Estate planning as a Bungie account holder

A Bungie.net account is the hub for playing Destiny 2 and for Cross Save, which lets a player unify one set of characters across PlayStation, Xbox, Steam, and Epic under a single active account. Bungie has been a wholly owned Sony Interactive Entertainment subsidiary since 2022. The Bungie.net account ties the platforms together, but the paid Destiny 2 content — expansions and DLC licenses — and Silver virtual currency are entitlements that live on the underlying platform store accounts and are platform-bound. Bungie licenses its software rather than selling it, the license is personal and non-transferable, and Bungie states that a player does not own or have any property interest in the in-game content, that unspent virtual currency is non-refundable and non-exchangeable, and that it cannot remove connected platform accounts from a Bungie.net profile under any circumstances.

Under Bungie's terms, game content are not property of the account holder and are forfeited when the account closes at death. No estate planning document—will, trust, or otherwise—can override this forfeiture.

What happens at death

Bungie's Limited Software License Agreement grants "the non-exclusive, personal, non-transferable, limited right and license to install and use one copy of this Program solely for your non-commercial use," and states that "The Program is licensed, not sold, for your use. Your license confers no title or ownership in this Program or any digital content therein." The agreement's Live Content section goes further: while the Program may let a player earn, buy, or purchase Live Content — a defined term that expressly includes accounts, stats, virtual assets and virtual currencies — "you do not in fact own or have any property interest in the Live Content," a player "may not, sell, lend, rent, trade, or otherwise transfer any Live Content" unless Bungie specifically permits it, Live Content "may be altered, removed, deleted, or discontinued by Bungie at any time," and "Live Content has no monetary value and does not constitute property of any type." Bungie may also terminate the agreement "at any time for any reason or no reason." Because the license is personal and non-transferable and the content is not property, a Bungie.net account and its in-game progress are not inheritable assets, and Bungie publishes no deceased-account form or estate process in either of its help centers. Bungie has been a wholly owned Sony Interactive Entertainment subsidiary since 2022 and that has not changed the position: the license terms are unchanged and there is still no deceased-user path at Bungie. What the SIE relationship does affect is where the value sits and who handles it — the online service is sublicensed to US users by Sony Interactive Entertainment America, purchases made on a PlayStation product are subject to Sony's Network Terms of Service and User Agreement, and linking a Bungie account to a PlayStation Account brings the PlayStation Network terms in by reference. The estate-relevant nuance is that Destiny 2 purchases are platform-store entitlements: expansion and DLC licenses are tied to the platform they were bought on and, per Bungie, "do not transfer between platform accounts with Cross Save," and Silver balances are not shared across Destiny releases. On money, the SLA is explicit that unspent virtual currency is non-refundable and that a player is "not entitled to a refund or any other compensation" for it, and Bungie's Silver guide states that "Bungie does not provide Silver refunds or transfers for any Destiny release" — refunds and chargebacks are issued by the platform marketplace, and Bungie adjusts the Silver balance to match. So while there is no path to transfer the Bungie.net account or its licenses to an heir, any future access to the paid content runs through the deceased's underlying PlayStation, Xbox, Steam, or Epic store account, each of which has its own deceased-user policy.

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