It's also getting interesting when it comes to the first sales doctrine which allows you to resell what you bought. It's clearly applicable to cases when you buy files with a physical media (like disks). But when you buy them digitally it's getting more moot. Can you resell those files? Does it make sense or not?
In the US, EULAs can prevent reselling following the case of
Vernor vs Autodesk (over-riding the First Sale Doctrine, so they may override other consumer rights too).
In the EU, things are likely to be different, but since most DRM systems inhibit resale, you would have to take the companies concerned to court (only possible if they have a legal presence in an EU member state) to enforce such a right.
Even a banned account is still an account...
...if Steam closes your account for whatever reason, or let's say Steam itself shuts down (and naturally your account is gone), you won't be able to legally play your Steam games anymore. They can't really enforce such restriction...
Just to clarify, if Valve ban your account, none of your Steam games will work except for the minority that
don't use Steam's DRM and backed up copies won't work either (examples of this can be found
here,
here,
here or
here to pick just four).
There has been mention of Valve lifting that restriction, but the the update at the bottom of
Valve Updates Steam's Account Policy... suggests otherwise.
If GOG ban your account, their games will still work, their installers will still work - you just won't be able to download updates or new copies of the installers. So as long as you keep copies of the installers you have, you shouldn't lose out in any way.
...Valve can start imposing fees (per year or per month) to keep accounts open instead (with 65 million accounts, a $10/month fee could pull in an extra $6.2 billion annual income even if only 80% of users sign up).
Oh, come on. Do you honestly believe that's even a possibility, much less a probability? Exactly what would they be charging for? Access to our already purchased content?...
Charging to maintain access to content you've already bought is exactly what I'm talking about (though in practice, any such policy would have to be dressed up to include some token freebies like account hijack insurance or a free game per year to make it appear less like outright digital blackmail).
If you think it wouldn't work on you, then try this simple exercise - count up the number of Steam games linked to your account (excluding the DRM-free ones). Then calculate the cost of each from elsewhere (if you purchased during a sale, count the non-sale price). That's how much you would have to pay to replace them if you lost your Steam account (and of course, some games like Skyrim and Civilization V are Steam-exclusive). Then consider how signficant a $10/month fee would be to avoid losing that amount of money.
For most long-term Steam users, I'd bet the total would be in the hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars. So a $10/month fee would be pocket change in comparison, and as noted above, worth billions to Valve. If that isn't an obvious incentive, then I'd suggest you're a little out of touch with the material world.
