Who actually owns the games you buy?

[Coco Pops]

Where do you stand legally with services like Steam if they go under? I mean you have paid for all your games and want to keep them but if the service ever went under would you lose access to them? Or for that matter what if you had to reinstall them and there was no steam service?

And how would that work for other things like Origin or Gamefly? The latter I am annoyed with as I closed my account but now find I can't run any of the game i have bought and paid for. because they have to authenticate when you install them..

Any thoughts?

[tomaso88]

You should be able to access your games cd key still when buying off steam so I would think if they ever did go under they would give all their users there cd keys and let them finds other means of downloading the game.

But steam would never go under anyway

[Coco Pops]

You should be able to access your games cd key still when buying off steam so I would think if they ever did go under they would give all their users there cd keys and let them finds other means of downloading the game.

But steam would never go under anyway

I know they are likely to never go under but just wondering...

I am sad I can't play my other games. All the gamefly stuff is there in a folder but I can't install them or use them.

[tomaso88]

I know they are likely to never go under but just wondering...

I am sad I can't play my other games. All the gamefly stuff is there in a folder but I can't install them or use them.

Could always contact the company you bought the games off and prove ID with the card you used to buy the games

[Coco Pops]

Could always contact the company you bought the games off and prove ID with the card you used to buy the games

I bought them off Gamefly. But in several emails with them they said that once the account is closed I can't install or activate the games since they need to do online authentication on their servers. That includes the Max Payne game I wanted to run.

[garhkal]

Its for reasons like this worry that i won't buy many new games.. Cause i only play single player (or skirmish mode against a number of AIs) and i don't want to have to have a persistent internet connection/account to even do that.

[Coco Pops]

I might try one of my games from gamefly to see if they do let me run them. I know Postal 2 should work

[Sp!der]

What happened to the good old physical disc ?

[Pharaoh Hamenthotep]

I have a few games on CD/DVD.. but no disc drive on my computer

I might put one in one day..

[python490]

Yeah I think you have the rights to the CD key and if Steam goes under I bet some company will by them out hopefully not EA..