this post was submitted on 01 Oct 2026
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Since Steam made clear that they essentially only sell licences and will take games off at will I have become careful. And somewhat weary. Not saying I won't buy, but GOG events have become considerably more intetesting to me.
You can ask yourself if its good rental price before every cart addition.
Genuinely asking: if I buy a game (aka "license to play") on steam, is it morally ok to acquire the same on the high seas? I assume The devs got paid when I paid steam?
I'd say morally it is okay to download from high seas, if you paid for the game already. Maybe to get a cracked version of the game without Denuvo in example. Morally okay doesn't mean legally okay. Lot of people mix those two different things up, so be careful nonetheless.
Sounds fair to me.
Is there any known case when this happened?
Yeah, at least one or two times. Usually, games just get delisted, and whoever bought it gets to keep it, but pretty sure there's been a couple instances of full revocation, typically initiated by publisher or dev, not Steam themselves. In those cases, I think it's more Valve abiding by the terms they have with those entities.
I would like to know of any such cases, because to my knowledge it never happened. Unless I see evidence (some source to proof it), I'll assume it is just misinformation.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Steam/comments/1pzpny/steam_has_now_officially_removed_their_first_game/ here's a discussion on them announcing the first removal. I think the game was online only and shut down, but it still happened. Pretty sure there was a much more controversial one within the last few years, but I unfortunately don't have time to dig further.
Thank you for the link. I see, it looks like this happened. Well it's the first time I see some source for this claim, as all other source was always about taking the game away from the store, not the revoking the license of a game. Here is a post of someone having a conversation and getting a refund of the game: https://steamcommunity.com/app/34670/discussions/0/846966336267443276/ As the post was not closed or deleted and the user is not banned, it can be assumed to be legit.
several, typically due to audio licenses of all things. There's a few different games currently in my library that you actually can't buy anymore, it's quite silly.
That's not revoking a license you paid for. That is just taking it away from shop to buy. These are two different things. Publishers are allowed to take games away from shop, so no one can buy the games anymore. But the owner of a license still has the right to download and play the game (unless its an online game, but that's not revoking the Steam license).
They have removed games for sale from the store, but if you bought them they still can be downloaded.
Still wary, steam could go away at anytime. Which is why it might be worth looking at the website that shows all the games that don't require steam to run once they are downloaded.
I buy mostly from GOG since last year and if I find everything on GOG I would only buy from there too. For some games, I just upvote Dreamlist entry, maybe write a memory too. Some publishers eventually bring their games and I have no rush. I also buy games I already have on Steam if I see a 90% discount or so. Ultimate goal is to gather everything of course but that will take years.