Can Steam take my games like Amazon can take Kindle books?

[Eccentric Gentleman]

Yesterday I found out that Amazon can remove purchased books form anyone's Kindle library and even remotely go into anyone's Kindle and remove any books contained on it. And they can do this at any time for any reason they want.

This was very concerning to me, Not only because I had just bought a Kindle (which I will now be returning) but also because I have been using steam for years and almost all my games are on it. What's more, some PC games are only available as Steam downloads. The only hard copies were for consoles, and I gave up being a console gamer because console games are often only compatible with that console, they stop making them eventually and don't always include backward compatibility for new models.

I've done some internet searching to find out if Steam is similar to Kindle.
Some people say it is, that we don't own what we buy and if Steam shut down we'd lose all our games. But I think that last part only applies to online multiplayer.
Others seem to say that Steam cares more then Amazon, that they promise to create a "permanent offline mode" if they go under.

But I couldn't find anything either way to answer the question, can Steam take my games remotely? So I put the question to you.

[Brian9824]

Opprinnelig skrevet av Eccentric Gentleman:

Opprinnelig skrevet av Bee:

OP, Steam only pulls games in cases of fraud and they won't "delete" anything from your PC.

Back to the main issue though, instead of returning a perfectly good Kindle just download Calibre like everyone else and organise and store your books that way.

Edit: Also, things like the "Orwell" incident happens very rarely.

When you say "pull" do you mean off the Steam store or off my PC?
And what is Calibre? Some kind of e-reader app? How is that different from Kindle?

Every digital store even on consoles reserves the right to remove games from your account if you committed fraud.

None of the stores ever do so unless there is fraud however.

it's no different then if you bought something in the store and never paid for it the store could have police come to seize your goods as they are stolen.

[JellyPuff]

The worst, thing VALVe ever did to accounts as far as i know were store and community bans, so you'd only able to access your Library and nothing else.

In many countries, purchasing a digital license is seen as a good you own. You don't own the game itself (as in the intellectual property), but you own that particular instance of it in your library.

The story looks different, with services, like Google Stadia...

[Bee🐝]

Opprinnelig skrevet av Eccentric Gentleman:

Opprinnelig skrevet av Bee:

OP, Steam only pulls games in cases of fraud and they won't "delete" anything from your PC.

Back to the main issue though, instead of returning a perfectly good Kindle just download Calibre like everyone else and organise and store your books that way.

Edit: Also, things like the "Orwell" incident happens very rarely.

When you say "pull" do you mean off the Steam store or off my PC?
And what is Calibre? Some kind of e-reader app? How is that different from Kindle?

Steam will only ever pull/revoke a game from your library if there was some kind of fraud involved. For example, a game was bought from a shady third party site that sells dodgy keys or if a chargeback was made. Even then, Steam won't actually delete those files from your PC, you just won't be able to play the game.

Calibre (https://calibre-ebook.com/) is a popular free program that's used to organise ebooks and does like 599 through with plugins. In the case of the Kindle, it provides a logical and WAY easier method to move ebooks and documents from your Kindle to your PC. It also allows you to convert books to different formats; great if you have two different brands of e-readers using different file formats or, if like myself, you need to convert AZW3 to epubs for accessibility reasons (text to speech). It will also allow you to locally backup your amazon library so you always have a copy of your books even if they do get pulled.

Edit: Anyway, Amazon has only ever deleted files in extreme cases so the chances that that happens to you is minuscule.

[Eccentric Gentleman]

Opprinnelig skrevet av Bee:

Opprinnelig skrevet av Eccentric Gentleman:

When you say "pull" do you mean off the Steam store or off my PC?
And what is Calibre? Some kind of e-reader app? How is that different from Kindle?

Steam will only ever pull/revoke a game from your library if there was some kind of fraud involved. For example, a game was bought from a shady third party site that sells dodgy keys or if a chargeback was made. Even then, Steam won't actually delete those files from your PC, you just won't be able to play the game.

Calibre (https://calibre-ebook.com/) is a popular free program that's used to organise ebooks and does like 599 through with plugins. In the case of the Kindle, it provides a logical and WAY easier method to move ebooks and documents from your Kindle to your PC. It also allows you to convert books to different formats; great if you have two different brands of e-readers using different file formats or, if like myself, you need to convert AZW3 to epubs for accessibility reasons (text to speech). It will also allow you to locally backup your amazon library so you always have a copy of your books even if they do get pulled.

Edit: Anyway, Amazon has only ever deleted files in extreme cases so the chances that that happens to you is minuscule.

Is Calibre legal?

[Eccentric Gentleman]

Opprinnelig skrevet av Idontexist:

Are you trying to defraud steam? That's what this thread sounds like. If any of the platforms that you mention actually recieve your money with no chargebacks then you have no worries about them removing the product. You have no need to return your kindle unless you plan on somehow defrauding Amazon out of books. This is how all digital media platforms work. They CAN block you from content but only will if they've been ripped off.

Well I think you should see the video that stared this thread...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JgcbtxURA4

[Brian9824]

Opprinnelig skrevet av Eccentric Gentleman:

Opprinnelig skrevet av Idontexist:

Are you trying to defraud steam? That's what this thread sounds like. If any of the platforms that you mention actually recieve your money with no chargebacks then you have no worries about them removing the product. You have no need to return your kindle unless you plan on somehow defrauding Amazon out of books. This is how all digital media platforms work. They CAN block you from content but only will if they've been ripped off.

Well I think you should see the video that stared this thread...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JgcbtxURA4

No real need, its just scare mongering. Literally every online service you use has that caveot and as its been repeatedly said its ONLY for fraud and extreme cases. Something the average user will never see.

[Eccentric Gentleman]

Opprinnelig skrevet av Bee:

Steam will only ever pull/revoke a game from your library if there was some kind of fraud involved. For example, a game was bought from a shady third party site that sells dodgy keys or if a chargeback was made. Even then, Steam won't actually delete those files from your PC, you just won't be able to play the game.

So they CAN do things to my Steam platform remotely? And how is that different from deleting it?

[Brian9824]

Opprinnelig skrevet av Eccentric Gentleman:

Opprinnelig skrevet av Bee:

Steam will only ever pull/revoke a game from your library if there was some kind of fraud involved. For example, a game was bought from a shady third party site that sells dodgy keys or if a chargeback was made. Even then, Steam won't actually delete those files from your PC, you just won't be able to play the game.

So they CAN do things to my Steam platform remotely? And how is that different from deleting it?

No difference, they can delete a license to a game and if that game uses Steam DRM you won't be able to run it. That occurs if you do a chargeback for instance and steal the game.

No different then every other digital store, and how physical stores work. If you steal anything the store has the right to re-possess it as you don't own it.

They don't just do it for no reason.

[JellyPuff]

Opprinnelig skrevet av Eccentric Gentleman:

So they CAN do things to my Steam platform remotely? And how is that different from deleting it?

You'll get a big, yellow-bordered window telling you which game has been revoked, if you get a game revoked. You have to actively opt out into Steam not showing you that particular window anymore by ticking a checkbox inside it.

There are 3 instances where this might happen:

1: You've bought a key from an unauthorized grey-marketplace. Keys there are resold by individuals, with the source of the key completely unknown to the buyer. Most of the keys are just from cheap physical copies, game bundles or bought during sales from an authorized reseller (who gets their keys from publishers directly) and then flipped on these grey-marketplaces. Some of these keys may be aquired via credit-card fraud, however. In the case of the fraud being detected, the credit-card company will charge-back the original source of the game keys and that source will then revoke the affected keys.

2: You've bought a Steam key from an authorized reseller, but requested a refund. Pretty straightforward - you get your money back, they revoke the refunded game.

3: Some kind of store exploit or pricing error. Most of the time, though, publishers will accommodate for this, if it hasn't yet been highly abused.

[ShelLuser]

I also have a Kindle (the only lame part is that you can only buy books if you have a credit card) and well, I doubt that Amazon would "just" remove books.

Last year I requested a refund for a specific book because I really didn't like it. Because I pretty much never do that my request got granted. Yet during the procedure I was explicitly requested to remove the book from my Kindle. I sincerely doubt that Amazon would make such a request if they considered it common practice to "just" override what's on your Kindle.

[Brian9824]

Opprinnelig skrevet av ShelLuser:

I also have a Kindle (the only lame part is that you can only buy books if you have a credit card) and well, I doubt that Amazon would "just" remove books.

Last year I requested a refund for a specific book because I really didn't like it. Because I pretty much never do that my request got granted. Yet during the procedure I was explicitly requested to remove the book from my Kindle. I sincerely doubt that Amazon would make such a request if they considered it common practice to "just" override what's on your Kindle.

Could use amazon gift cards. Don't need a credit card to buy them.

[gia]

they can, they have, and they were berated for it until they reverted, I think

[ShelLuser]

Opprinnelig skrevet av brian9824:

Could use amazon gift cards. Don't need a credit card to buy them.

No, that doesn't work. Amazon requires the use of a creditcard in order to buy e-books for the Kindle, no way around it. It doesn't matter if you have "store credits".

[Brian9824]

Opprinnelig skrevet av ShelLuser:

Opprinnelig skrevet av brian9824:

Could use amazon gift cards. Don't need a credit card to buy them.

No, that doesn't work. Amazon requires the use of a creditcard in order to buy e-books for the Kindle, no way around it. It doesn't matter if you have "store credits".

Are you buying it thru the kindle or the store? I buy kindle books all the time from the website with my amazon credit.

[ShelLuser]

Opprinnelig skrevet av brian9824:

Opprinnelig skrevet av ShelLuser:

No, that doesn't work. Amazon requires the use of a creditcard in order to buy e-books for the Kindle, no way around it. It doesn't matter if you have "store credits".

Are you buying it thru the kindle or the store? I buy kindle books all the time from the website with my amazon credit.

The website... and the moment I try to use "1-click" it demands that I provide a credit card. I also verified this with Amazon themselves last year and they confirmed that you cannot buy Kindle books without a creditcard. So I can only assume that the account you're using has one linked.