Steam now says the ‘game’ you’re buying is really just a license

Valve is now explicitly disclosing that you don’t own the games you buy from its Steam online store. The company has added a note on the payment checkout screen stating that “a purchase of a digital product grants a license for the product on Steam,” as reported earlier by Engadget.

We confirmed the message appears in the Steam desktop app, but we haven’t seen it in the mobile app yet. Some Steam users noticed the disclosure go live earlier this week and posted their findings on Reddit.

There’s speculation Valve went live with the new message to get ahead of the law. The law states digital storefronts must not say you can “buy” or “purchase” something unless that something is a license, and it must link to the terms and conditions of the license — which Valve already seems to have covered.