Steam updated its shopping cart page with a banner under the ‘Continue to Payment’ button that says you only get a license for the game you’re buying. According to a Reddit Thread that discussed this change, the company made this change apparently due to a new California law. AB 2426 states that a seller of digital goods cannot use “the terms buy, purchase, or any other term which a reasonable person would understand to confer an unrestricted ownership interest in the digital good.” Furthermore, it says sellers must provide consumers with “a clear and conspicuous statement” when purchasing.
Since Steam only sells licenses to the games on its platform and not permanent ownership, it must implement this change to avoid legal trouble in California. Because of this, it added this small banner on the ‘Your Shopping Cart’ page, which says, “A purchase of a digital product grants a license for the product on Steam.”
It means you do not own the game you bought on the Steam platform; you’re only granted a license to use it on your device. Steam clearly states on the Steam Subscriber Agreement page that games purchased through the platform are licensed. The difference is that Steam must make it visible to the consumer with AB 2426, not buried under the Steam Subscriber Agreement page that most users do not read.
Meanwhile, GOG took the opportunity to take a jab at Steam on X, teasing, “Since checkout banners are trending, we’re thinking of putting one up ourselves. Thoughts on this one?” The banner says, “A purchase of a digital product on GOG grants you its Offline Installers, which cannot be taken away from you.”
Steam is currently the biggest PC game platform in the world, so it has a massive impact on the gaming industry. Its use of licenses instead of outright ownership thus means that most PC gamers do not own their favorite titles. Instead, they’re just granted the right to use them, but the game developer retains the right to control and do as they please with the game.
If a developer takes a title you bought via Steam off the platform, the game will also be removed from your library. Thankfully, Steam does not uninstall a game that is already on your computer. However, it still doesn’t sit well with many players that you don’t have complete and absolute control of your Steam game library, which contains titles you’ve already bought.
On the other hand, once a game you bought on GOG enters your library, it will stay there for life (or as long as GOG is in business). This means that even if the game developer removes a title from the platform, it will not be removed from your account if you’ve already purchased it.
Licensing vs. purchasing games has always been a contentious issue between gamers, distributors, and developers. And while we’re slowly losing the meaning of ownership in the age of digital libraries and subscriptions, it’s still nice to know that there are some holdouts that, when they sell something to you, mean that you get to keep that thing you bought forever.