You can’t take your account with you to the other side, but you can’t leave it in your will either, so Valve’s service is in a strange gray area.

On the ResetEra forum, user delete12345 wrote that he had discovered an interesting thing about Steam directories. If we leave the living world, we can’t leave our digital collection to our loved ones! The user asked Steam support about this and received a professional but disappointing answer from Gabe Newell’s company: “Unfortunately, Steam accounts and games are not transferable. Steam Support cannot give someone else access to your account or merge your access with another account. I regret to inform you that your Steam account cannot be transferred by will”.

For this reason, it’s a good idea to be prepared to give your username and password to someone without a lawyer so that they can take over your account, even if it’s not official. However, this is a violation of the Steam User Agreement! Unless Valve specifically authorizes it, we can’t disclose, share, or even allow others to use our password or account.

This is an interestingly strict mentality on the part of Valve. If someone were to leave us, but prepare for the worst and give us their credentials (two-factor authentication, 2FA could mess with that…), we would be breaking the terms of service, but wouldn’t it be better for Valve’s business if someone continued to use Steam and buy games on it? That way, the company would still have revenue, and even though the user of the account would be someone else, if there was no embezzlement, it should be officially allowed by Valve.

Wouldn’t it be bizarre if the sibling of a deceased person logged into Steam (without entering any credentials, because it would be on their PC without e.g. 2FA), entered on their account that the person was no longer alive, and Valve then deactivated the account…?

Source: PCGamer, ResetEra, Steam