A grieving father reached out to the Steam community on Reddit, asking for a way to pass on his late son’s games. Unfortunately, Valve’s rules are pretty clear in such cases.
This is the father’s story: On December 31, 2024, a grieving father addressed the community on the Steam subreddit. As he explained, his son has a massive collection of games on Steam. However, his son tragically died in October.
Now the father wants to know if there is a way to pass on his son’s games. So maybe someone could still benefit from it and at least something good would come out of the situation.
The grieving father emphasizes that it will probably be some time before he feels ready to deal with it. However, he doesn’t want to simply close his son’s account – that would feel like it would wipe out his existence.
In addition to expressions of condolence, the community is quick to offer advice – but also warns the father.
WoW player moves you to tears with tribute to her father
More videos
Autoplay
Community warns: Steam shouldn’t find out about this
This is how Steam sees it: The platform’s rules are pretty clear. In principle, it is not possible to give away a game that is already in the library. So the father can’t just pass on his son’s games.
The community also warns: The father should under no circumstances let Steam know that the original owner of the account has died. Because then the user account could simply be closed – the games and the son’s souvenir would be lost.
According to Steam’s usage guidelines, users are not allowed to share their account login details or transfer them to another person. Inheritance is therefore also excluded. Valve only confirmed this in May when asked by a user.
Our colleagues at GameStar wanted to know from an expert what the law actually looked like and asked a lawyer whether you could inherit your game library. You can find the answer on GameStar PLUS.
In this way the father could preserve the memory of his son
Is there a solution? The community advises the father to set up a Steam family. In this way, his son’s account would be preserved, including all playing times, achievements and leaderboard entries. At the same time, his friends as members of his family could access his games.
That’s not how Valve intends to use this feature, but as with transferring the account, “What Steam doesn’t know…” probably applies.
The father explains that he cannot yet bring himself to access his son’s PC. For now, he wants to keep the account and maybe play a few games on it one day – even though he thinks his son wouldn’t be too happy if he “ruined” all of his stats (via Reddit).
Steam’s rules are so tough in such cases because, strictly speaking, users do not own the games they purchase. The platform itself now reminds you when you purchase that you are only purchasing one license. The right of use expires upon death. However, some users also report that Steam sometimes makes an exception in such tragic cases and allows continued use of the account.