We All Have Steam Libraries. What Happens When They’re Gone?

I feel like a lot of discussion on this topic comes down to apathy or just giving up. People say they’d start pirating their entire library if Steam ever went down, but that feels like more of a knee-jerk reaction than an actual plan. For Steam to simply cease existing, something critical would have to fail on a worldwide scale. It’s not a realistic near-term scenario to be clear but I just wanted to talk about it and see how other people feel about it.

Even if you wanted to preserve your library, many people’s collections have outgrown any commonly available consumer storage. We’re talking libraries that would require multiple terabytes, maybe even tens of terabytes, to archive completely. The infrastructure to back that up isn’t cheap or simple. So the “I’ll just pirate it all” response starts to feel hollow when you think about the actual logistics.

To me this raises an uncomfortable question: what was the point of accumulating all those games in the first place? How many people have libraries packed with Humble Bundle extras, impulse buys from Steam sales, and games they swore they’d play someday but never touched? Just note that I’m guilty of this too.

I’ve spent a lot building a half decent gaming collection but a huge chunk of it sits there gathering dust.

So when the hypothetical happens and your library becomes inaccessible, how do you rationalize it? Will you actually miss most of those games, or will you realize you only ever cared about a handful?

Will you seek out a new platform to start buying from?

I have a slight shift in perspective now that buying games and never playing them is essentially a 30% donation to keeping Steam existing, and a 70% donation to the developers / publishers to keep doing what they are doing.

When you rationalize it like that it feels a bit less painful but I’m curious what HN’s take on this topic is.