Current Events > What happens if steam ever shuts down

(+) Yeah! (+)

What happens to mah gamez
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I think you know the answer to that.
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We would lose them all I assume.
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They evaporate

they're gone 5ever, so let Valve keep selling hats so that we never lose our games
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Physical media >>>>
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Jeff AKA Snoopy posted...

We would lose them all I assume.

But I payed good money for them. They're mine
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https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/18mzcn/i_asked_steam_support_what_happens_to_my_games_if/
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chill02 posted...

they're gone 5ever, so let Valve keep selling hats so that we never lose our games

I'll take 3!
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Technically if you read their TOS, you're basically "renting" the games, or at least the right to play them.
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This has been asked since like Day 1 of Steam.

They said they weren't totally sure what would happen, but it could be something as easy as flipping a switch and saying okay, you don't need steam anymore to play these games.

Edit: Did a google search of it and you can see people questioning it as far back as 8 years ago or so.

Most responses are some form of this:

This question has been asked over 9000 times before. A simple steam forum search would answer your question.

Valve said they would patch the games to not require steam to run anymore so you could download them and back them up.

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IIRC, Steam has a contingency plan for that. Long story short we get a timeframe to download all of our games.
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Ah, that's a relief at least :3
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Blastia posted...

Ah, that's a relief at least :3

Yeah, you're okay. They aren't going anywhere for a long long time.
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https://d2kmm3vx031a1h.cloudfront.net/VNcNPBNKSBOLGOK4feuX_BoringIckyIsopod-max-1mb.gif
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They're not your games. You've paid for a license to play those games and that license can be revoked.
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Blastia posted...

What happens to mah gamez

they show up on pirate websites
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LMAO Valve isn't going to just flip a switch and let everyone play the games they "own" without Steam. That would require every single publisher on Steam to go along with it. Good luck with that.
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DelianSK posted...

Edit: Did a google search of it and you can see people questioning it as far back as 8 years ago or so.

8 years ago was a much different ballgame, there weren't over 10,000 games on steam and a bunch of steam api integration. Like, sure, lets say they do in fact pull out the DRM, what happens to games that try to check your steam inventory? what about single player games that just do weird shit like pony island sends you a fake IM from someone on your friends list at one point?

short answer is, you are probably going to lose everything if valve goes down.
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Well hell even if they're not 100% sure what they'd do, I appreciate that they give a more positive and hopeful response rather than "all yo shit gon' go bye-bye".
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AlephZero posted...

They're not your games. You've paid for a license to play those games and that license can be revoked.

That's never seen a solid challenge in court, I believe. It's one of those shaky things companies do that probably wouldn't hold up in a court of law, like arbitration agreements and waiving one's rights to class action suits.
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