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Would You Feel Safer Buying Games If You Actually Owned Them?
Hi Steam team and community,

I had an idea that could give players more choice when buying games:

License (cheaper) → works like it does now, tied to your Steam account.

Ownership (more expensive) → you pay more, but you fully own the game (DRM-free, can back it up, and keep it even if Steam isn’t around).


For me personally, when I buy a game, I sometimes feel unsure if I can fully trust that I’ll always keep it. Steam is reliable, but in the back of my mind I worry: what if one day I lose access, or the platform shuts down? Having the option to pay extra for true ownership would remove that worry and give players peace of mind.

This way people who are fine with the cheaper license can stick with that, and people who value long-term ownership (like me) could choose to pay more.

I think this would make Steam even stronger by giving us more freedom and trust in how we buy our games.

What do you think?
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Showing 1-6 of 6 comments
Better to Buy than Rent You own it but can't reverse engineer it who would if the game was Made right if its poorly made many would try to fix it and get a lot of flack because they want the game to be better like it should have been in the first place Games are Falling Down programmers are not programming Correctly some think one way others think a different way Make it right and lots of players don't think of all the gold sellers that do nothing but ruin games Keep them out of the games they are bad for them Cabal and Cabal 2 are the best Examples Trust is Good and Liberty Is better as well with Freedom We choose the games we want to play cause they meet our needs if they don't they fail and go by the way side A Good game was Destiny 2 For on Blizzard had a direction I think they lost all that direction with DEI and Bad choices coming to Steam Game here was beautiful good to play now its crazy and somethings don't make sense any more Bad Programming is at fault nothing more as well as DEI hires with no idea what to do just feel good about what they are and ther color of their skin, bad idea Intellect Education Make better Play time
Thanks for your reply! I get what you mean about bad programming and games losing direction. For me though, the main thing is trust when buying a game. I don't want to feel like I'm just renting it - I'd feel a lot better if there was a way to fully own the game, no matter what happens to the platform.
other item if there is only say what you use to game on and no connection would also be a good thing to have so you can play offline too
That's a really good point! Offline play is super important too. If I buy a game, I don't want to worry about losing it just because servers go down or my internet isn't working. Between ownership and offline access, it would really give players more trust and freedom
see it was at one Time You Buy Own that Copy of that Game they promised to have the servers there so you could play it having it play offline would be one of the best parts of any game Network goes off or Someone thinks its a toy. So offline all the files would be local and never ever be in some cloud
Yes, I totally agree about offline play and keeping the files local. That would give players real security.

Another thing is that most gamers today buy lots of cheap games – sometimes just because they’re on sale – but many of those games end up never really being played. That’s fine, because they were cheap and easy to grab.

But then there are the games we really love, the ones we put hundreds of hours into. For those, many of us would actually be willing to pay more if it meant true ownership – having the files forever, being able to back them up, and play them offline no matter what happens to the platform.

So in my opinion, it makes sense to keep both options: cheap licenses for people who just want to try or collect games, and a more expensive ownership option for players who want to invest in the games they truly care about.
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