Starbound Deletion

Hey guys, my friend came up to me this morning saying that he accidentally deleted Starbound. Can you redownload games on steam that are paid for when you delete them?

 

Yes, you can delete and reinstall to your heart's desire, on Steam atleast.

I can actually re-download some games we had physical copies of originally (but required Steam to play, such as Left 4 Dead), but no longer have, that are registered to my account.

Steam is amazing. Especially since I can't use CDs or DVDs in my slightly outdated laptop.

 

Aye, I know. I could find the model number (prebuilt Asus laptop, cost me $1300 in 2009)..
Anyways, this particular model has a common issue with the dvd reader simply failing to work. Took a couple of months for that to happen to mine, CD reading died a couple of years later.

I'm doing fine though, have only been denied a couple of games due to the issue, and most of those don't work on windows 7 anyway.

 

Have you tried undeleting the icon from your desktop?

 

Havent had a cd/dvd or floppy drive in my rig for something like 3-4 years. USB stick everything including Windows installs etc lol.

 

So you can redownload it for free?

 

You have deleted the local content.
The game is still on your steam. It will always be there... waiting for you...
I always remove the game I don't use for now...
and I can download it back when I want.

 

Heh, what a weird thing for a friend to just come up and tell you.

 

When you buy a game, you can download it, uninstall it, and redownload it as many times as you want.

 

I know, we were planning to go on that night so he told me.

 

Noooo you need to rebuy the entire game then when you deleted them...

Of course you can. If its in your library you can delete it and reinstall it later on, just click on the install button there and it should work

 

Are you a new steam user?

 

Digital content services such as Steam permanently register games you purchase to your account. As long as you have access to a computer that has Steam, any game that is credited to your Steam account can be downloaded and run on it.

Games you own or otherwise have access to that are not currently installed will be grey in the Library. You can double-click their names to add them to the download queue. A downloading game will display as orange, and an installed game will display as white.

If you remove Starbound from your system, Steam will remember you've bought it. The name will turn grey and you will be able to download it again.

Remember that Steam uses DRM and you will need an active Internet connection after downloading a game to verify that your copy is legitimate.



The top four games are ones I've purchased but don't currently have installed. I can double-click their names to download and install them. The rest of them are games I've purchased that are currently installed.

Team Fortress 2, having gone free-to-play, is a special case. Games that are free to play in the first place will vanish from your Library when uninstalled. You will have to navigate to their store page to download them again (but they're free so.)

 

This is all part of the new licensing system for games. Instead of "owning a copy" of a game, and being able to share it around and play with whoever you want, and then selling it later and not being able to play it after that, we're moving into an age where each person needs to hold a license for a game. Once you own that license, you can play the game as much as you want for the rest of your life, regardless of whether you have a CD in your hand or not.

 

Right but also wrong. DRM and the rise and fall of companies/services negates that for certain games.