Selling Steam accounts

[Orel_CZ]

Hello, the seller GamesGuruEU did try to sell me a GIFT game, including a newly created account. He has quite a busines of it. I wanted to contact Steam support, but I am not able to find any direct contact. Does Steam enforce this policy? Or is account selling common and I shouldn´t puzzle myself over it?

I can provide transaction details if someone interested.

[Kage Goomba]

Originally posted by Tito Shivan:

Buying an account is buying tickets for the disaster lottery.
Now it may look innocuous. But wouldn't be the first they bought an account and year (and many games) later finds themselves locked out of their account because they cannot provide proof of that purchase the original owner did.

Seen it happen enough times.

Step 1: Buy account
Step 2: buy games on account
Step 3: use account
Step 4: 4 Months later you are banned for using someone else's account "unauthorized access" (Timing is variable)
Step 5: get into fist fight with bank for money you spent on someone else's account.
Step 6: Seller of account - laughs hard for causing chaos/mass destruction. (Note he did this for watching the world burn - not for profit)

Moral of the Story - just don't do it.

[Hammer Of Evil]

if he's caught doing it, his accounts will be terminated. you only need to send a report for it, the account will be flagged and reviewed in time.

[Kage Goomba]

Originally posted by SlowMango:

Originally posted by Kage Goomba:

Correction...

Physical Media of the age (past tense) was the game + license to use said content.

Today the content won't come with any physical media - not without it being locked up by some kind of encryption or other that DRM will unlock provided you have license to use said content.

Things used to be very simple back then.

This is why I loathe cloud games - because the content is all server side and not physically local.
I prefer Switch Cartridges for that reason - no internet access required.

For now anyway.

Also not sure what planet Artoria came from but people resell Nintendo Cartridges all the time - including Switch.

So may want to come out from under your rock.
If it wasn't allowed - Gamestop wouldn't risk their business licenses/permits as a reseller to do it in the first place.

Doesn't take a genius to figure this out.

The license is tied to the physical medium. Essentially, ownership of the medium is ownership of that license.

While the license itself cannot be transferred, since it is tied to the physical medium, it kinda can.

Well it can be transferred by definition - tomayto tomahto - but yes we agree.

Fine print talks about license transfers on various things like warranties - but even then - Steam isn't this thing - that's for sure.

[Coffee]

Originally posted by SlowMango:

Originally posted by Artoria:

Well either way, if someone setup a street stand somewhere (where it was legal) and started selling off all their games, pretty sure they wouldn't have the same result of being ignored like gamestop does even if all they were doing was selling the physical disks or whatever, its still copyrighted content.

As for as piracy goes which is a second topic, most of it isn't even done in the US. Its mostly in countries where people complain they can't afford games because publishers sell in US converted dollars to their currency. And its kinda a double sword there, cause people from turkey, venezuala etc (as two examples, turkey I've seen popup lately on here of the exchange rate) complain that they can't afford games and then everyone says "you can't play games then overthrow your country or leave steam forever" and instead that just makes them go to the black market, which both things are wrong as first results in mass death (and comes off as pretty elitist and rude), second is illegal obviously.

Except that's literally what a garage sale and flea market is.

Still in the TOS it says all content belongs to whatever company made the game, I guess content can be taken differently than I take it by meaning just the content inside the disk or whatever it is.

Either way, outside of my one experience, I still got ripped off, and also I lost my game cause cant buy it anymore (not cheaply anyway) lol. Wasn't very smart.

And also kinda moot, everything is digital in some way these days anyway and old games barely work on windows 10 and 11 unless you get it from GOG.

[Boblin the Goblin]

Originally posted by Artoria:

Originally posted by SlowMango:

Except that's literally what a garage sale and flea market is.

Still in the TOS it says all content belongs to whatever company made the game, I guess content can be taken differently than I take it by meaning just the content inside the disk or whatever it is.

Either way, outside of my one experience, I still got ripped off, and also I lost my game cause cant buy it anymore (not cheaply anyway) lol. Wasn't very smart.

And also kinda moot, everything is digital in some way these days anyway and old games barely work on windows 10 and 11 unless you get it from GOG.

The content on the physical medium does belong to the company, that's correct. This prevents you from copying, transferring, etc. the content from the physical media to another physical media unless authorized by the owner.

The trick is that the license is tied to the physical media. The physical media is used to verify ownership of that license. Whoever owns the physical media, owns the license.

[Kage Goomba]

Originally posted by Artoria:

Originally posted by SlowMango:

Except that's literally what a garage sale and flea market is.

Still in the TOS it says all content belongs to whatever company made the game, I guess content can be taken differently than I take it by meaning just the content inside the disk or whatever it is.

Either way, outside of my one experience, I still got ripped off, and also I lost my game cause cant buy it anymore (not cheaply anyway) lol. Wasn't very smart.

And also kinda moot, everything is digital in some way these days anyway and old games barely work on windows 10 and 11 unless you get it from GOG.

You're confusing "privilege" with "right"

The whole point is they have the "right" to revoke your "privilege" if given reason to do so.

Generally they really don't care until you do something stupid.
Read the fine print and stop and consider common sense in terms of what you intend to do.
If you have to ask - if you have suspicion - you shouldn't be doing it.
Keeps you from getting ripped off or dealing with other challenges.
Works well for me at least.

Researching is your friend.

Also you clearly have little to no experience running old games on Win 10 - works quite well over here.

Can't speak to 11 - but I suspect it won't be that much different.
when in doubt there's always Virtual Machines.

[Coffee]

Originally posted by SlowMango:

Originally posted by Artoria:

Still in the TOS it says all content belongs to whatever company made the game, I guess content can be taken differently than I take it by meaning just the content inside the disk or whatever it is.

Either way, outside of my one experience, I still got ripped off, and also I lost my game cause cant buy it anymore (not cheaply anyway) lol. Wasn't very smart.

And also kinda moot, everything is digital in some way these days anyway and old games barely work on windows 10 and 11 unless you get it from GOG.

The content on the physical medium does belong to the company, that's correct. This prevents you from copying, transferring, etc. the content from the physical media to another physical media unless authorized by the owner.

The trick is that the license is tied to the physical media. The physical media is used to verify ownership of that license. Whoever owns the physical media, owns the license.

fair enough. I think we pretty much agree with each other really. Just a little part ways because dont really like loopholes to begin with, BUT as long as I guess its legal what gamestop does its not a problem. Again not like it matters too much, almost everything is digital these days.

[Boblin the Goblin]

Originally posted by Artoria:

Originally posted by SlowMango:

The content on the physical medium does belong to the company, that's correct. This prevents you from copying, transferring, etc. the content from the physical media to another physical media unless authorized by the owner.

The trick is that the license is tied to the physical media. The physical media is used to verify ownership of that license. Whoever owns the physical media, owns the license.

fair enough. I think we pretty much agree with each other really. Just a little part ways because dont really like loopholes to begin with, BUT as long as I guess its legal what gamestop does its not a problem. Again not like it matters too much, almost everything is digital these days.

Unfortunately.

[RANGER]

Never buy and sell accounts, if you bought an account the seller can always provide ownership later on by providing first used CC details and take it back.

Even if seller is not scammer there is high probability of getting PERMANENT ban from Steam. It just doesn't worth the risk of using the account knowing that you can be banned anytime. Just create your own account and use it.

[C²C^Guyver |NZB|]

Originally posted by Artoria:

Well either way, if someone setup a street stand somewhere (where it was legal) and started selling off all their games, pretty sure they wouldn't have the same result of being ignored like gamestop does even if all they were doing was selling the physical disks or whatever, its still copyrighted content.

As for as piracy goes which is a second topic, most of it isn't even done in the US. Its mostly in countries where people complain they can't afford games because publishers sell in US converted dollars to their currency. And its kinda a double sword there, cause people from turkey, venezuala etc (as two examples, turkey I've seen popup lately on here on the forums complaining of the exchange rate) complain that they can't afford games and then everyone says "you can't play games then overthrow your country or leave steam forever" and instead that just makes them go to the black market, which both things are wrong as first results in mass death (and comes off as pretty elitist and rude), second is illegal obviously.

Those games that had Steam keys with them wouldn't work anyway because they would already be tied to a Steam account. So selling them would be worthless.

[Kage Goomba]

Originally posted by C²C^Guyver |NZB|:

Originally posted by Artoria:

Well either way, if someone setup a street stand somewhere (where it was legal) and started selling off all their games, pretty sure they wouldn't have the same result of being ignored like gamestop does even if all they were doing was selling the physical disks or whatever, its still copyrighted content.

As for as piracy goes which is a second topic, most of it isn't even done in the US. Its mostly in countries where people complain they can't afford games because publishers sell in US converted dollars to their currency. And its kinda a double sword there, cause people from turkey, venezuala etc (as two examples, turkey I've seen popup lately on here on the forums complaining of the exchange rate) complain that they can't afford games and then everyone says "you can't play games then overthrow your country or leave steam forever" and instead that just makes them go to the black market, which both things are wrong as first results in mass death (and comes off as pretty elitist and rude), second is illegal obviously.

Those games that had Steam keys with them wouldn't work anyway because they would already be tied to a Steam account. So selling them would be worthless.

Bingo - these guys don't do this for profit - they do it to watch the world burn.
If anything a possible bonus is compromising your information by phishing you with bait or something.

Info is where the money is at.
Selling anything is just a waste of time or effort as it will always backfire.

[Tito Shivan]

Originally posted by RANGER:

Never buy and sell accounts, if you bought an account the seller can always provide ownership later on by providing first used CC details and take it back.

I just remembered a nasty situation about providing Proof of purchase I read about in the old forums.

A couple were sharing the same Steam account, both purchasing games on it. Then one day the breakup happens. They both part ways in very bad terms. One of them keeps the account. But in revenge the other part requests support to recover the account. And since proof of purchase can be provided the account changes hands.

This goes back and forth for multiple rounds... Who knows how it finally ended.

Moral of the story: Using multiple individuals able to provide proof of ownership over an account is bound for trouble.

[RANGER]

Originally posted by Tito Shivan:

Originally posted by RANGER:

Never buy and sell accounts, if you bought an account the seller can always provide ownership later on by providing first used CC details and take it back.

I just remembered a nasty situation about providing Proof of purchase I read about in the old forums.

A couple were sharing the same Steam account, both purchasing games on it. Then one day the breakup happens. They both part ways in very bad terms. One of them keeps the account. But in revenge the other part requests support to recover the account. And since proof of purchase can be provided the account changes hands.

This goes back and forth for multiple rounds... Who knows how it finally ended.

Moral of the story: Using multiple individuals able to provide proof of ownership over an account is bound for trouble.

Exactly, not only that providing ownership might bring trouble but Steam may terminate the account permanently because it is against Steam ToS.

[Kage Goomba]

Originally posted by Tito Shivan:

Originally posted by RANGER:

Never buy and sell accounts, if you bought an account the seller can always provide ownership later on by providing first used CC details and take it back.

I just remembered a nasty situation about providing Proof of purchase I read about in the old forums.

A couple were sharing the same Steam account, both purchasing games on it. Then one day the breakup happens. They both part ways in very bad terms. One of them keeps the account. But in revenge the other part requests support to recover the account. And since proof of purchase can be provided the account changes hands.

This goes back and forth for multiple rounds... Who knows how it finally ended.

Moral of the story: Using multiple individuals able to provide proof of ownership over an account is bound for trouble.

Number 1 example taught in Security Discussions on why account sharing is strictly forbidden.
"The Breakup" Scenario.

Becomes a legal snafu and eventually results in no one getting the account back.

[סוויפטי]

Originally posted by Abigail From Sneaky Shrimp Dept.:

Originally posted by Low Standards:

I can't understand the reason for not allowing people to sell or give away their game to another user. I don't understand this question though.

Because digital goods don't degreade, so why would anyone buy a new game at that point when a "used" copy will be cheaper?

The eu just ruled you have the right to sell your digital copy. So in the eu. If lets sqy. Sup bro wanna buy my mk1 for 45 bucks. Steam should allow it. The decision came down today. They have grace period to implement it ofcourse.