PLDT’s IGV Game Pass is a Violation of the Steam Subscriber Agreement

In recent years, many third‑party services have attempted to market themselves as “budget‑friendly game access services” for PC gamers. More recently, there are two of them that have been advertising in the Philippines specifically the IGV Game Pass.

• IGV Game Pass — A service from SportsHero that claims to offer subscription‑style access to hundreds of PC games by providing shared or managed Steam accounts through their Launcher. The pitch is “many games, one subscription.” They have partnered with PLDT to include the service with PLDT Home’s Fiber Plan 1699 and up, wanting to take advantage of the “43 million people classified as PC gamers” in the Philippines. PLDT’s intention was adding gaming to its growing lineup of entertainment bundles that already includes Netflix and HBO Max, and promotes it in its website.
• PL2W — presents a similar model: either a “rental‑style” GamePass, or a low‑cost “purchase” of access to certain Steam accounts with selected games, often at steep discounts relative to the official Steam store. They directly state that it is their accounts, separate from your own, and launched from their own Launcher.

On the surface, these services target price‑sensitive gamers, especially including in regions where buying new games at full price is prohibitive. Redditors have also raised awareness to this issue meanwhile, PLDT has promoted this service on their socials.

However, Steam’s Subscriber Agreement 1.C states that a Steam account is “strictly personal.” It forbids account sharing or selling the right to use your account or subscriptions. The license granted for games and software is non‑transferable and for personal use only. If you truly want to share your games, Steam itself offers a legitimate alternative: the official Steam Family Sharing feature. This lets a user share their personal library with trusted friends or family members across different devices.

Steam Subscriber Agreement states:

Your Account, including any information pertaining to it (e.g.: contact information, billing information, Account history and Subscriptions, etc.), is strictly personal. You may therefore not sell or charge others for the right to use your Account, or otherwise transfer your Account, nor may you sell, charge others for the right to use, or transfer any Subscriptions other than if and as expressly permitted by this Agreement (including any Subscription Terms or Rules of Use) or as otherwise specifically permitted by Valve. Furthermore, you must not use your Account to enable a violation of this Agreement by others, such as through their commercial use of Steam Content and Services.

Users who opt for third party account sharing services risk having their access revoked, their accounts banned, or their libraries invalidated. At any time and without warning. “Cheap access” can quickly turn into “no access.” Steam themselves have indicated that while they cannot act on malicious users outside Steam, this kind of access should be avoided entirely.

Ironically IGV Game Pass also has a similar statement:

One account can only be used on one device at a time.

This membership account is intended for personal use only and not for commercial purposes. Without IGV’s permission, membership rights may not be transferred, shared, rented, sold, or used by other accounts — even if they are owned by the same person.

Beyond a risk to your own accounts, these services only benefit the immediate third party. The developers and publishers who worked on these games don’t get any compensation from these services, and it weakens trust between players and developers. This hits smaller studios the hardest, since every legitimate sale helps keep their projects alive.

For players who want broad access to games without violating platform rules, there are legitimate options. Services such as Xbox Game Pass from Microsoft provide subscription access to a curated library of titles that gamers can play legally across supported devices. Not only does it have a much wider list of games included (over 500!), official subscriptions like Xbox Game Pass operate within publisher and platform agreements, compensating developers and ensuring quality, secure access for subscribers. Choosing recognized services helps support creators while giving players the variety they want, all without the risk of bans or account issues.