It is bullshit tho. I feel like for how massive these libraries are, I should be able to do that. Even if it requires a death certificate to make the transfer.
This is what steam is: a lesser form of ownership in exchange for the perks of the platform. I've come to prefer physical media first, DRM free second, and steam third. It's just not as good of a value proposition to me compared to outright ownership (of the license to use the software, I know we don't own "the game").
Physical media today isn’t really much better though, increasingly frequently all a disk gets you is a license to activate a digital copy anyways, with a “must be online for first play” requirement.
I'm curious what recent games you've been able to purchase physical copies of that ran without updating or validating using the internet. I didn't know any publishers still did that, at least not on PC.
I admittedly don't buy many games lately, especially not from the big budget crowd. BG3 seems to run fine without internet, as do Sea of Stars and Noita.
I like that motto but for me it's Physical media, Supporting Developers directly, and then Steam third.
If a publisher has DRM on their steam version then I'm sure af not going to buy directly from that publisher's store for a less DRM version, that just feels like coercion.
Add it to the list of ethical circumstances for piracy.
In fact, for the titles I cared about, I would contact the studio/publisher themselves, explain the situation, send a death cert and a steam account, and see if they would allow a transfer or grant a new key. If not...they're part of the problem.