With Valve's Steam gaming platform approaching the US drinking age this year, more and more aging PC gamers may be considering what will happen to their vast digital game libraries after they die. Unfortunately, legally, your collection of hundreds of backlogged games will likely pass into the ether along with you someday.
The issue of digital game inheritability gained renewed attention this week as a ResetEra poster quoted a Steam support response asking about transferring Steam account ownership via a last will and testament. "Unfortunately, Steam accounts and games are non-transferable" the response reads. "Steam Support can't provide someone else with access to the account or merge its contents with another account. I regret to inform you that your Steam account cannot be transferred via a will."
This isn't the first time someone has asked this basic estate planning question, of course. Last year, a Steam forum user quoted a similar response from Steam support as saying, "Your account is yours and yours alone. Now you can share it with family members, but you cannot give it away."
Potential loopholes
As a practical matter, Steam would have little way of knowing if you wrote down your Steam username and password and left instructions for your estate to give that information to your descendants. When it comes to legal ownership of that account, though, the Steam Subscriber Agreement seems relatively clear.
"You may not reveal, share, or otherwise allow others to use your password or Account except as otherwise specifically authorized by Valve," the agreement reads, in part. "You may... not sell or charge others for the right to use your Account, or otherwise transfer your Account, nor may you sell, charge others for the right to use, or transfer any Subscriptions other than if and as expressly permitted by this Agreement... or as otherwise specifically permitted by Valve."
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Turns out quite a few lawyers have apparently already considered this:
Vučković, Romana & Kanceljak, Ivana. (2019). DOES THE RIGHT TO USE DIGITAL CONTENT AFFECT OUR DIGITAL INHERITANCE?. EU and comparative law issues and challenges series (ECLIC). 3. 10.25234/eclic/9029. [source]
EDIT: Interesting read so far. German Federal Court of Justice already had a case of bereaved parents suing Facebook to access their dead daughter's messages on the platform under German inheritance laws – the court sided with the parents, ordering Facebook to give them full access to the locked "memorial" profile and the sent messages. Though that's a different issue than inheriting a game store account, still the main argument of universal succession was upheld for a digital contract:
"The most important argument was that their daughter’s contract position is transferable according to principle of universal succession. BGH explained that the provisions of terms and conditions do not explicitly exclude inheritability"
Mind you, that was a very specific case where the daughter died in a suspect way and the parents wanted to find out whether it was a suicide or not – quite different case from Steam account inheritance, plus Germany obviously uses a variant of Civil law, so precedents don't really work the US way.
EDIT2: "In other cases, for example in case of accounts created for purchase and music listening, there is no such justification for non‑transferability. Courts should declare such clauses unfair and accordingly null. Additionally, it can be argued that the principle of universal succession should in some cases prevail over the non-transferability clauses" and "When it comes to the inheritability of digital data and digital content, since there are not any special rules in the inheritance law in Croatia applicable in this case, principle of universal succession also applies".
The authors argues that digital inheritance is basically already true under their existing laws in most cases and any licence terms against that automatically invalid*, but that a provision of digital inheritance should be put into later EU directives, as it would simplify it for the heirs, not having to resort to lengthy court procedures. The article was written before the Digital Goods Directive and DSA came into effect, so it might not be entirely up to date. Even if GDG and DSA would likely only strengthen that position of digital inheritability.
Interesting read indeed, even if IANAL!
*: Generally, under the EU law, most licence terms or ToS that contradict legal provisions or take away consumer rights are not only automatically null and voided, but even just publishing such illegal ToS can get the company doing so a pretty hefty fine from the regulator.