When I buy and download a game from Steam do I own it forever?

[BallzDragon_143]

I am just curious to know whether I'll be able to play the games even if they are removed from Steam or if Steam shuts down. I am talking about singleplayer games like Arkham and GoW?

[Castyles]

Not really, sadly.

Originally posted by BallzDragon_143:

I am just curious to know whether I'll be able to play the games even if they are removed from Steam or if Steam shuts down.

Yes to the first one, for the most part, at least and maybe for the second one. Only GabeN knows and everything around are but rumours.

[magicISO Sweden]

It is true that we do not own the games, however it may not necessarily be misleading the customers. This is the biggest difference between Steam and owning a physical copy or even buying a game on other DRM free services. Some people are confusing the licensing with ownership of a copy simple google search away

[Kargor]

You can usually play games after they have been removed. However, when Steam dies, where would the download and DRM infrastructure come from?

[Lone Wolf]

some my games are gone from steam the store pages are Deleted and gone but it still lets you download the game as you payed for it as for free two play when there gone there gone.

[Satoru]

People thinking they own the Mona Lisa because they downloaded a JPEG picture of it

[KuroSenshi]

Steam going down it's almost impossible.

[Haruspex]

Originally posted by BallzDragon_143:

When I buy and download a game from Steam do I own it forever?

"Forever" is an awfully long time. If you want to get specific, you don't really "own" the game, but you have unlimited access to it until your death, or the death of Steam. Whichever happens first.

Originally posted by BallzDragon_143:

I am just curious to know whether I'll be able to play the games even if they are removed from Steam or if Steam shuts down. I am talking about singleplayer games like Arkham and GoW?

If a game is removed from Steam and you already bought it, it stays in your library and available to you. I own several games that have been removed from Steam myself. An exception are certain games with an online requirement that shut down. "The Crew" from Ubisoft is a recent example that you can't play anymore thank to Ubisoft shutting down the servers.

If Steam shuts down, that's another matter, and honestly one I don't think anyone should worry about. Steam has been going strong for over 20 years now, and shows no signs of slowing down at all in spite of what the over-anxious fear-mongers say.

Years ago, Valve said in the unlikely and hypothetical event of Steam shutting down, they would probably allow you to download your games for a time before implementing a permanent offline mode patch for Steam. Personally I think Steam is so well established now that the idea of them shutting down isn't even a consideration anyone should worry about in the slightest.

[Tito Shivan]

Games in your account are there forever. Even if the game stops being sold on the store you still will keep it in your library to download and play.

If Steam closes? Well that's an apocalyptic scenario. It was stated by Valve Staff that measures would be put so you could still keep your games. Most plausible scenario would likely mean Steam giving users a window to download and backup their games and disabling of Steam's DRM on those backups. But we can only elucubrate.

As someone who lived over a game service closing down (Desura) I still have the games I owned there and backed up to my drive...

Originally posted by Satoru:

People thinking they own the Mona Lisa because they downloaded a JPEG picture of it

But... MUH APES!!

[SKARDAVNELNATE]

Originally posted by Satoru:

People thinking they own the Mona Lisa because they downloaded a JPEG picture of it

Well there seems to be two trains of thought on that right now. One is that people own that JPEG picture. The other is that they have a license which grants them access to the Mona Lisa.

Cue debate on whether the license treats all instances of the Mona Lisa the same whether is be a JPEG picture or the one hanging in a museum.

[matt]

Publishers can remove games from your Steam account if they want to. Ubisoft did that recently to an online game that shut down. It wouldn't have done any good to have it in your library, but maybe someone could have eventually reverse engineered it and set up unofficial servers. Ubisoft probably didn't want that. It may have also been a test to see how much people would complain.

[Haruspex]

Originally posted by matt:

Publishers can remove games from your Steam account if they want to. Ubisoft did that recently to an online game that shut down. It wouldn't have done any good to have it in your library, but maybe someone could have eventually reverse engineered it and set up unofficial servers. Ubisoft probably didn't want that. It may have also been a test to see how much people would complain.

"The Crew" remains in the Steam libraries of those who bought it, but it is unplayable.

Ubisoft did remove the game from owners on Ubisoft Connect however. It's now in a different section labeled "inactive games" and isn't downloadable at all.

[Kargor]

Originally posted by Haruspex:

"The Crew" remains in the Steam libraries of those who bought it, but it is unplayable.

Which is fine for an online game.

Just a few days ago, isthereanydeal told me a game was removed from my collection. Which Steam didn't tell me, and it wasn't -- but I guess whatever API they are using saw it as removed.

Still, they delisted it, renamed it on the store page -- and also tried to trash the depots. I don't know whether forum posts brought them to their senses, or the various people opening support incidents, but they did fix the depots again.

Store page is still trashed (other games just leave the store page with its images and descriptions intact, and only have Steam display the banner about the game being delisted), but that's not such a big deal. Still, it would make the good look better in the library too. Game is still renamed too.

There have also been reports of some keys having been revoked, but that particular thing didn't hit me. And, apparently, support did reinstate those licenses. Apparently, they just revoked some lists of keys, not all of them, for whatever reason.

There are still things that did happen in the past, though, like publishers re-using an app-id for a new game. Steam is still way too lenient when it comes to publishers being a-holes.

[GGcake]

best to get games from other websites cuz we aint owning nothing here

[Haruspex]

Originally posted by GGcake:

best to get games from other websites cuz we aint owning nothing here

Such as?

The only place I know of where you're closer to owning your games is GOG. Even then, you're still only licensing them, there just isn't any way to enforce a hypothetical scenario in which your games there are taken from you. There's also a lot that's unavailable on GOG due to their DRM free stance, which some publishers are wary of.

Other than that, there's physical copies, but good luck buying physical on PC. That hasn't really been a thing for a very long time now.

[GGcake]

Originally posted by Haruspex:

Originally posted by GGcake:

best to get games from other websites cuz we aint owning nothing here

Such as?

The only place I know of where you're closer to owning your games is GOG. Even then, you're still only licensing them, there just isn't any way to enforce a hypothetical scenario in which your games there are taken from you. There's also a lot that's unavailable on GOG due to their DRM free stance, which some publishers are wary of.

Other than that, there's physical copies, but good luck buying physical on PC. That hasn't really been a thing for a very long time now.

idk about gog and all that. but some games do have their own website or uses something else like git hub which normally skips over most of the bs like DRMs. but it's pretty rare for devs these days to go down this path instead of using steam.

and just like with physical copies, it hasnt been a thing for a long time :(

but some good games are still out there like the powder toy.