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What would happen to our games if Steam goes out of business?

StuBurns

Banned
VALIS said:
Really? I mean, I certainly wouldn't bet on Valve going out of business any time soon, but you're not being very realistic. Sometimes one or two risky ventures that don't pan out can bring a healthy company down. Or a lawsuit/lawsuits. Or malfeasance within the company. And so on. Saying they'll never never ever go out of business is absurd.
No, not really, read the thread.
 
I know they won't be going anywhere soon. Hell, only thing they would have to do is release a new counter strike or half life 3 and they would probably have assured themselves 10 more years of prosperity. What I don't get is the reason behind not making us owners of the games themselves. I guess it's just a way of covering the asses in case something happens to steam or their games so there is no chance of class action lawsuits but it just makes their business a little little bit shady if you ask me. I will comtinue using steam, of course, but i think i will continue buying only in the steam sales for sure, just in case.
 

MultiCore

Member
OldJadedGamer said:
But isn't that void once the company goes under?
No. Someone still holds the IP rights for the individual games, and in this case, it certainly isn't Steam/Valve (Except for Valve games, obviously).

The games just don't become public domain.

What becomes void is your rights to the game! Zing!
 

Game Guru

Member
StuBurns said:
You have nothing to apologize for at all.

And I'm pretty sure Zynga are already bigger than Valve.

Well, yeah, but Valve ain't dead yet. I just believe it should've been obvious from Valve's acceptance of Free To Play games and complete blinders on EA leaving their service that Valve fears Free To Play services like what Facebook has more than Origin imitating them.
 

StuBurns

Banned
Game Guru said:
Well, yeah, but Valve ain't dead yet. I just believe it should've been obvious from Valve's acceptance of Free To Play games and complete blinders on EA leaving their service that Valve fears Free To Play services like what Facebook has more than Origin imitating them.
Well that's kind of the point, Valve aren't dead. Valve despite being massive in terms of revenue, they're small, they can scale their operating costs. To literally kill Valve would something very unusual would have to happen, or Valve would have to hugely grow.

Valve would still be very profitable if they were just making and selling games, if Steam never sold another third party game.

Fugu said:
If Steam is Gabe's labor of love, what happens if he dies or decides to pursue something else?
I'm sure he isn't alone in caring about Steam.

Although it's an interesting point. It must be wonderful to be obscenely wealthy and choosing to work because it's rewarding to you personally. It would have been very easy for Gabe to have never started Valve. The gaming world would be considerably worse if he had been less motivated. Even more extreme is Steve Jobs, being a multi-billionaire dragging his walking corpse into the office until he pretty much couldn't. It's very impressive.
 

Blizzard

Banned
MultiCore said:
No. Someone still holds the IP rights for the individual games, and in this case, it certainly isn't Steam/Valve (Except for Valve games, obviously).

The games just don't become public domain.

What becomes void is your rights to the game! Zing!
But what about the EULA itself? It was with Valve, right? Not the individual companies. I don't know how that works and thus I'm asking.
 

Slappers Only

Junior Member
How obtuse is the following interpretation?

When you make a purchase on Steam, you are paying Valve to grant you access to a game. You are not paying for the game itself, and you do not gain any sort of ownership over its contents. If Steam goes under, then its ability to continue providing you access to the game is compromised, which means that (excluding the offline access alternative) you simply cannot play it anymore. There is no, "b-b-b-b-but, I own the game" because you never bought the game in the first place.

It was just a happy side effect of an aging content delivery model that we can continue playing our old carts and disks long after publishers and platform support have evaporated.
 

MultiCore

Member
Blizzard said:
But what about the EULA itself? It was with Valve, right? Not the individual companies. I don't know how that works and thus I'm asking.
There are multiple layers of EULA's in this case.
http://store.steampowered.com/subscriber_agreement/
D. Ownership.

All title, ownership rights and intellectual property rights in and to the Software and any and all copies thereof are owned by Valve and/or its licensors. All rights reserved, except as expressly stated herein. The Software is protected by the copyright laws of the United States, international copyright treaties and conventions and other laws. The Software contains certain licensed materials and Valve's licensors may protect their rights in the event of any violation of this Agreement.

Steam gets the content from outside companies, and if the Steam agreement with them goes under, then your agreement with Steam is worth nothing, strictly speaking.


*shrug*
 
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