Not only is its EULA (End User License Agreement) (opens in new tab) way more accessible than other platforms, but it doesn't explicitly say you don't own the games you're buying. EA grants you a personal, limited, non-transferable, revocable and non-exclusive license to use the EA Services to which you have access for your non-commercial use, subject to your compliance with this Agreement.' Epic Games Store (opens in new tab) says something similar, too. In EA's terms of use for Origin (opens in new tab), it says 'The EA Services are licensed to you, not sold. We really don't see Square Enix, for instance, being cool with the DRM being stripped from something like Final Fantasy XV (or whatever the most recent one is when this theoretical Steam shutdown would happen.)Īnd, this isn't even unique. This all comes down to one thing: licensing.

You would be able to play Half-Life 2, but maybe not Dark Souls 3.

It is still possible that Valve would release a patch that would let games be run without Steam in the case that the gigantic storefront ever goes belly-up, but it's likely this would only apply to its own games.

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