Steam has just changed a historic platform policy that affects us all

It has taken us several years to realize the true terms of licenses for gaming stores. Players no longer buy games, we buy licenses. And these can expire, unfortunately, we have seen this over the years.

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It seems that Steam has started displaying a notice in its shopping cart indicating that purchases in its store are for a license only and not for a game, as discovered and reported by Engadget this morning.

It seems like an attempt by the company to get ahead of a new California law that will come into effect next year, which requires companies to admit that buyers do not actually own digital content.

Licenses expire, games don’t

When opening the shopping cart with items inside and before proceeding to checkout, a notice in the bottom-right corner says: “Purchasing a digital product grants a license for the product on Steam.” This is the first time we see this, so it seems to be relatively new.

Last month, the governor of California, Gavin Newsom, enacted the AB 2426 law, which requires digital marketplaces to make it clear to customers that they are only purchasing a license to access the media.

It will not apply to permanent offline downloads, only to digital copies of video games, music, movies, TV shows, or e-books from a digital store.

Companies that fail to comply with the regulations could face fines for misleading advertising if they do not clearly explain the limitations of a specific digital purchase. The law is a consequence of situations like that of Ubisoft, which removed The Crew from players’ libraries after the game’s servers were shut down. The world is adapting to the reality we have to live in.