[AdmiralAsshat]

How is it that Steam manages to avoid yanking games from people's libraries even after the games are delisted for licensing issues, etc? I have multiple games that you can't "buy" anymore, but Steam doesn't stop me from reinstalling them as often as I like.

Are they negotiating that as part of the deal with their vendors? Or is it as simple as "We're not dicks." ?

[vitally3643]

That's just how Valve's license agreement works. You publish with Steam and you grant Valve the right to publish the work in perpetuity.

The licensing deal made by movie studios does not work like that because the studios are intentionally predatory. The distribution agreements are temporary and can involve periodic payments. Literally Netflix rents movies from the studios and rents them back to you. The studios reserve the right to cancel distribution deals at any time.

[kelvinjps10]

When a movie or show gets removed from Netflix sucks but no as much since it's a subscription and you can cancel if they don't have what you like but what you do with something you bought

[autoexec]

> How is it that Steam manages to avoid yanking games from people's libraries even after the games are delisted for licensing issues, etc?

Steam isn't innocent either. The instance that comes to mind is Order Of War: Challenge (https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2013/12/30/steam-remov...) but I've also seen people say other games have been removed from their libraries or silently replaced with "remastered" versions that removed things like licensed music. Publishers have also taken games from people's libraries by revoking their keys. Steam says publishers can do this whenever they want. In one case, after the sale they thought a player should have paid them more money (https://old.reddit.com/r/Steam/comments/w9jpd5/warning_publi...)