Can you give away Steam games if the account holder is deceased? Not really. But the Reddit community still has helpful tips for a grieving father.
»My son unfortunately passed away in October. Can I give away his Steam games as a gift? I want to get something positive out of all this.« With this emotional message, Reddit user Localone2412 turned to the gaming community.
While it is not possible to give away individual Steam games even if the account owner is deceased, the comments contain not only condolences but also some smart ideas.
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What about Steam accounts of deceased people?
Once added to the library, games cannot be passed on to others on Steam. According to Steam rules, entire accounts are not transferable either – strictly speaking, an account would simply expire if the owner died.
According to the comments, the father concerned is confident that he will be able to obtain the access data for the account. Some people are therefore advising him to then rewrite the linked e-mail address to his own so that the library, achievements and so on are preserved. However, the account could be blocked if Steam notices that a new owner is behind it.
For sharing, he could use the family sharing feature so that at least up to six people have access to the game library, for example close friends of the deceased. New rules for this feature have been in place for a month; you can find all the details about Steam Family here.
Can you bequeath a Steam account? This question was open for a long time, but in 2024 Steam made it clear: No, it is not possible to pass on the account even via a will. As a lawyer explained to us back in 2020, the reason for this is that you only acquire licenses digitally and don’t actually own the purchased games. You can, of course, bequeath physical games as you wish. In the above-mentioned case of the father of a deceased Steam player, it will probably come down to family sharing. He writes in a comment: “Thanks guys, that might be a solid plan. Right now I can’t bring myself to try and get access to his PC and account. I know I have to deal with this at some point.”
