting to transfer their account to yours.
  Hell, I saw my dead friend's account message me in Russian, contacted support about it, and all they could do was remove the hacker's access, not even lock or delete that account.
  And how could they? Unless you have your full name, address, and other identifying information somewhere on your account (strongly ill-advised, obviously) Valve can't cross check it with a death certificate and take action, for all they know you could be cooperating with the hacker or submitting fake information to "prank" your friend by getting their account removed.
  Allowing account transfers would open a whole new can of worms.
  Just write down the password and login if you know you're going to go. I don't think Valve under Gabe would have issues with that. Though I do worry for its future

I'll never have kids.

My niece though will have a thorough education on sailing the high seas when she's old enough to choose media on her own.

🏴‍☠️

Such is the freedom of capitalism