By: Grant Sherman
In today’s digital age nearly everyone owns a smartphone, laptop, or gaming console and interacts with software daily. The way media is shared and consumed has shifted dramatically. Long gone are the days of owning CDs, cassette tapes, and records. Instead, we “purchase” media through licensing agreements that dictate our use and can be revoked by the service provider at any time.
Video games, like other media, have transitioned from physical copies to digital downloads. While some games are still being sold as physical discs or cartridges, many are only accessible through digital stores. This raises an important question, in an age where ownership is intangible, what happens to a person’s digital assets when they pass away?
Under U.S. law, American citizens have the right to leave behind their personal possessions in a will. In states like Arizona, specific statues guide who can make wills and how assets are handled in probate court.[1] For physical assets, such as a house, car, or a personal guitar, it’s easy to arrange to give the item or deed to the heir. But what about digital assets that only exist within the licenses tied to an account? How can those be transferred? Can an heir simply receive their username and password, or does ownership of a digital license die with the account holder?
In 2021, one Steam user posed that very question. Steam, an online video game platform where users purchase and download video games, has existed since 2003.[2] User “delete12345” posted on the forum ResetEra and detailed that they had reached out to Steam asking what would become of their account upon their death.[3] Steam’s support team responded that upon their death, the account was not transferable or combinable with another account, even via a will.[4] Therefore, the account effectively dies with the user.[5] This response sparked some controversy, highlighting the limitations of digital ownership. Unlike a physical game collection, the digital library of a user disappears when they do.
This approach to digital ownership raises a broad legal question: does denying users the ability to transfer digital assets violate core American principles of property rights? Traditional ownership implied control of transfer, whether that was selling or gifting the property.[6] However digital licenses strip users of these rights reducing their “ownership” to just temporary access subject to the service providers policies.[7] This conflicts with long-standing doctrine of personal property being something that individuals can transfer. Unlike renting, where the lack of ownership is explicit and obvious, digital downloads often mimic normal purchasing, which leads consumers to believe that they own their digital assets. However, as the Steam issue illustrates, this ownership is mostly an illusion.
Amid the controversy of Steam’s response, another large video game platform, GOG (formerly Good Old Games), decided to take a different stance. GOG announced that the company could transfer an account to another individual if there was a court order.[8] While this statement may have been a public relations move to stand out against Steam, it still suggests that digital assets could be transferred under specific legal circumstances. However, this statement appears to contradict their current terms of service which state that the accounts cannot be transferred.[9] The court order requirement to transfer the account comes at the acknowledgement that what users are purchasing from their site are personal licenses and are generally non-transferable.[10]
So, what should users who want to pass down their digital assets do now? If platforms continue to operate using non-transferable personal licenses, the issue will only become more prevalent.
One possible solution is to leave behind login information such as usernames and passwords as a document in a will. However, this approach brings about its own legal concerns, as it might violate the terms of service of digital platforms.[11] Moreover, maintaining the confidentiality of such information may become challenging if accounts remain active for centuries. Until a case comes about where a court is asked to determine if digital accounts can be rightfully inherited, there will be no definitive legal precedent for how these assets should be handled.
As our digital assets continue to grow, the question of inheritance will only become more pressing. Whether its through legislative action, updated terms of services, or court rulings, the way we pass down digital assets after death is bound to change. Until then, the video games one buys online will remain in digital and legal limbo. Best not to leave that backlog of games to play for too long…
[1] Ariz. Rev. Stat. § 14-2501 (2025).
[2] Sean Hollister, Steam Just Turned 20 Years Old, and Valve Is Celebrating, TheVerge (Sept. 12, 2023), https://www.theverge.com/2023/9/12/23870270/steam-20-birthday-2003-2023.
[3] delete12345, To Anyone Who Is Curious, No, You Cannot Transfer Your Steam Account via a Will. You Can Only Take Your Games to Your Graves, ResetEra (May 20, 2024), https://www.resetera.com/threads/to-anyone-who-is-curious-no-you-cannot-transfer-your-steam-account-via-a-will-you-can-only-take-your-games-to-your-graves.875634/.
[4] Id.
[5] Id.
[6] NC State Extension, An Explanation of Ownership Rights in Property, N.C. STATE UNIV. (Mar. 18, 2025), https://content.ces.ncsu.edu/an-explanation-of-ownership-rights-in-property.
[7] (Microsoft’s digital good policy for example) Microsoft, Usage Rules for Digital Goods (“Rules”), MICROSOFT SUPPORT, https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/usage-rules-for-digital-goods-rules-83812b1f-1ecd-9a46-d3a7-ad1eadce49d1.
[8] Kyle Orland, GOG Will Transfer Your Dead Relative’s Game Account, but Only with a Court Order, Ars Technica (June 15, 2024), https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2024/06/gog-will-transfer-your-dead-relatives-game-account-but-only-with-a-court-order/.
[9] GOG User Agreement § 3.3 (effective Feb. 17, 2024), GOG Support Center, https://support.gog.com/hc/en-us/articles/212632089-GOG-User-Agreement?product=gog.
[10] Orland, supra note 6.
[11] Valve Corporation, Steam Subscriber Agreement, STEAM, https://store.steampowered.com/subscriber_agreement/#:~:text=You%20may%20not%20reveal%2C%20share,otherwise%20specifically%20authorized%20by%20Valve.
