Steam's new disclaimer reminds everyone that you don't actually own your games, GOG moves in for the killshot: Its offline installers 'cannot be taken away from you'

Gaming IndustrySteam’s new disclaimer reminds everyone that you don’t actually own your games, GOG moves in for the killshot: Its offline installers ‘cannot be taken away from you’When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.

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(Image credit: Valve)

Steam logo

Steam has apparently made a little change to its shopping cart page in the form of a new message that very clearly lays out to one and all that you’re not buying a game—you’re buying a license.

The message itself is very brief: “A purchase of a digital product grants a license for the product on Steam.” A link to the full Steam Subscriber Agreement is also provided. The change follows on the heels of Valvemodifying its subscriber agreementlast month to remove a forced arbitration clause.

(Image credit: Valve)

Steam checkout page showing new “purchase of a digital product grants a license for the product on Steam” message.

I added the red so you wouldn’t miss it.

While the message may be new, the reality behind it is not. For practical purposes, all you need to do is forget your Steam password to get a real (if hopefully temporary) sense of just how much you “own” your games; if you really want to take the plunge, you could engage in some public, gross violation of Steam rules (repeatedly, if necessary) to have your account, and all “your” games taken away entirely. You can’tbequeath your Steam libraryto anyone upon your unfortunate passing either, which of course you would be able to if you really owned its contents.

Conversations about whether or not anyone actually “owns” their games or other digital content have been going on for years: ThisHacker Newsforum thread from 2012, for instance, warns users to read the Steam subscriber agreement carefully because software purchased through the storefront is licensed, not owned.

“As nice as Steam is to use, being able to download software on any computer in a fairly simplistic manner and to get reduced prices from time to time, I’m not convinced that giving up the right to own things you purchase is a fair price for that convenience,” just2n wrote in a message that feels like it came from about 100 years ago.

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So if the absence of ownership on Steam isn’t new, why the new message? My assumption is that it arises from recent pushback against game publishers ending support for online games, rendering them inoperable, and in some cases revoking the licenses to those games outright. That too is nothing particularly new, butUbisoftbroke the camel’s back earlier this year when itended services for The Crewand stripped the license from people who had purchased it. That sparked a “Stop Killing Games” consumer campaign and, more pointedly, a newCalifornia lawthat requires retailers to warn consumers that the digital games they buy can be taken away at any time—as this message does.

Never missing an opportunity to weigh in on such matters, GOG took amomentto mull a checkout message of its own.

(Image credit: GOG (Twitter))

Since checkout banners are trending, we’re thinking of putting one up ourselves. Thoughts on this one?

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