Steam now reminds you that you don’t actually own digital games you purchase

Valve has added a new disclaimer to Steam to inform users that they don’t actually own digital games, even if they’ve purchased them.

As spotted by some Redditors, Steam’s checkout page now states that “a purchase of a digital product grants a license for the product on Steam.” There is also a link to the online marketplace’s subscriber agreement to unpack all of that in greater detail. You can see this in the bottom right of the below image:

The long and short of it, though, is that Steam is basically just reminding people that it (and any other companies selling digital media) can revoke access to said purchased media at any time. We’ve seen this happen many times before, including earlier this year with Ubisoft removing The Crew from players’ game libraries.

Presumably, Valve is getting ahead of a new law (AB 2426) signed by California Governor Gavin Newsom last month requiring companies to disclose that they’re actually just selling licences to games, movies, TV shows, music and ebooks to customers. The law will take effect in 2025.

It remains to be seen how other digital storefronts, including those from PlayStation, Nintendo and Xbox, update their messaging to comply with the new California law.

Via: Engadget