Article on RPS:
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/02/01/thought-do-we-own-our-steam-games/

Many people were complaining they only moan about Origin and not Steam. Well here's the Steam article then. I personally dislike the ending but I don't have the money to find out :(

And here's my Steam suspended my account story! Based on real event even.

On the 14th of December there was a daily deal for Tales of Monkey Island that I jumped on as soon as I saw it. Payed using Paypal. I got a purchase failure on Steam side after confirming the payment on Paypal... awesome, time to contact support.

I first check the transaction on Paypal and it clearly said "Completed", not "Failed" or "On hold" or anything like that. So I write to Steam support telling them of my issue, telling them the transaction was Completed, giving them the Invoice ID, every info I had.
I got a reply back the next day saying among other things:
"You have not been charged for this failed transaction, however PayPal may have put a temporary hold on the funds. The held funds for this purchase attempt should drop off your statement and be returned to your account within 3 business days."

Ok... Now I wait. Let more than the 3 days to pass and just as I suspected: NOTHING. In the mean time Telltales just discounted their games to reach the same price so I say "screw them!" and open a dispute in Paypal, since I did not get the product I payed for, to get my money and give those money directly to Telltales. I wrote in the dispute that I had contacted Steam support, they said they did not charge me, so if that's the case and the money are stuck somewhere I want them returned to my account. Simple.

Less than half a day later I get Tales of Monkey Island in my Steam account and the purchase confirmation email. It took opening a dispute to have someone on Steam side to fucking check the transaction. Cause opening a ticket, giving them all the transaction details and asking them to check, was not enough. Why should they actually check when they can copy/paste a general message??

Ok, whatever, I got my game. I closed the dispute then and there.

On the 25th of December my account was suspended. No reason given obviously. I had a suspicion of why but I though "noooo, it can't be! they're the ones that fuck up and punish me a week later? nah, they can't be that incompetent!". I open a Steam ticket asking for a reason.

3 days later I get the reason. I was the dispute on Paypal... They gave my account back with Tales removed obviously. I replied with the story you see above pointing out that the dispute has been closed for quite some time now. On 1st of Jan i finally got everything back. Might not seem that bad. I mean 25th - suspended, 1st - all resolved. But that was over the holidays. I have a job, I have a wife. Time is very valuable when it comes to gaming now and losing holiday time sucks!!!

Anyway. While I was tempted I did not buy a single game since then except on GOG.

TL;DR Buy DRM free, don't support always online DRM! Don't wait until you are burned.

You don't own any game that is digitally distributed. It's a known fact since rock ages.

GOG is a digital store and you do own the games. You just have to download them just in case :)
Same for a lot of indies. If you buy from their site, download, it's yours.

Edit: You own a license obviously. But as long as it can't be taken away it's ok.

Real game ownership is never given...It's taken. ;)

Haha! Yeah, I started making "backups" of my Steam collection :D

You don't own any game any where. No, you don't own the games. And yes, the license can be taken away. GOG can delete your account when they want.

I'm not going to comment on nor read RPS's article, there is absolutely no need to give them any more hits.

In regards to physical discs, you only own the license to play the game as long as the disc is in a readable condition. There are many workarounds for this, but that is the base of 'owning' games that are on physical discs.

Nice to see that RPS is raising awareness of this issue. The big game info sites tend to ignore or downplay it. The article is also well written, explaining ambiguosities, not trying to paint the offender into into a hero, still pointing out the risks of Steam's control-hungry terms of license, and getting legal counsel. Well done.

I didn't pay much attention to RPS before. Should I?

owning a title would include to do with it whatever you like (share it, sell it, and whatever)... as already said, you do only own a licence to play the game.

If you're one of the "Long live Valve, our kings and lords, who care for us soooo much." and "Fuck you, Blizzard, Ubisoft, EA, and any other company that tries to do something about something.", then you'd enjoy their articles.

Any meaningful definition of ownership comes down to control. If you control the installation media and the ability to use that media then you effectively own the game. If you have to ask permission from an activation server controlled by someone else to install or play a game then effectively you do not own the game.

From their About page: Yes, they can probably remove the account. You did not pay for it. But as long as you download your games, they are yours. Not only they can't prevent you from playing, but I don't think they can revoke the license.

And on retail games you only own the physical media it comes with.

Digital distribution made the enforcement easier, nothing else.

They sure know their readers.

Yeah, but as long as you have physical media (or backup, if you are entitled to do it) you are granted a licence to use the game, so basically, it's like owning a game.