(2) There is also a submission from today related to this article (though TFA and this other article are both rather light and shallow at ~1 paragraph each):
Steam now tells gamers up front that they're buying a license, not a game (engadget.com)
A long time ago, I used Paypal to purchase a steam game. This was like 15 years ago. For some reason Paypal marked it as suspicious and immediately cancelled the transaction. Steam then locked me out of my account. I had several dozen games. I couldn't get anyone to reply to me from Steam. To this day, I'm locked out of that account and all of the games I had purchased. I started a new account but yeah it's scary.
As an expat I cannot even purchase games due to Steam's region locks. The same Paypal account I use to settle invoices worldwide, cannot be used by Steam. Apparently this is due to users attempting to buy games at cheaper regional rates. However, they will not allow me to switch to a more expensive region to buy a video game. They propose that I should travel back to my home country to purchase a game.
I have to use PayPal to buy games on Steam, simply because my bank account (Revolut) is from a different country to where I live (both in EU). It's the same price region in Steam, but still annoying.
It's only convenient because I already use Paypal.
I only buy maybe 2-3 games a year from Steam directly. Most of the games in my library are from humble bundle (or similar sites). It's just been easier to click the Paypal button for the occasional impulse buy than to track down my wallet.
I'll probably go ahead and put my CC details in now that I know Paypal carries risk.
It's been several years since I used a card on Steam, but IIRC I had to regularly re-input the card details, whereas I rarely have to re-log into PayPal.
Recently the Steam client stopped working with old Nvidia cards. So now you can’t start your games anymore even though they technically still work because they have to be started via the client. And you can’t go back to an older, working, client.
Our Intellectual Property utopia is such that you need to steal back what you owned, because its been impounded by an 800 pound automaton.
Maybe someone will create a gaming model that 'borrows' from every known game in existence, so that we'll finally get an Artificial Gaming-you Intelligence.
With streaming services you can never own the content. My partners mother wanted to see something, tried to get it out of the library, but only available streaming. It's weird what it means when content is not longer available in physical form, for cultures and review clips. If every copy is drm ed..
with the current console games. Even with disk, it's a huge download on first play. I wonder how playable these games are in there initial state without download...
I had a bunch of 32bit Mac games that will never run again, when they transitioned to 64bjt only software. I don't often replay and like many have a backlog o steam games I'll likely never get too. With steam and proton I have high confidence things will continue to run in the future..
Your confidence is misplaced. Digital assets rot away soon after their maintenance ceases. Gabe Newell is 61 years old. Who knows what will happen after the BDFL gets tired of all this?
I don't really play games much. I bought something on steam a few years ago. It was annoying dealing with their crappy desktop app but whatever.
Then I wanted something else - literally a second game: and it wouldn't recognise either of my cards; all kinds of shenanigans.
I gave up and found Gog. Zero issues. No need to deal with their desktop app if you don't want it. I even bought the original game I had on steam, again, on Gog just so I don't have to deal with their stupid shit.
I realise not everyone has the "luxury" of starting over but I will never understand why if you're forced to start over, you'd choose the same company again.
A couple years ago I opted out of the new game release rat race because I realized they're costing more and I'm getting less and I don't find recent AAA games any more fun than older games (and often quite a bit less fun). I was also just sick of all the bullshit like many games being released in a buggy state, content being held back for the inevitable DLC, and having to sign up for an online account on some publisher's site after buying the game from another online service.
I've switched to retro gaming and find I enjoy it more. For example, exploring 90s Japanese games that never saw wide release in the US. Recently I've found some real winners exploring the X360 and PS3 back catalog of indie games via emulation. I'd never seen many of these because they were only released on their respective online services. Of course, with the shutdown of those stores, these titles would be lost to time were it not for the preservation and emulation communities archiving them. This is why I'm a fan of publishers like GOG who're at least making an effort toward perpetual availability.
As games push the limits of gambling ratio addiction mechanics, social and psychological coercion, sunk cost fallacy, and a host of other tactics as best exemplified by pay to win games made by machine zone aand others,
Games are getting definitively worse. You are a revenue stream, not a customer or a person to app Al to in any way but the most lazy and base ways possible.
Each successive graphic generation places additional production cost to build models and world's, arguably to the artistic detriment of any game: first, since there is so much labor, corners are cut and artistic vision can't be applied everywhere to an army of graphic artists, many outsourced. Second, the overall production costs, much like movie production, makes producers conservative and cookie cutter in pursuit of a reliable return on investment.
The emulation community is preserving not just games, but an entirely different culture of gaming.
Perhaps AI can help with better mass generation of artistic assets, but really an AI is a mass averager of it's inputs: artistic vision is fundamentally a deviation from a norm, and large AI models are anything but
for better or for worse, gaming has gone mainstream. there are now a lot of dollars chasing easy wins. even a computer graphics enthusiast, it is really sad to see that they have optimized for incredible rendering pipelines and utterly forgettable assets, mechanics, and stories.
but if you rewind your render quality expectations by about ten years, there are still great games being made for way under $100mm. I'll plug two of my current favorites:
* factorio ($20). if you don't already know what it is, I can't really summarize it here. the entire team is < 10 people, but it's rare example of engineering excellence combined with a carefully curated user experience. I try to get all the devs and PMs I work with to read their blog.
* zero k (free). a bit more wacky, but one of the best rts of all time. they also have an interesting dev blog, and for a nice cherry on top, it's open source. some feature requests on the forums get the reply "great idea, I look forward to your PR", which I find pretty funny.
I think the creative sweet spot is somewhere around the playstation 2, maybe a midpoint between PS1 and PS2, especially if the gross hardware speed takes optimization work out of the picture.
Modern games are wrestling with a lot of uncanny valley stuff still. They've improved a lot from the polar Express movie, but it's still an issue.
I recall the recent ads for first descendant where a guy is clearly smoking, which I thought was some vaping thing in realtime, but the smoking is even worse. Probably cigarette companies shadow funding things there.
It's been pretty lightspeed how the days of google do no evil has went to the great woke purge after covid and now is no holds barred mamma sociopathy. It was like 5 years.
I get the MBA sociopathy has been bubbling under the surface and lots of scary movements around the borders, but it is scary what is going on with big tech.
If you don't have the source code, you don't really "own" the software anyway. Any closed source software will eventually stop working due to technological changes, etc.
I treat games as mostly consumption items. I play them for a while, and then I might as well throw them to trash if they were physical items. If it wasn't for that I wouldn't accept lack of source code anyway, just like with the OS and important personal computing software.
This is an incredibly bizarre view. Most people who play games don't consider them disposable trash. I don't quite understand why you would post this, given the context. You don't personally care about games, therefore the industry's anti-consumer actions are justifiable?
I read it as an observation that regardless of license terms, 99% of gamers will loos the ability to play a game after some amount of time (10? 15? 20 years). If you accept that, the change from "buy" to "license" is not as large as it seems.
I'm just stating the fact. If you want to own software, you need to get the source code. If you don't get the source code, you're paying $10-$60 per perishable consumable, and should be always be aware of that, not deluding yourself about some "ownership".
I own my personal computer software, from the Linux OS, through code editor, compilers, etc. I have the source code. I personally care, so I do own, and pay extra (in time and money) for that privilege and look down on people who don't, as I think they are foolish. I do not care about the games, so the license deal is fine with me. I played the game already, if I really want to play it again, I can pay $5 on sale again.
If you and others care about owning games, or any other software for that matter, demand and pay for the source code. Otherwise you own nothing.
There are teams of dedicated fans and developers that have fully reverse engineered older games' source code to allow byte for byte recompilation. If this process could be accelerated or boosted with better tooling I think that would be a huge boon for game preservation and enhancements. I'm really hopeful that long-term advancements in AI tooling will help enable faster reverse engineering of games from binary to source code.
Your comment assumes 100% of the source code for every game is out there. Most of the games released before the ubiquity of things like Github have no source code available.
That's interesting in this context because GOG first started off getting good old games to work on modern hardware. I would also say that emulation of hardware has come a long ways, so a DRM-free executable may be all that you need for historic preservation, barring software that requires communicating with a server for its functionality.
And even if source code is provided, it can be next to impossible to build it on your machine, so hopefully it has a docker image or what have you. Would also need to know the GPU requirement to compile it.
Not saying I wouldn't want the source code to be provided, but I'd like it purely for research and modding purposes, not to make sure I can build from source 10 years from now.
Its sort of sad, a painting, a cultural artifact, produced by 100s of people, beloved by millions and its just tossed aside, trampled like a electronic mandala - or worser still, destroyed in its vision by trying to turn it into an addiction.
Nobody will remember our names for the art we made, we will be forgotten and background-noise to other artifacts who survive deep time.
> Do you have the schematics for [...] your fridge
I'm not sure about today given stuff getting "smarter", but home appliances do typically include the schematics. You typically find them inside an envelope as you disassemble the thing.
Emulation and virtualization have solved the longevity problem and continue to do so better than ever. There is no doubt at all that games will still work in the future, and other software, as long as they don't have a hard-dependency on a dead online system.
I see what you mean, but a counterpoint is NES games and how they can continue to be emulated. Super Mario is not open source, but it will not stop working.
I mean... even if you do have the source code it will eventually stop working if you try to use it on newer stacks. The question is who is updating the software, not necessarily who owns it.
Neither GOG or Steam are selling games. Both are selling licenses. The only people who own copyright works are the rights holders. You can't take a GOG licensed game and sell copies or make a derivative work so you don't own it but it is close to what people mean when they say they "own" a book or other physical media. Games that are only usable with online license checks are more fragile than DRM free games from GOG but practically there isn't much practical difference for the majority of users. I enjoy the convenience and added features of Steam but GOG serves an important role as a piracy alternative for those demanding fully functional stand alone, offline copies of games.
> Neither GOG or Steam are selling games. Both are selling licenses. The only people who own copyright works are the rights holders. You can't take a GOG licensed game and sell copies or make a derivative work so you don't own it
Isn't this not the usual way we talk about ownership? If I buy a book at the bookstore, I own the book. I can put the physical object on my bookshelf. If someone breaks into my house and takes the book, they have stolen the book from me. I have the right to give or resell the book to someone else. I have the right to read it when and how I want to. I have the right to bequeath it when I die. That's "ownership" for all intents and purposes, even if the rights to do certain things with the book are reserved to someone else. I can't, for instance, place the book on a photocopier, press the copy button for each page, and give the copies to someone else. I can't read from it into a microphone at a public event.
I don't see how ownership in the digital realm is so different. I don't have a physical artifact, and copies of a digital work are exactly identical, rather than distinguishable. But that doesn't change very much about what ownership ought to mean. It basically means that I'm not limited in my rights to use the (digital) book however I'd like for private use, although certain things I might want to do with the work are illegal. I can't make a copy and give it to someone else. The fact that copying is "easier" doesn't change the fundamental nature of that restriction.
When Steam got in hot water recently for saying that you couldn't give your account to someone else (e.g. through a will), I think the reason people were mad about that because it meant that having a game in your Steam account is definitively not owning the game. On the other hand, having a game on CD-ROM or purchased on GOG might count as ownership.
GOG is still not “selling” the game, even though they offer offline installers, as one would with certainty face legal objections for setting up a resale marketplace website for games purchased from GOG. That your license is indefinite and your installer can be archived is excellent, but that’s still only a license with benefits.
The California law that has driven these marketing copy changes only applies to selling of software with revocable access. If the access cannot be revoked then the law still allows you to say you are selling the software rather than renting it. The law does not require licenses be transferable to qualify for this exemption.
> (b)(1) It shall be unlawful for a seller of a digital good to advertise or offer for sale a digital good to a purchaser with the terms buy, purchase, or any other term which a reasonable person would understand to confer an unrestricted ownership interest in the digital good, or alongside an option for a time-limited rental...
> (4)This section does not apply to any of the following: ...(C) Any digital good that is advertised or offered to a person that the seller cannot revoke access to after the transaction, which includes making the digital good available at the time of purchase for permanent offline download to an external storage source to be used without a connection to the internet.
The benefit being that you will still be able to use the things you purchased even if your licensor goes down or you are not in good standing with them, which is what people used to call "owning" software back in the day anyway.
What I can't understand is that CDPR is willing to confer legal rights to play their games in perpetuity in stark contrast to virtually every other similar platform, yet they don't bother to hire a few developers to maintain a Linux client, effectively forcing its users to be at the whim of Microsoft, which surely is going to have its users' best interests at heart.
I don’t entirely disagree, but I believe that GOG has always been focused on simple file-based DRM-free distribution (just download the zip).
GOG Galaxy has been experimental until recently and it is more concerned with being a unified gaming client rather than the primary way to distribute GOG games. In the last couple of years it has actually become quite unstable anyway and it is barely being maintained, clearly not a focus, Linux or not.
“Forcing its users to be at the whim of Microsoft” is quite a stretch.
It isn't a zip file (that is Itch) but an installer (you can't easily install it just as a non-admin user on Windows, although on Linux it does install under the current user). They had a .tar.gz for Linux at first but now use a self-extracting installer there as well. A few years ago they said (didn't save the link) that only something like 5% of customers just use the offline installers (and I'm fairly sure not all that many more ever downloaded them, although it might be higher now after a few update issues in Galaxy). It is unfortunately not uncommon for games released on GOG to not have Linux versions available elsewhere. CDPR games have had Galaxy-exclusive bonus items, which is hardly being friendly to offline installers.
I don't have any inside knowledge but there is clearly an internal battle at CD Projekt (and their investors since they are a public company) between those who want to print money doing the unethical stuff that other game developers and stores do and those who want a more customer friendly approach. They tried a more ethical online focused thing with GWENT (that ended up partly under GOG due to relying on Galaxy and was a big reason they pushed for higher Galaxy use for a while) but it ended up not really making much money. Things like this California law are great to help support the availability of DRM-free games.
Also, GOG has around 6500 games now and I'd be supprised if they were involved in getting more than about 100 of them to work on modern systems. Galaxy has been around over half the time GOG has been in business (as an online store, not counting the early CD Projekt days). You are thinking of the early days of GOG but they are quite a bit larger now and CD Projekt as a whole is much larger now. I still think they are the best option to support DRM-free games but they are not the same as when they started (not only in bad ways, the refund policy is great now).
I might have exaggerated a bit. I haven't really tested GOG out much because it doesn't do those things like having a Linux client I expect a consumer-centric platform to do and it caved in to the Chinese government just like everyone else.
But if the idea is that other platforms might screw you over some time down the line and this platform will have your back, I am not convinced if they entirely dismiss Linux. I know it is not practical for CDPR to develop Proton like Valve. The bare minimum they can do though is to show they have contingency plans in case Valve stops upstreaming its translation layer. Otherwise, why not stick to the platform that is too big to fail and is actually doing something useful?
If the concern is CDPR’s character, I believe their first-party games are known to be remarkably Linux friendly. CP2077 actually run best in Stadia at launch, which I believe was Linux based.
Also consider the fact that a large fraction of GOG games are painstakingly restored old games, where revenue is clearly an afterthought, they sometimes seem like a nonprofit. You can’t reasonably expect them to also add Linux support to games from an era where Linux gaming was practically nonexistent, modern Linux translation layers will most likely be completely incompatible.
And again, they have not had a client for most of their tenure, and I cannot think of anything more consumer-friendly or consistent with Linux ideology than literally letting you download the files and do what you want with them without any DRM.
I am just a bit concerned about their attitude. If they were to release a decent open source Linux client with compatibility layers (just free ride Valve for now...) and commit to maintaining it, then I guess I am on the boat. Last time I checked the process was not very polished and games could be outdated.
Steam (via Proton) generally works, though, for those who wish to use it. (Steam+Proton also works with things downloaded from outside of Steam, too, and has for years[0].)
Proton itself is open-source[1].
If someone wanted to package up standalone Proton binaries for a Linux distro, then I don't see any particular barriers that would prevent that.
On GoG's part, they do provide the ability to just download a game with a web browser (the old-fashioned, DRM-free way). From there, I can manage the games I that own in any way that I choose.
Thus, I'm simply not seeing a problem here that needs solved. I already have the freedom to do whatever I want.
Which part of this situation is broken, do you suppose, and why does GoG in particular need to fix it?
It would be the best if they could provide a package manager-like experience (managing dependencies, auto-update, etc.). I don't like the idea that I have to deal with those issues myself even for popular contemporary games. Granted, I already have to put in some work running games on Linux so this might as well be what we get.
I would love to do that, but I have always had trouble getting it to work well with GOG. Maybe it is something odd with my systems, but I have found it is easier to just download the games from alternative sources than GOG and run them in Lutris, setting them up manually.
Heroic game launcher has huge flaws, one of this is to update a videogame, you have to download another copy of the game. Updating baldur's gate on my steam deck takes 180gb.
It's not just money. Some companies did DVD linux ports 10-15 years ago which haven't been installable in years. The linux environment isn't as stable as windows.
There are Linux releases on GOG which are not playable on a modern distribution without heroics. Too much churn in system libraries/dependencies/whatever.
The only way to ensure I have a working backup of a GOG installer is to download the Windows release even when Linux is an option.
Technically the parent company is CD Projekt S.A. that has two main divisions, CDPR (for game development) and GOG (the store). CDPR is quite a bit larger and has a few legal entities.
CD Project Red, Polish game studio known for the Witcher and Cyberpunk. (and in this context their willingness to just sell you games no strings attached)
I have purchased several games for Linux from GOG. I have never needed a "linux client" nor do I ever want one. Why would I want that kind of shitware when I can download the installers right off their website? The only reason that sort of software ever became normalized (e.g. Steam) is because it acts as DRM, but GOG doesn't have DRM.
Full title (84 characters too long): Valve reminds Steam users they don't actually own a darn thing they buy, GOG pounces and says its games "cannot be taken away from you" thanks to offline installers
> "In general, your GOG account and GOG content is not transferable. However, if you can obtain a copy of a court order that specifically entitles someone to your GOG personal account, the digital content attached to it taking into account the EULAs of specific games within it, and that specifically refers to your GOG username or at least email address used to create such an account, we'd do our best to make it happen. We're willing to handle such a situation and preserve your GOG library—but currently we can only do it with the help of the justice system."
This is the result I expected when I first read about the new California law.
With a bit of luck, this story will get wide enough distribution that GOG will gain a bit of market share.
Sadly, if GOG gains enough new market share to have a material effect on Valve's bottom line, I imagine Valve's initial response will be a "most favored nation" clause in future publisher contracts allowing Steam to introduce offline, DRM-free installers for the subset of Steam games also available on GOG, diluting GOG's unique value proposition with a move that will nevertheless be hailed as a victory for consumers.
This title is super weighted, Valve makes it quite clear that users do in fact own a thing, a license for a product on Steam. This is fundamental to games with online DRM.
You are correct of course, One exception to this is materials released into the public domain.
Allow me a short incoherent essay on my thoughts on the subject.
Public domain is a fascinating concept to me, My view is somewhat US centric, for example, some countries have no legal equivalent of the concept. but I think the idea that we the public can collectively own something is neat. Nothing wrong with copyright, I think copyright is a very important legal structure recognizing the effort to create something. but I also think it somewhat enlightened to say after a given amount of time the public owns this. Or the way the US government says "works created by the US government are for the good of all US citizens and as such are in the public domain". should a person be allowed to say "I made this for the public good and release any claim of ownership over it".
sqlite infamously has trouble because some countries are legally unable to recognize a work put in the public domain. But all of nasa's software and papers are available under the same consideration.
This is just wrong. They could just sell copies instead of licenses. Copyright law doesn't care about interaction with already-existing copies, so mere usage of a software (and making archival copies) doesn't need a license at all
This is just wrong. "Mere usage" of a software does indeed need a license, just like "mere playback" of video requires a license. Remember all of the FBI warnings on movies warning you that you can't play the video publicly?
Running software without a license is literally illegal (at least in the US). Now, whether that is enforced, and to what extent in practice is a different story, just like how piracy in general is not really enforced against.
The fundamental problem with printed goods in general and software in particular is that they are so easy to copy.
A manufactured item is fairly hard to copy and the law on counterfeit goods is correspondingly weak. There is some law there, but it is hard to get it enforced, usually requires a court battle, etc. for example design of garments are infamously impossible to protect, garment manufactures tend to have to lean hard on trademark law to get any protection on design.
But printed works, It is easy to get a perfect copy, and computers are even worse. Trying to make a computer not copy something is like trying to make water that is not wet. This is the domain that copyright law started to appear. Basically laws explicitly saying you own what you wrote and get rights about decisions on when and where it can be copied.
But the point of my rather long-winded and incoherent rant is to say they can and do sell copies. when you buy a work those bits belong to you. you can do whatever you want with them... well, almost whatever you want with them. It is illegal to distribute them to others as this runs afoul of copyright law.
I didn't know about GOG. Symptoms of getting older. I need similar for films. I don't want to stream, I don't want to rip, and I'm too out of touch with torrent things to feel comfortable; not that I ever dared in simpler times, of course.
I think a lot of people reasonably believe that “buying” digital content provides continuous, permanent access to that content, as opposed to the common alternative of either paying for a time‐limited “rental” or for a monthly streaming subscription that obviously expires access as soon as one stops paying.
Such people are taken by surprise when it turns out companies can take away your “bought” content simply by virtue of changing licensing agreements or corporate structure without public input. Some recent cases:
• Crunchyroll and Funimation merged. People who had “permanent” digital copies purchased from Funimation lost them.
• Sony’s license for Discovery Channel content was not renewed, so all Discovery videos people had purchased (most notably, 20 seasons of Mythbusters) were removed from customers’ libraries.
• Ubisoft shut down the servers for The Crew and removed it from purchasers’ Steam libraries, despite the presence of a 20‐hour single‐player campaign that was online only for no good reason.
Maybe people will get used to this and consider all purchases ephemeral. I hope not. That’s why I buy and advocate for DRM‐free media.
It seems obvious that the distinction between buying a game digitally and buying a license to play a game digitally could be confusing to the average person looking at a digital storefront. Are you being facetious? (honestly asking - like, "gee, who would have thought there could be confusion?")
A lot of Steam customers simply haven't thought very far ahead: what happens when they die? As a twenty-year old company there is certainly a reckoning on the horizon as their users age-out and start passing in higher numbers.
What happens when Gabe Newell dies is another very important question that adds some urgency - one or two decades - to establishing more balanced policies.
Steam has never offered offline installers. And even offline play requires you to be online for offline to work for a period of time before being online again. If the service disappears so does your catalog.
I thought it was common knowledge you’re only buying a license to play via steam. You never own the game outright forever.
I'm sure some less knowledgeable people weren't aware of the distinction. There is a proposed California law to make the distinction more clear: don't use the word "purchase" unless you make clear that it is a license you are purchasing, not the game.
It's not that the consumers weren't aware of the distinction between buy and rent, just that companies outright started to lie about the meaning of "purchase".
There's something so much better about having physical cartridges :)
While that wouldn't make sense these days, knowing the installer you downloaded will still work decades from now is great, and I hope to see more companies like GOG start doing this.
Isn't this just Valve implementing the new law required in California?
https://www.theverge.com/2024/9/26/24254922/california-digit...
(1) Helpful context, thanks! Discussed 2 weeks ago:
California new law forces digital stores to admit you're just licensing content
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41663432 - Sep 2024 (11 comments)
(2) There is also a submission from today related to this article (though TFA and this other article are both rather light and shallow at ~1 paragraph each):
Steam now tells gamers up front that they're buying a license, not a game (engadget.com)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41809193 (15 comments)
(3) Finally, a marginally more informative article from Ars:
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2024/10/steam-now-reminds-you...
Isn't that discussed in the article?
Yes, just like it says in the article.
and so is GOG
You didn't even read the article didn't you?
A long time ago, I used Paypal to purchase a steam game. This was like 15 years ago. For some reason Paypal marked it as suspicious and immediately cancelled the transaction. Steam then locked me out of my account. I had several dozen games. I couldn't get anyone to reply to me from Steam. To this day, I'm locked out of that account and all of the games I had purchased. I started a new account but yeah it's scary.
As an expat I cannot even purchase games due to Steam's region locks. The same Paypal account I use to settle invoices worldwide, cannot be used by Steam. Apparently this is due to users attempting to buy games at cheaper regional rates. However, they will not allow me to switch to a more expensive region to buy a video game. They propose that I should travel back to my home country to purchase a game.
That's scary. I use PayPal to pay for steam games just out of convenience.
My account is almost 20 years old (I signed up because you had to in order to play HL2) and I've purchased a lot of games over the years.
I have to use PayPal to buy games on Steam, simply because my bank account (Revolut) is from a different country to where I live (both in EU). It's the same price region in Steam, but still annoying.
Out of curiosity, what convenience? How is using Paypal easier than just inputting your card info once?
It's only convenient because I already use Paypal.
I only buy maybe 2-3 games a year from Steam directly. Most of the games in my library are from humble bundle (or similar sites). It's just been easier to click the Paypal button for the occasional impulse buy than to track down my wallet.
I'll probably go ahead and put my CC details in now that I know Paypal carries risk.
It's been several years since I used a card on Steam, but IIRC I had to regularly re-input the card details, whereas I rarely have to re-log into PayPal.
As someone who currently uses a card on Steam, I can confirm Steam asks for the card security code every time I make a purchase.
Cards expire every few years
Recently the Steam client stopped working with old Nvidia cards. So now you can’t start your games anymore even though they technically still work because they have to be started via the client. And you can’t go back to an older, working, client.
Epic did that to me a couple of years back.
Once burned twice shy.
I just stole the games instead!
Our Intellectual Property utopia is such that you need to steal back what you owned, because its been impounded by an 800 pound automaton.
Maybe someone will create a gaming model that 'borrows' from every known game in existence, so that we'll finally get an Artificial Gaming-you Intelligence.
With streaming services you can never own the content. My partners mother wanted to see something, tried to get it out of the library, but only available streaming. It's weird what it means when content is not longer available in physical form, for cultures and review clips. If every copy is drm ed..
with the current console games. Even with disk, it's a huge download on first play. I wonder how playable these games are in there initial state without download...
I had a bunch of 32bit Mac games that will never run again, when they transitioned to 64bjt only software. I don't often replay and like many have a backlog o steam games I'll likely never get too. With steam and proton I have high confidence things will continue to run in the future..
Your confidence is misplaced. Digital assets rot away soon after their maintenance ceases. Gabe Newell is 61 years old. Who knows what will happen after the BDFL gets tired of all this?
Only available on streaming or illegally
I don't really play games much. I bought something on steam a few years ago. It was annoying dealing with their crappy desktop app but whatever.
Then I wanted something else - literally a second game: and it wouldn't recognise either of my cards; all kinds of shenanigans.
I gave up and found Gog. Zero issues. No need to deal with their desktop app if you don't want it. I even bought the original game I had on steam, again, on Gog just so I don't have to deal with their stupid shit.
I realise not everyone has the "luxury" of starting over but I will never understand why if you're forced to start over, you'd choose the same company again.
I'm glad you found an alternative but I feel compelled to say that Steam's desktop app has improved by leaps and bounds over the last decade.
A couple years ago I opted out of the new game release rat race because I realized they're costing more and I'm getting less and I don't find recent AAA games any more fun than older games (and often quite a bit less fun). I was also just sick of all the bullshit like many games being released in a buggy state, content being held back for the inevitable DLC, and having to sign up for an online account on some publisher's site after buying the game from another online service.
I've switched to retro gaming and find I enjoy it more. For example, exploring 90s Japanese games that never saw wide release in the US. Recently I've found some real winners exploring the X360 and PS3 back catalog of indie games via emulation. I'd never seen many of these because they were only released on their respective online services. Of course, with the shutdown of those stores, these titles would be lost to time were it not for the preservation and emulation communities archiving them. This is why I'm a fan of publishers like GOG who're at least making an effort toward perpetual availability.
As games push the limits of gambling ratio addiction mechanics, social and psychological coercion, sunk cost fallacy, and a host of other tactics as best exemplified by pay to win games made by machine zone aand others,
Games are getting definitively worse. You are a revenue stream, not a customer or a person to app Al to in any way but the most lazy and base ways possible.
Each successive graphic generation places additional production cost to build models and world's, arguably to the artistic detriment of any game: first, since there is so much labor, corners are cut and artistic vision can't be applied everywhere to an army of graphic artists, many outsourced. Second, the overall production costs, much like movie production, makes producers conservative and cookie cutter in pursuit of a reliable return on investment.
The emulation community is preserving not just games, but an entirely different culture of gaming.
Perhaps AI can help with better mass generation of artistic assets, but really an AI is a mass averager of it's inputs: artistic vision is fundamentally a deviation from a norm, and large AI models are anything but
for better or for worse, gaming has gone mainstream. there are now a lot of dollars chasing easy wins. even a computer graphics enthusiast, it is really sad to see that they have optimized for incredible rendering pipelines and utterly forgettable assets, mechanics, and stories.
but if you rewind your render quality expectations by about ten years, there are still great games being made for way under $100mm. I'll plug two of my current favorites:
* factorio ($20). if you don't already know what it is, I can't really summarize it here. the entire team is < 10 people, but it's rare example of engineering excellence combined with a carefully curated user experience. I try to get all the devs and PMs I work with to read their blog.
* zero k (free). a bit more wacky, but one of the best rts of all time. they also have an interesting dev blog, and for a nice cherry on top, it's open source. some feature requests on the forums get the reply "great idea, I look forward to your PR", which I find pretty funny.
I think the creative sweet spot is somewhere around the playstation 2, maybe a midpoint between PS1 and PS2, especially if the gross hardware speed takes optimization work out of the picture.
Modern games are wrestling with a lot of uncanny valley stuff still. They've improved a lot from the polar Express movie, but it's still an issue.
I recall the recent ads for first descendant where a guy is clearly smoking, which I thought was some vaping thing in realtime, but the smoking is even worse. Probably cigarette companies shadow funding things there.
It's been pretty lightspeed how the days of google do no evil has went to the great woke purge after covid and now is no holds barred mamma sociopathy. It was like 5 years.
I get the MBA sociopathy has been bubbling under the surface and lots of scary movements around the borders, but it is scary what is going on with big tech.
What is the great woke purge?
If you don't have the source code, you don't really "own" the software anyway. Any closed source software will eventually stop working due to technological changes, etc.
I treat games as mostly consumption items. I play them for a while, and then I might as well throw them to trash if they were physical items. If it wasn't for that I wouldn't accept lack of source code anyway, just like with the OS and important personal computing software.
This is an incredibly bizarre view. Most people who play games don't consider them disposable trash. I don't quite understand why you would post this, given the context. You don't personally care about games, therefore the industry's anti-consumer actions are justifiable?
I read it as an observation that regardless of license terms, 99% of gamers will loos the ability to play a game after some amount of time (10? 15? 20 years). If you accept that, the change from "buy" to "license" is not as large as it seems.
Except that it’s not true. I can play all the games of my childhood with various emulators. No source code required.
Machine code has always been enough.
Right, you can. Most people can't manage that (or won't be willing to put in the effort).
It's not a complex process whatsoever? Your average consumer can figure it out.
I’m sure most could if they really wanted to. They just don’t.
License terms? Really?
Which license terms, specifically, prevent me from playing a 20-year-old game on a 20-year-old machine?
None. It just won't install or run correctly or well.
Really? Why's that?
> You don't personally care ...
I'm just stating the fact. If you want to own software, you need to get the source code. If you don't get the source code, you're paying $10-$60 per perishable consumable, and should be always be aware of that, not deluding yourself about some "ownership".
I own my personal computer software, from the Linux OS, through code editor, compilers, etc. I have the source code. I personally care, so I do own, and pay extra (in time and money) for that privilege and look down on people who don't, as I think they are foolish. I do not care about the games, so the license deal is fine with me. I played the game already, if I really want to play it again, I can pay $5 on sale again.
If you and others care about owning games, or any other software for that matter, demand and pay for the source code. Otherwise you own nothing.
There are teams of dedicated fans and developers that have fully reverse engineered older games' source code to allow byte for byte recompilation. If this process could be accelerated or boosted with better tooling I think that would be a huge boon for game preservation and enhancements. I'm really hopeful that long-term advancements in AI tooling will help enable faster reverse engineering of games from binary to source code.
The goal should be getting source code released or 'leaked'.
Your comment assumes 100% of the source code for every game is out there. Most of the games released before the ubiquity of things like Github have no source code available.
That's interesting in this context because GOG first started off getting good old games to work on modern hardware. I would also say that emulation of hardware has come a long ways, so a DRM-free executable may be all that you need for historic preservation, barring software that requires communicating with a server for its functionality.
And even if source code is provided, it can be next to impossible to build it on your machine, so hopefully it has a docker image or what have you. Would also need to know the GPU requirement to compile it.
Not saying I wouldn't want the source code to be provided, but I'd like it purely for research and modding purposes, not to make sure I can build from source 10 years from now.
Its sort of sad, a painting, a cultural artifact, produced by 100s of people, beloved by millions and its just tossed aside, trampled like a electronic mandala - or worser still, destroyed in its vision by trying to turn it into an addiction. Nobody will remember our names for the art we made, we will be forgotten and background-noise to other artifacts who survive deep time.
Is that how you feel about owning any other item? Do you have the schematics for your toaster, your fridge, your table?
> Do you have the schematics for [...] your fridge
I'm not sure about today given stuff getting "smarter", but home appliances do typically include the schematics. You typically find them inside an envelope as you disassemble the thing.
OTOH I have been installing and playing _some_ games for almost 20 years on several computers using the same installer.
Emulation and virtualization have solved the longevity problem and continue to do so better than ever. There is no doubt at all that games will still work in the future, and other software, as long as they don't have a hard-dependency on a dead online system.
I see what you mean, but a counterpoint is NES games and how they can continue to be emulated. Super Mario is not open source, but it will not stop working.
Anyway it's better to have at least closed binary.
Same thing with open code -- one may say that depending on its license you also may not own it. But I say it's one step better.
I mean... even if you do have the source code it will eventually stop working if you try to use it on newer stacks. The question is who is updating the software, not necessarily who owns it.
Emulation is a thing. Dos and Nintendo games will be around forever.
Neither GOG or Steam are selling games. Both are selling licenses. The only people who own copyright works are the rights holders. You can't take a GOG licensed game and sell copies or make a derivative work so you don't own it but it is close to what people mean when they say they "own" a book or other physical media. Games that are only usable with online license checks are more fragile than DRM free games from GOG but practically there isn't much practical difference for the majority of users. I enjoy the convenience and added features of Steam but GOG serves an important role as a piracy alternative for those demanding fully functional stand alone, offline copies of games.
> Neither GOG or Steam are selling games. Both are selling licenses. The only people who own copyright works are the rights holders. You can't take a GOG licensed game and sell copies or make a derivative work so you don't own it
Isn't this not the usual way we talk about ownership? If I buy a book at the bookstore, I own the book. I can put the physical object on my bookshelf. If someone breaks into my house and takes the book, they have stolen the book from me. I have the right to give or resell the book to someone else. I have the right to read it when and how I want to. I have the right to bequeath it when I die. That's "ownership" for all intents and purposes, even if the rights to do certain things with the book are reserved to someone else. I can't, for instance, place the book on a photocopier, press the copy button for each page, and give the copies to someone else. I can't read from it into a microphone at a public event.
I don't see how ownership in the digital realm is so different. I don't have a physical artifact, and copies of a digital work are exactly identical, rather than distinguishable. But that doesn't change very much about what ownership ought to mean. It basically means that I'm not limited in my rights to use the (digital) book however I'd like for private use, although certain things I might want to do with the work are illegal. I can't make a copy and give it to someone else. The fact that copying is "easier" doesn't change the fundamental nature of that restriction.
When Steam got in hot water recently for saying that you couldn't give your account to someone else (e.g. through a will), I think the reason people were mad about that because it meant that having a game in your Steam account is definitively not owning the game. On the other hand, having a game on CD-ROM or purchased on GOG might count as ownership.
> If I buy a book at the bookstore, I own the [physical] book
what you're talking about is not ownership, but the first sale doctrine (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-sale_doctrine).
Unfortunately, this old doctrine doesnt work in the digital realm. So consumers _lost_ some of their rights in this regard.
Depends on the jurisdiction. The EU, for example, claims otherwise (not that this makes much practical difference until all appeals are exhausted):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-sale_doctrine#Applicatio...
for the purposes of the california law:
- Steam must clearly state it is selling you a license
- GOG is not required to say this (because you can download once and play forever)
I'm just sort of amazed that this law got out to benefit the citizens of california where so many others got veto'd or neutered on the way.
I think it's worth once again linking the "Stop Killing Games" campaign, for those that don't know about it! https://www.stopkillinggames.com/
GOG is still not “selling” the game, even though they offer offline installers, as one would with certainty face legal objections for setting up a resale marketplace website for games purchased from GOG. That your license is indefinite and your installer can be archived is excellent, but that’s still only a license with benefits.
The California law that has driven these marketing copy changes only applies to selling of software with revocable access. If the access cannot be revoked then the law still allows you to say you are selling the software rather than renting it. The law does not require licenses be transferable to qualify for this exemption.
> (b)(1) It shall be unlawful for a seller of a digital good to advertise or offer for sale a digital good to a purchaser with the terms buy, purchase, or any other term which a reasonable person would understand to confer an unrestricted ownership interest in the digital good, or alongside an option for a time-limited rental...
> (4)This section does not apply to any of the following: ...(C) Any digital good that is advertised or offered to a person that the seller cannot revoke access to after the transaction, which includes making the digital good available at the time of purchase for permanent offline download to an external storage source to be used without a connection to the internet.
https://digitaldemocracy.calmatters.org/bills/ca_202320240ab...
The benefit being that you will still be able to use the things you purchased even if your licensor goes down or you are not in good standing with them, which is what people used to call "owning" software back in the day anyway.
Well, that, and being able to give the software to somebody else, for free or money.
You were technically never allowed to do that if you read the EULA fine print, but it didn't stop many people
What matters is that a physical release holds some value, as there is a resale market for it. Meanwhile, there is no market for „offline installers”.
A EULA does not have to be correct. Tons of absolutely unenforceable clauses end up in those.
What I can't understand is that CDPR is willing to confer legal rights to play their games in perpetuity in stark contrast to virtually every other similar platform, yet they don't bother to hire a few developers to maintain a Linux client, effectively forcing its users to be at the whim of Microsoft, which surely is going to have its users' best interests at heart.
I don’t entirely disagree, but I believe that GOG has always been focused on simple file-based DRM-free distribution (just download the zip).
GOG Galaxy has been experimental until recently and it is more concerned with being a unified gaming client rather than the primary way to distribute GOG games. In the last couple of years it has actually become quite unstable anyway and it is barely being maintained, clearly not a focus, Linux or not.
“Forcing its users to be at the whim of Microsoft” is quite a stretch.
It isn't a zip file (that is Itch) but an installer (you can't easily install it just as a non-admin user on Windows, although on Linux it does install under the current user). They had a .tar.gz for Linux at first but now use a self-extracting installer there as well. A few years ago they said (didn't save the link) that only something like 5% of customers just use the offline installers (and I'm fairly sure not all that many more ever downloaded them, although it might be higher now after a few update issues in Galaxy). It is unfortunately not uncommon for games released on GOG to not have Linux versions available elsewhere. CDPR games have had Galaxy-exclusive bonus items, which is hardly being friendly to offline installers.
I don't have any inside knowledge but there is clearly an internal battle at CD Projekt (and their investors since they are a public company) between those who want to print money doing the unethical stuff that other game developers and stores do and those who want a more customer friendly approach. They tried a more ethical online focused thing with GWENT (that ended up partly under GOG due to relying on Galaxy and was a big reason they pushed for higher Galaxy use for a while) but it ended up not really making much money. Things like this California law are great to help support the availability of DRM-free games.
Also, GOG has around 6500 games now and I'd be supprised if they were involved in getting more than about 100 of them to work on modern systems. Galaxy has been around over half the time GOG has been in business (as an online store, not counting the early CD Projekt days). You are thinking of the early days of GOG but they are quite a bit larger now and CD Projekt as a whole is much larger now. I still think they are the best option to support DRM-free games but they are not the same as when they started (not only in bad ways, the refund policy is great now).
Thank you for that context, I clearly had a somewhat outdated view, this is interesting.
I might have exaggerated a bit. I haven't really tested GOG out much because it doesn't do those things like having a Linux client I expect a consumer-centric platform to do and it caved in to the Chinese government just like everyone else.
But if the idea is that other platforms might screw you over some time down the line and this platform will have your back, I am not convinced if they entirely dismiss Linux. I know it is not practical for CDPR to develop Proton like Valve. The bare minimum they can do though is to show they have contingency plans in case Valve stops upstreaming its translation layer. Otherwise, why not stick to the platform that is too big to fail and is actually doing something useful?
If the concern is CDPR’s character, I believe their first-party games are known to be remarkably Linux friendly. CP2077 actually run best in Stadia at launch, which I believe was Linux based.
Also consider the fact that a large fraction of GOG games are painstakingly restored old games, where revenue is clearly an afterthought, they sometimes seem like a nonprofit. You can’t reasonably expect them to also add Linux support to games from an era where Linux gaming was practically nonexistent, modern Linux translation layers will most likely be completely incompatible.
And again, they have not had a client for most of their tenure, and I cannot think of anything more consumer-friendly or consistent with Linux ideology than literally letting you download the files and do what you want with them without any DRM.
That is a good point. I might have been holding them to too high a standard. I don't really take into account benefits like DRM-free properly either.
For 95% of what GOG has on its shelves Wine is the only way, outside of rewriting them from scratch, to get those games on Linux anyway.
You can use the heroic game launcher instead of gog galaxy: https://heroicgameslauncher.com/
And you can just download the games from their website, they don't force you to use gog galaxy.
I am just a bit concerned about their attitude. If they were to release a decent open source Linux client with compatibility layers (just free ride Valve for now...) and commit to maintaining it, then I guess I am on the boat. Last time I checked the process was not very polished and games could be outdated.
Steam (via Proton) generally works, though, for those who wish to use it. (Steam+Proton also works with things downloaded from outside of Steam, too, and has for years[0].)
Proton itself is open-source[1].
If someone wanted to package up standalone Proton binaries for a Linux distro, then I don't see any particular barriers that would prevent that.
On GoG's part, they do provide the ability to just download a game with a web browser (the old-fashioned, DRM-free way). From there, I can manage the games I that own in any way that I choose.
Thus, I'm simply not seeing a problem here that needs solved. I already have the freedom to do whatever I want.
Which part of this situation is broken, do you suppose, and why does GoG in particular need to fix it?
[0]: https://boilingsteam.com/valve-breaks-the-shackles-of-proton...
[1]: https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton
It would be the best if they could provide a package manager-like experience (managing dependencies, auto-update, etc.). I don't like the idea that I have to deal with those issues myself even for popular contemporary games. Granted, I already have to put in some work running games on Linux so this might as well be what we get.
I would love to do that, but I have always had trouble getting it to work well with GOG. Maybe it is something odd with my systems, but I have found it is easier to just download the games from alternative sources than GOG and run them in Lutris, setting them up manually.
Heroic game launcher has huge flaws, one of this is to update a videogame, you have to download another copy of the game. Updating baldur's gate on my steam deck takes 180gb.
I’d guess money has a lot (everything) to do with it. The Linux gamers market is not big enough to be worth the investment.
It's not just money. Some companies did DVD linux ports 10-15 years ago which haven't been installable in years. The linux environment isn't as stable as windows.
There are Linux releases on GOG which are not playable on a modern distribution without heroics. Too much churn in system libraries/dependencies/whatever.
The only way to ensure I have a working backup of a GOG installer is to download the Windows release even when Linux is an option.
With the steam deck, this might not be true anymore given how a bunch of big games made sure to be steam deck verified
Sorry for my context what is CDPR?
CD Projekt Red, the company who own GOG as well as make The Witcher series & Cyberpunk 2077
Technically the parent company is CD Projekt S.A. that has two main divisions, CDPR (for game development) and GOG (the store). CDPR is quite a bit larger and has a few legal entities.
CD Projekt Red, owner of GOG.
also game developer that made Witcher and Cyberpunk 2077.
CD Project Red, Polish game studio known for the Witcher and Cyberpunk. (and in this context their willingness to just sell you games no strings attached)
I have purchased several games for Linux from GOG. I have never needed a "linux client" nor do I ever want one. Why would I want that kind of shitware when I can download the installers right off their website? The only reason that sort of software ever became normalized (e.g. Steam) is because it acts as DRM, but GOG doesn't have DRM.
Full title (84 characters too long): Valve reminds Steam users they don't actually own a darn thing they buy, GOG pounces and says its games "cannot be taken away from you" thanks to offline installers
GOG has actually gone further than that:
> "In general, your GOG account and GOG content is not transferable. However, if you can obtain a copy of a court order that specifically entitles someone to your GOG personal account, the digital content attached to it taking into account the EULAs of specific games within it, and that specifically refers to your GOG username or at least email address used to create such an account, we'd do our best to make it happen. We're willing to handle such a situation and preserve your GOG library—but currently we can only do it with the help of the justice system."
https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/gog-will-let-you-beq...
Gog is pretty great in terms of how they treat customers.
I've had to refund a few games, I've never had a problem.
This is the result I expected when I first read about the new California law.
With a bit of luck, this story will get wide enough distribution that GOG will gain a bit of market share.
Sadly, if GOG gains enough new market share to have a material effect on Valve's bottom line, I imagine Valve's initial response will be a "most favored nation" clause in future publisher contracts allowing Steam to introduce offline, DRM-free installers for the subset of Steam games also available on GOG, diluting GOG's unique value proposition with a move that will nevertheless be hailed as a victory for consumers.
This title is super weighted, Valve makes it quite clear that users do in fact own a thing, a license for a product on Steam. This is fundamental to games with online DRM.
It's fundamental to all non-free software.
It's fundamental to all software. Even FOSS software is licensed, it's just incredibly permissive and doesn't cost money.
You are correct of course, One exception to this is materials released into the public domain.
Allow me a short incoherent essay on my thoughts on the subject.
Public domain is a fascinating concept to me, My view is somewhat US centric, for example, some countries have no legal equivalent of the concept. but I think the idea that we the public can collectively own something is neat. Nothing wrong with copyright, I think copyright is a very important legal structure recognizing the effort to create something. but I also think it somewhat enlightened to say after a given amount of time the public owns this. Or the way the US government says "works created by the US government are for the good of all US citizens and as such are in the public domain". should a person be allowed to say "I made this for the public good and release any claim of ownership over it". sqlite infamously has trouble because some countries are legally unable to recognize a work put in the public domain. But all of nasa's software and papers are available under the same consideration.
This is just wrong. They could just sell copies instead of licenses. Copyright law doesn't care about interaction with already-existing copies, so mere usage of a software (and making archival copies) doesn't need a license at all
This is just wrong. "Mere usage" of a software does indeed need a license, just like "mere playback" of video requires a license. Remember all of the FBI warnings on movies warning you that you can't play the video publicly?
Running software without a license is literally illegal (at least in the US). Now, whether that is enforced, and to what extent in practice is a different story, just like how piracy in general is not really enforced against.
The fundamental problem with printed goods in general and software in particular is that they are so easy to copy.
A manufactured item is fairly hard to copy and the law on counterfeit goods is correspondingly weak. There is some law there, but it is hard to get it enforced, usually requires a court battle, etc. for example design of garments are infamously impossible to protect, garment manufactures tend to have to lean hard on trademark law to get any protection on design.
But printed works, It is easy to get a perfect copy, and computers are even worse. Trying to make a computer not copy something is like trying to make water that is not wet. This is the domain that copyright law started to appear. Basically laws explicitly saying you own what you wrote and get rights about decisions on when and where it can be copied.
But the point of my rather long-winded and incoherent rant is to say they can and do sell copies. when you buy a work those bits belong to you. you can do whatever you want with them... well, almost whatever you want with them. It is illegal to distribute them to others as this runs afoul of copyright law.
"If buying isn't owning, piracy isn't stealing"
https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/08/playstationed/
Also, Steam should not offer buying games. Renting games would be more accurate.
I didn't know about GOG. Symptoms of getting older. I need similar for films. I don't want to stream, I don't want to rip, and I'm too out of touch with torrent things to feel comfortable; not that I ever dared in simpler times, of course.
There was confusion around this?
I think a lot of people reasonably believe that “buying” digital content provides continuous, permanent access to that content, as opposed to the common alternative of either paying for a time‐limited “rental” or for a monthly streaming subscription that obviously expires access as soon as one stops paying.
Such people are taken by surprise when it turns out companies can take away your “bought” content simply by virtue of changing licensing agreements or corporate structure without public input. Some recent cases:
• Crunchyroll and Funimation merged. People who had “permanent” digital copies purchased from Funimation lost them.
• Sony’s license for Discovery Channel content was not renewed, so all Discovery videos people had purchased (most notably, 20 seasons of Mythbusters) were removed from customers’ libraries.
• Ubisoft shut down the servers for The Crew and removed it from purchasers’ Steam libraries, despite the presence of a 20‐hour single‐player campaign that was online only for no good reason.
Maybe people will get used to this and consider all purchases ephemeral. I hope not. That’s why I buy and advocate for DRM‐free media.
It seems obvious that the distinction between buying a game digitally and buying a license to play a game digitally could be confusing to the average person looking at a digital storefront. Are you being facetious? (honestly asking - like, "gee, who would have thought there could be confusion?")
A lot of Steam customers simply haven't thought very far ahead: what happens when they die? As a twenty-year old company there is certainly a reckoning on the horizon as their users age-out and start passing in higher numbers.
What happens when Gabe Newell dies is another very important question that adds some urgency - one or two decades - to establishing more balanced policies.
Steam says they won't pass the library to heirs, but steam will do whatever the probate judge tells them to.
Steam has never offered offline installers. And even offline play requires you to be online for offline to work for a period of time before being online again. If the service disappears so does your catalog.
I thought it was common knowledge you’re only buying a license to play via steam. You never own the game outright forever.
I'm sure some less knowledgeable people weren't aware of the distinction. There is a proposed California law to make the distinction more clear: don't use the word "purchase" unless you make clear that it is a license you are purchasing, not the game.
Not just proposed, the CA law is going into effect in a few months
If there is confusion then it’s a probably a good thing. Just kinda raised an eyebrow that there was confusion.
It's not that the consumers weren't aware of the distinction between buy and rent, just that companies outright started to lie about the meaning of "purchase".
How many people do you know that have thought through the implications of Steam versus GOG installation and authentication methods?
Yes there was confusion, and the warning will probably help.
There's something so much better about having physical cartridges :)
While that wouldn't make sense these days, knowing the installer you downloaded will still work decades from now is great, and I hope to see more companies like GOG start doing this.
My switch cartridges work without Wi-Fi, so the games must be stored there in playable form.
[dupe]
More discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41809193
then what dafuq do you buy when you spend money on steam?
Can you sell you GOG game on to another person?
I feel slightly less bad about stealing all my games now.
I might pirate what I already bought, since that is the only way to actually acquire it.
That’s exactly what I did. Epic shot my account.