8 ms·

You can theoretically solve a lot of problems with crappy, multitudinous game stores - easier payments, lighter software. But the real question is: do I trust t

by TillE 5y ago

You can theoretically solve a lot of problems with crappy, multitudinous game stores - easier payments, lighter software. But the real question is: do I trust that I'll be able to continue downloading my purchases for the foreseeable future? I trust that Steam will be around for a very long time. I can download DRM-free installers from GOG. Everyone else? I don't know, I have much less confidence.

causi 5y ago
I expect we're less than five years away from seeing everyone's Stadia purchases evaporate.
- nimajneb 5y ago
  Yea, I have it, although I haven't used it in a while and plan on cancelling. I made zero purchases on the platform though. I just play the free games.
- ascagnel_ 5y ago
  I've been saying from day one that Stadia should have offered a subscription service similar to what Microsoft is doing with Game Pass. I don't want to pay full-price for games that require someone else maintaining hardware, especially when they're not booking any recurring revenue.
  - sbarre 5y ago
    Google would have struggled to get a catalogue for their subscription I think, if only because they had to convince publishers (some that would consider Stadia to be competition) to put in work to get games running on their platform. I wonder if they tried the subscription thing first but then gave up and just went with the buy model as a least-worst choice at a point in the cycle where it was too late to back out of the whole endeavour. Stadia uses custom hardware so games can't just run on Stadia as-is, they have to be ported, which requires investment from the game's developers (or a porting shop). I have to imagine most publishers that Google approached expected them to foot some of the bill for that work, if not all of it.
    - Gigachad 5y ago
      The ideal solution would have been charging a fee to use stadia and then just letting people link their steam account in. You still buy the games at full price, Google still gets paid, and you keep the games after they shut down.
      - sbarre 5y ago
        Yes, that's exactly GeForce Now's model, but since Stadia uses custom hardware and requires work to port games over (a huge mistake in my mind), it would still not have worked to just bring in Steam. They should have gone with standard hardware basically.
- sbarre 5y ago
  The Stadia model was dead on arrival exactly because you were expected to pay full price to "buy" games that you would never actually own. With Google's reputation of killing products, and the hubris of thinking they could just waltz into the gaming space and be competitive within a year, it's no wonder that no one took them seriously and the product never took off. Other streaming services like GeForce Now (sp?) let you install games you already own on Steam and play them on a cloud computer, which is a much more attractive model I think.
  - vlunkr 5y ago
    It's pretty amazing the Stadia happened at all. From day one everyone predicted how it would die, and so far it has not deviated from that course at all.
- bastardoperator 5y ago
  Sounds optimistic, I'm thinking less.
mFixman 5y ago
Why is a launcher even needed? Isn't it better to provide downloads and payments from their website rather than paying 25% of transactions to Valve?
- crooked-v 5y ago
  Among other things, Steam Workshop, seamless multiplayer, and automatic cloud syncing are substantial value-adds for many, many games.
- Ekaros 5y ago
  Why is package manager needed on Linux? Isn't it better to download everything as source code and compile yourself?
  - NullPrefix 5y ago
    My package manager allows me to see the URL to download it and compile it manually. Does Steam/Bethesda/other game launcher allows this?
    - gpderetta 5y ago
      There are command line tools to download steam packages, yes.
    - notafraudster 5y ago
      I mean, yes, you can add non-Steam games to Steam, which is the analogue here.
      - account42 5y ago
        That is not really the analogue as non-Steam games only benefit from a tiny part of Steams features wheres almost all Linux package manager let you configure the repositories they pull from and those repositories can (at least theoretically) be used with other package managers.
dtech 5y ago
Even if Steam will be going away at some point, I bed an archival effort will start similar to what we've seen for Geocities etc.
- jka 5y ago
  There's already at least one effort to gather a list of games that are no longer available* on Steam: https://steam-tracker.com/ https://steam-tracker.com/ I wonder how many of those can be retrieved (and are playable) from archived copies? Edit: available meaning "available for purchase" (my mistake, thanks for the corrections)
  - Ekaros 5y ago
    Delisted means no longer sold. Unless developer does something shady those games can still be downloaded and played (any third-party DRM not withstanding)
    - agilob 5y ago
      How is "delisted" different from "purchase disabled"?
      - Ekaros 5y ago
        Store page is removed for example you can still see community hub: Duke Nukem 3D Megaton Edition https://steamcommunity.com/app/225140/ https://steamcommunity.com/app/225140/ On other hand purchase might be disabled by developer, but game page is still visible: https://store.steampowered.com/app/210550/Angry_Birds_Space/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/210550/Angry_Birds_Space/
      - dharmab 5y ago
        Whether the store page is visible. A publisher might want to keep the page up to direct users to a newer title that deprecates the old one. Or they might hide a page if they no longer have rights. I also noticed that Prey (2006) is delisted to presumably avoid confusion with Prey (2017).
stingraycharles 5y ago
I see this as is something that legislation could fix: digital licenses should be transferable between digital stores. If I buy a game in store X, and it’s available on store/platform Y, I should be able to play it on both. Unfortunately, I don’t think that’s the case. I recently bought a Nintendo Switch, and although I’m happy overall, some games have very heavy limits built in (think: max number of units in games), and they’re also available on PC/steam, but I would have to buy the games twice. I just can’t get over myself to do that, I shouldn’t have to do it. At the very least make the license transferable! :)
- maccolgan 5y ago
  As bad as the HN echochamber is, NFTs.
- thfuran 5y ago
  I think that has no sound legal basis but I also don't think that's practical. A launcher like steam isn't just a client-side application and I don't think it makes sense to compel some company to incur the costs of supporting their competitor's customers, which is what that would amount to.
  - gjsman-1000 5y ago
    Surprisingly, Disney figured this out for movies with their "Movies Anywhere" service, powered by something they call KeyChest. You create a "Movies Anywhere" account, and then link digital stores (iTunes, Prime Video, Vudu) to that account. All movies that you purchased from participating studios then appear on all of the linked stores. It actually works quite well. I can purchase a movie on the Roku Movie Store (powered by Vudu) and have it appear as purchased on my Apple TV with iTunes, and all of the big studios are members so not that many films are missing. You also now get a Movies Anywhere code in the box of most Blu-ray purchases, which works exactly like you would expect and appears on all the stores as if it were a Roku or Apple TV purchase. (Ultraviolet codes are grandfathered in if you have any of those.)
    - 5y ago
legitster 5y ago
This is something blockchain would actually be very good at solving. Download a legal copy of the game from anywhere. No DRM, but your license key gets checked against the blockchain.
- Ekaros 5y ago
  I just wonder how could duplicating the license key be prevented. First by small group and then maybe just stolen from someone. While also preventing loss of it with let's say device.
  - nouveaux 5y ago
    A game key could be considered a non-fungible token so this already works on a blockchain. Instead of recording a game key, you record the wallet public key. If you need more privacy, you can use Zero knowledge proofs[0]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-knowledge_proof https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-knowledge_proof
    - nouveaux 5y ago
      Sheesh being down voted on hacker news for a technical response. If my technical response is wrong, please let me know.
    - Ekaros 5y ago
      How would you prevent group of friends from sharing a wallet? Which I see as one thing to do, pool your money and buy each new game to new wallet... Then share the wallet's private key between all.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - nouveaux 5y ago
        The benefit of putting a game key in a public place is to make porting the key easier. So yea, sharing a wallet would be possible. This is definitely not something corporations want. Back in the day, you can borrow your friends game after they were done. DVDs can be shared. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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- deleted 5y ago
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by TillE 5y ago

causi 5y ago

I expect we're less than five years away from seeing everyone's Stadia purchases evaporate.

nimajneb 5y ago
Yea, I have it, although I haven't used it in a while and plan on cancelling. I made zero purchases on the platform though. I just play the free games.
ascagnel_ 5y ago
I've been saying from day one that Stadia should have offered a subscription service similar to what Microsoft is doing with Game Pass. I don't want to pay full-price for games that require someone else maintaining hardware, especially when they're not booking any recurring revenue.
- sbarre 5y ago
  Google would have struggled to get a catalogue for their subscription I think, if only because they had to convince publishers (some that would consider Stadia to be competition) to put in work to get games running on their platform. I wonder if they tried the subscription thing first but then gave up and just went with the buy model as a least-worst choice at a point in the cycle where it was too late to back out of the whole endeavour. Stadia uses custom hardware so games can't just run on Stadia as-is, they have to be ported, which requires investment from the game's developers (or a porting shop). I have to imagine most publishers that Google approached expected them to foot some of the bill for that work, if not all of it.
  - Gigachad 5y ago
    The ideal solution would have been charging a fee to use stadia and then just letting people link their steam account in. You still buy the games at full price, Google still gets paid, and you keep the games after they shut down.
    - sbarre 5y ago
      Yes, that's exactly GeForce Now's model, but since Stadia uses custom hardware and requires work to port games over (a huge mistake in my mind), it would still not have worked to just bring in Steam. They should have gone with standard hardware basically.
sbarre 5y ago
The Stadia model was dead on arrival exactly because you were expected to pay full price to "buy" games that you would never actually own. With Google's reputation of killing products, and the hubris of thinking they could just waltz into the gaming space and be competitive within a year, it's no wonder that no one took them seriously and the product never took off. Other streaming services like GeForce Now (sp?) let you install games you already own on Steam and play them on a cloud computer, which is a much more attractive model I think.
- vlunkr 5y ago
  It's pretty amazing the Stadia happened at all. From day one everyone predicted how it would die, and so far it has not deviated from that course at all.
bastardoperator 5y ago
Sounds optimistic, I'm thinking less.

mFixman 5y ago

Why is a launcher even needed? Isn't it better to provide downloads and payments from their website rather than paying 25% of transactions to Valve?

crooked-v 5y ago
Among other things, Steam Workshop, seamless multiplayer, and automatic cloud syncing are substantial value-adds for many, many games.
Ekaros 5y ago
Why is package manager needed on Linux? Isn't it better to download everything as source code and compile yourself?
- NullPrefix 5y ago
  My package manager allows me to see the URL to download it and compile it manually. Does Steam/Bethesda/other game launcher allows this?
  - gpderetta 5y ago
    There are command line tools to download steam packages, yes.
  - notafraudster 5y ago
    I mean, yes, you can add non-Steam games to Steam, which is the analogue here.
    - account42 5y ago
      That is not really the analogue as non-Steam games only benefit from a tiny part of Steams features wheres almost all Linux package manager let you configure the repositories they pull from and those repositories can (at least theoretically) be used with other package managers.

dtech 5y ago

Even if Steam will be going away at some point, I bed an archival effort will start similar to what we've seen for Geocities etc.

jka 5y ago
There's already at least one effort to gather a list of games that are no longer available* on Steam: https://steam-tracker.com/ https://steam-tracker.com/ I wonder how many of those can be retrieved (and are playable) from archived copies? Edit: available meaning "available for purchase" (my mistake, thanks for the corrections)
- Ekaros 5y ago
  Delisted means no longer sold. Unless developer does something shady those games can still be downloaded and played (any third-party DRM not withstanding)
  - agilob 5y ago
    How is "delisted" different from "purchase disabled"?
    - Ekaros 5y ago
      Store page is removed for example you can still see community hub: Duke Nukem 3D Megaton Edition https://steamcommunity.com/app/225140/ https://steamcommunity.com/app/225140/ On other hand purchase might be disabled by developer, but game page is still visible: https://store.steampowered.com/app/210550/Angry_Birds_Space/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/210550/Angry_Birds_Space/
    - dharmab 5y ago
      Whether the store page is visible. A publisher might want to keep the page up to direct users to a newer title that deprecates the old one. Or they might hide a page if they no longer have rights. I also noticed that Prey (2006) is delisted to presumably avoid confusion with Prey (2017).

stingraycharles 5y ago

I see this as is something that legislation could fix: digital licenses should be transferable between digital stores. If I buy a game in store X, and it’s available on store/platform Y, I should be able to play it on both. Unfortunately, I don’t think that’s the case. I recently bought a Nintendo Switch, and although I’m happy overall, some games have very heavy limits built in (think: max number of units in games), and they’re also available on PC/steam, but I would have to buy the games twice. I just can’t get over myself to do that, I shouldn’t have to do it. At the very least make the license transferable! :)

maccolgan 5y ago
As bad as the HN echochamber is, NFTs.
thfuran 5y ago
I think that has no sound legal basis but I also don't think that's practical. A launcher like steam isn't just a client-side application and I don't think it makes sense to compel some company to incur the costs of supporting their competitor's customers, which is what that would amount to.
- gjsman-1000 5y ago
  Surprisingly, Disney figured this out for movies with their "Movies Anywhere" service, powered by something they call KeyChest. You create a "Movies Anywhere" account, and then link digital stores (iTunes, Prime Video, Vudu) to that account. All movies that you purchased from participating studios then appear on all of the linked stores. It actually works quite well. I can purchase a movie on the Roku Movie Store (powered by Vudu) and have it appear as purchased on my Apple TV with iTunes, and all of the big studios are members so not that many films are missing. You also now get a Movies Anywhere code in the box of most Blu-ray purchases, which works exactly like you would expect and appears on all the stores as if it were a Roku or Apple TV purchase. (Ultraviolet codes are grandfathered in if you have any of those.)
  - 5y ago

legitster 5y ago

This is something blockchain would actually be very good at solving. Download a legal copy of the game from anywhere. No DRM, but your license key gets checked against the blockchain.

Ekaros 5y ago
I just wonder how could duplicating the license key be prevented. First by small group and then maybe just stolen from someone. While also preventing loss of it with let's say device.
- nouveaux 5y ago
  A game key could be considered a non-fungible token so this already works on a blockchain. Instead of recording a game key, you record the wallet public key. If you need more privacy, you can use Zero knowledge proofs[0]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-knowledge_proof https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-knowledge_proof
  - nouveaux 5y ago
    Sheesh being down voted on hacker news for a technical response. If my technical response is wrong, please let me know.
  - Ekaros 5y ago
    How would you prevent group of friends from sharing a wallet? Which I see as one thing to do, pool your money and buy each new game to new wallet... Then share the wallet's private key between all.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - nouveaux 5y ago
      The benefit of putting a game key in a public place is to make porting the key easier. So yea, sharing a wallet would be possible. This is definitely not something corporations want. Back in the day, you can borrow your friends game after they were done. DVDs can be shared. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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