You Can’t Take Your Steam Games With You; Can’t Leave Them To Someone Either

So Much For Your Legacy Of Untouched Games

Someone recently reached out to Steam support to inquire about how to leave their Steam library to someone in their will, and the answer they received probably shouldn’t surprise you.   There is no official way to transfer ownership of Steam games while you are alive, and your death will not change that fact.  That said, in the legalese contained in your official Steam Terms and Conditions exists a clause which mentions games can be transferred if “specifically permitted by Valve.”

That may not let you officially transfer your entire library but might allow for the transfer of some in specific situations.  Of course, Valve doesn’t have a way to tell if you accidentally left your Steam login details in your will.  That would certainly provide access to your library but would definitely be a breach of Terms if they did eventually find out.  Not so much a problem for you, but it could be for your beneficiary.

There is one other possibility to transfer your library legally.  Ars Technica mentions a 2013 Santa Clara High Technology Law Journal article, which indicates it should be legal to transfer your games if you have actually downloaded them all to a drive or four.  They could never be legally transferred off that drive, but the drive could be transplanted to other devices, or you could build a massive Steam game cache on a NAS.