Valve doesn’t allow Steam account transfer after death and players aren’t happy

Steam profiles are as important to their owners as physical game collections, and what happens to them in the event of a person’s death is a major concern for many. Now, a support message from Valve has confirmed that it is not possible to transfer profiles after death, and players aren’t happy.

Digital exclusive gaming is a controversial topic now that Valve has overtaken the PC gaming space, with Steam being the go-to place for digitally buying games. A peculiar Steam policy has now come to light, and fans are concerned for the preservation of their accounts.

Valve is very strict about who can use your Steam account besides yourself. Officially, your account cannot be transferred to anyone under any circumstances. This means that, on paper, your Steam account dies with you, and this has left players furious.

Valve/Steam

Though this policy is stated in Steam’s terms and conditions, players still aren’t pleased with this policy gaining attention when a fan asks Steam Support directly about the subject. “What?! I think they need to fix this. People are not immortal, so digital game purchases should be transferrable to inheritors.”

Though PC games were prominently on Floppy Discs and CDs in the past, more recent times have seen many turn to digital downloads, sacrificing physical media for convenience.

“What a terrible precedent, too bad PC players chose digital and doomed us all,” one player said.

Interest in the issue has turned attention to how other companies deal with the subject of handle accounts of those who’ve passed away.

“Feels like this is something that needs to be litigated. I can give my cartridges and discs to my daughter when I die, but not my Steam account?” one response read. “I would think we should have the ‘freedom’ to do such things. I kind of get why we don’t, mind you. I just really think we should.”

Though this is a morbid topic, it does ignore the rather simple solution: Simply share your Steam account details with your family to preserve your digital game library and in-game inventories. Valve will never manually delete an old account. “So long as the family has access to the account, they would never shut off an account that’s, say, over 100 years old.“