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That is how all of this works. If Valve went out of business then you wouldn't have any legal right or way to get the games you purchased on Steam. If Amazon sh

That is how all of this works. If Valve went out of business then you wouldn't have any legal right or way to get the games you purchased on Steam. If Amazon shut down Prime Video then you couldn't watch the movies you purchased on it. This is not a unique problem to Google Stadia.

tokai 4y ago
You would still have your games files and be able to run them. Steam is not a rental or streaming service.
- delecti 4y ago
  Many/most Steam games use Steam servers to authenticate ownership. It's a store, but it's also a DRM provider. Many games would require cracking to keep working.
  - tokai 4y ago
    >most Steam games use Steam servers to authenticate ownership Not true. Maybe if you mainly play ubisoft tiles.
    - delecti 4y ago
      Can you be more specific or offer any evidence? That Valve offers DRM through Steam is unambiguously true. Here's their developer document on it: https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/features/drm https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/features/drm And here's a list of games which are sold through Steam but which nonetheless do not use Steam DRM: https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/The_big_list_of_DRM-free_games_on_Steam https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/The_big_list_of_DRM-free_g... Why would such a list be necessary if games sold through Steam that used Steam DRM were the minority?
    - Karunamon 4y ago
      Any game using Steamworks behaves this way, which is a pretty massive chunk of them. Ubisoft uses their own DRM which is an entirely different system. I think what you may be saying is the behavior if you open a Steamworks game while Steam is opened, it just executes as normal. Any authentication or nonsense happens in the background. Try opening a Steamworks game with steam closed, it will force steam to open and login before the game can be played.
    - vorpalhex 4y ago
      You can test this. Delete steam, restart your computer and launch a title. You'll get a message about steam.dll missing or being unable to authenticate. You can also sign out of steam, unplug from the internet and try to launch - and again, you won't be able to except this time steam will launch and tell you to login.
  - xen2xen1 4y ago
    Or a single last update from the servers that made every server check come back legit.
    - delecti 4y ago
      That's always just been a wishful statement of intent with no legal backing. Valve might be unable or unwilling to actually follow through on that urban legend if they do ever shut down for some reason.
- Ken_At_EM 4y ago
  Yes but if Steam shut down you’d have no way to get to the installers again and you’d be left crossing your fingers the machine you installed them on doesn’t die.
  - tokai 4y ago
    Think it through. Of cause you cant get the games files if the provider goes offline. You can make a backup of any of your games in steam, which will make it possible to install it again offline on other machines.
    - flohofwoe 4y ago
      The game won't run on another machine, at best you have a two weeks time window before the DRM checks start to fail. There's this family sharing thing though, where you can share your Steam library between 5 accounts and up to 10 computers: https://store.steampowered.com/promotion/familysharing https://store.steampowered.com/promotion/familysharing
  - shagie 4y ago
    I've bought a copy of Iron Dragon for the PC - I can even find the license key in my ancient google mail. It was published by http://www.antigravitybox.com/ http://www.antigravitybox.com/ and the game's website is http://www.irondragon.org/ http://www.irondragon.org/ I don't see too much of a difference other than Steam has more proven longevity - even if the developers that sold games on Steam don't. I can still download Dungeons of Dreadmor from Steam even though the company appears to have disappeared in 2016.
  - xen2xen1 4y ago
    Hacks already exist to make the games not check the servers, and only stop working after new Steam updates. If Steam were to never update again it seems likely the hacked dlls would work forever.
- gjsman-1000 4y ago
  Not very much - many of those game files actually have Steam Runtime or Steam executables blended in. It is not a strong DRM - but you are still going to need to look for cracked copies if Steam went down.
- NikolaNovak 4y ago
  That's how GoG works. That's not how steam works on its own. Steam explicitly a service where you buy a defined and limited license for permission to execute the files through proprietary framework that might one day disappear. Don't get me wrong, steam is my preferred digital delivery platform and where I play majority of my games. But I am under no illusion that gives me any sort of permanence (without potential hacking and mods). If I want permanence I get a DRM free downloadable game from GoG.
  - tokai 4y ago
    >Steam explicitly a service where you buy a defined and limited license for permission Simply not true. There is really no arguments here. You can run most games directly from the game files without steam. In the cases were you can't you would have issues with DRM in all other venues of purchase.
    - flohofwoe 4y ago
      It may look like that from the outside because you can go to the Steam library directory and double click a game executable directly, but this will still start the Steam runtime and do a DRM check. You can run a game in 'offline mode' for up to two weeks before another online DRM check is required though.
      - jeltz 4y ago
        Not necessarily. The DRM part is optional.
    - anjbe 4y ago
      Runtime DRM is sometimes optional with Steam, but install‐time DRM never is.
  - fluoridation 4y ago
    You're not describing how Steam is meant to work, but rather how things are likely to play out for a lot of titles if Steam ever shuts down. Yes, if Steam shuts down, any game that (due to technical requirements) requires Steam to be up will be left unusable, and the customers will be left with pretty much no recourse. Not because legally they're not entitled to the products they paid for, but because it would be impractical to enforce such a right. No, Steam sells permanent licenses.
- RGamma 4y ago
  Steam DRM might not easily allow this, although I trust in Valve's ethics to permit offline play if shit hits the fan. In fact I remember reading from a community representative that there are plans for this in place (not the best source but whatever https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/18mzcn/i_asked_steam_support_what_happens_to_my_games_if/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/18mzcn/i_asked_steam...)
  - Karunamon 4y ago
    It also helps that Steamworks DRM is trivially bypassed. All it takes are a couple of replacement DLL files in the games directory and it runs normally (minus multiplayer support, of course). This isn't even a sketchy crack thing, it's an open source tool. Look up Goldberg emulator.
School-Cotton 4y ago
Legally you may be right (probably depends on the country, idk) but it’s still an ethically shitty move and would make me think twice about doing business with Google in the future, even though I personally am not affected.
chunkyguy 4y ago
So it isn't really a purchase but rather rental
Ken_At_EM 4y ago
You’re of course entirely correct. Valve feels different because you can install the games and play them on a machine of your choosing. Maybe if Stadia allowed you to play the games on your machine OR Stadia, the would have been a more compelling offering. Personally, I would have loved a service like that. There are so many games that my machine can play and I don’t want to deal with even the slightest lag, but I’ve never been one to own an impressive gaming rig and dealing with a tiny bit of lag to avoid spending $3000 on a solid rig would be totally worth it. Maybe valve should add a Stadia-like service in the future to allow you to play the game on their machines and stream it back when you want to.
- NikolaNovak 4y ago
  >>Maybe if Stadia allowed you to play the games on your machine OR Stadia, the would have been a more compelling offering. Personally, I would have loved a service like that GeForce now and xbox cloud both seem to check those boxes, with geforce now offering more permanence. You buy a game on steam or GoG or epic or whatever, than play it offline on your computer or stream via geforce now. I was skeptical but loved it for the last year or so when my computer couldn't run cyberpunk 2077 and I didn't want to sell kidney for a rtx card :)
  - kmeisthax 4y ago
    Geforce Now was probably the most consumer-friendly version of game streaming possible and every game publisher shat their pants and blocked it. Hell, even some indie developers blocked it. From a user perspective it's equivalent to renting an EC2 instance and installing Parsec and Steam on it, just automated. But the publishers looked at it like Nvidia had stolen their games to make their own bootleg streaming service. The only reason why this didn't happen with Xcloud is that Microsoft already had pre-existing agreements that covered all the games on consoles. But that's moreso a testament to how much monopoly power platform owners have rather than Xbox developers being more consumer friendly. The general principle that copyright owners have is "any time our work winds up on a new medium, we should get paid". This is the reason why game publishers won't help you port licenses out of failing platforms and successful platforms won't let publishers port them in[0]. Nobody wants license portability for game purchases. Why have that when we can charge people to buy a new one!? Sideloading? Emulators?! That's just piracy with extra steps! The actual law doesn't support their level of copyright maximalism: * RIAA v. Diamond supports a right of consumer format shifting (and also carved a huge hole into the AHRA DRM mandate in the process) * Sony v. Connectix supports the legality of game emulation, including non-clean-room reimplementation of necessary system software to run games The only reason why they are even remotely able to insist that ownership ends with the licensing platform is that the Copyright Office is afraid of adding DMCA 1201 exceptions for format shifting. [0] Valve is one of the few exceptions; they will let their partner developers generate unlimited new license keys for free. Or at least they did - I do remember at one point they had to crack down on some scams that were abusing this. AFAIK everyone else either does not allow partners to generate keys at all or has a strict cap of 100 or so.
User23 4y ago
That's absolutely false under US law[1]. Once you have a legal copy, you are free to run the software without a license, including making additional copies for archival or as necessary to use it (for example, copying the program from disk to memory for execution). The anti-circumvention statutes mean DRM complicates matters, but you definitely have a legal right to the game files themselves. For what it's worth, I believe that a competent lawyer could successfully argue that disabling DRM is an "adaptation" that's an "essential step in the utilization of the computer program." Get the case in front of Judge Alsup or some other computer literate judge and the argument would probably even prevail. [1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/117 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/117
gre 4y ago
Amazon once told me that the music I had purchased was no longer available. I lost access to a digital music purchase...
- jaywalk 4y ago
  But Amazon sells MP3 downloads?
  - gre 4y ago
    I can't download them anymore.
    - jaywalk 4y ago
      Once you download an MP3, you should protect it as you'd protect anything else you purchased instead of expecting that it would be available to re-download indefinitely.
      - gre 4y ago
        Oh, my bad, it was from iTunes from ten years ago, not Amazon. I found the support email. (I still have the mp3s) """ Thank you for contacting iTunes Store Support! My name is Dianne, and I'm sorry to hear that you have been unable to redownload the album "Rachmaninov: Complete Piano Concertos", on your new computer. I can certainly understand how this could be disappointing for you, please be assured that I'm happy to help. Unfortunately, this item is no longer in the iTunes Store, and only items that are currently available can be redownloaded. If the content provider no longer offers these purchases on the iTunes Store, App Store, or iBookstore, your content will not be available for you to download again. However, if you still have this album on the original computer, you can certainly transfer it to you new computer. You can do this in several ways. See the following article for how to transfer iTunes Store purchases using Home Sharing, an external drive, an iOS device (iPhone, iPad, or iPod), the Windows Migration Assistant, and CDs/DVDs: """
TurkTurkleton 4y ago
In addition to what everyone else who has replied said, Valve (or at least a support rep, so this doesn't carry as much weight as Gabe Newell himself saying it, but it was at least someone speaking in an official capacity) has said that in the event that the Steam service has to be discontinued, "measures are in place to ensure that that all users continue to have access to their Steam games".
- hbn 4y ago
  At least I can rest assured that pretty much anything that's been put on Steam has a cracked version out there, and if one day Valve disappears and I lose my entire library, I'll just go pirate whatever I want to play again. Good luck doing that for a game that consumers were only ever sent frames of. If/when there's a streaming-exclusive game, it'll be conclusively lost to time when the company stops letting people play it.
  - endominus 4y ago
    Versions of this have been going on for years now. MMOs and multiplayer-focused titles die all the time, often with no way for players to access any of the content in those games. There might be a few exceptions where an extremely devoted fanbase reverse engineers the server code and runs instances of it, but that is hardly the rule. This is the tragedy of game development. I heard the other day that copies of Anthem are selling for a penny at GameStop. When EA abandons that game (any day now), all of the work of those programmers, artists, and everyone else will basically be lost. Hundreds of thousands of man-hours of work, gone.
- bzxcvbn 4y ago
  Hearsay in an HN comment about an unnamed support rep making a promise in a comment taken out of context isn't a legal contract. Meanwhile, here is what Steam's subscriber agreement says https://store.steampowered.com/subscriber_agreement/english/ https://store.steampowered.com/subscriber_agreement/english/ > Steam and your Subscription(s) require the download and installation of Content and Services onto your computer. Valve hereby grants, and you accept, a non-exclusive license and right, to use the Content and Services for your personal, non-commercial use (except where commercial use is expressly allowed herein or in the applicable Subscription Terms). This license ends upon termination of (a) this Agreement or (b) a Subscription that includes the license. The Content and Services are licensed, not sold. Your license confers no title or ownership in the Content and Services. To make use of the Content and Services, you must have a Steam Account and you may be required to be running the Steam client and maintaining a connection to the Internet. > Valve may restrict or cancel your Account or any particular Subscription(s) at any time in the event that (a) Valve ceases providing such Subscriptions to similarly situated Subscribers generally [...]
gambiting 4y ago
The obvious difference is that games downloaded from steam are on your machine and are yours to keep forever - if Valve goes bankrupt you can still have copies(whether they would launch or not is a different question, but I'm sure someone would find a technical solution). When Stadia shuts down that's it, the games are gone, because you can't make an offline copies of them.
- dijit 4y ago
  That’s not really as true as you say, I remember in the mid-00s when I had trouble with the internet at home, that I couldn’t play offline games without logging in to steam. There was a “remember password” option, but the session would still expire. There would have to be some effort to unlink those games from the auth services.
  - gambiting 4y ago
    Hi ;-) Also, yes, but I mean you could find a solution I'm sure. As long as you have the copies a solution would be found - just like I can play my PS1 games without owning a PS1. With Stadia there aren't any copies to speak of. Once the servers go down that's it.
- MichaelCollins 4y ago
  If you have to download a pirate's crack to play a game, you may as well download a pirate version of the game in the first place. I don't see much substantial difference between these two scenarios. Steam is a DRM system with good branding, that gamers treat as special because it comes from Valve. Anecdotally, a lot of gamers believe and trust that Valve would free their games of DRM if Valve ever went out of business or otherwise shut down Steam. Of course this isn't true, they wouldn't have the legal right to do that with any game that wasn't their own (which is the vast majority of the games on Steam) and whatever informal promises Gabe made years aren't worth a damn. Nevertheless, this sort of mistaken expectation affords Valve/Steam a lot of good will they really don't deserve.
  - gambiting 4y ago
roody15 4y ago
It is unique in that Google has plenty of money and is not going out of business. In fact it just posted excellent earnings this week. To say this project failed and everyone is just out of luck would really shows what kind of company Alphabet/Google really is.
- ocdtrekkie 4y ago
  If they do this, they're probably hoping that developers of the games themselves will hand out free Steam keys to their now-angry customer base. More than likely this would happen for several titles, and they're probably counting on it.
- drumhead 4y ago
  It really does feel like the company isnt being run by humans but a rudimentary AI somewhere.
  - MichaelCollins 4y ago
    Corporations may be comprised of humans, but the corporation itself is not human. This is particularly true for large corporations with a lot of organizational complexity, like Google. They are forms of artificial intelligence, but instead of running on silicon they run on the organizational chart. Corporations are capable of doing things that no individual human in the organization personally agrees with but go along with anyway because of the way the organization is structured and enforces compliance with itself. Even the executives at the top, who may believe they're in charge, are ultimately components in the machine whose perspective and insight into the true workings of the machine are filtered by the machine itself. Don't expect human decency from a corporation, because corporations aren't humans. They're alien intelligence constructed out of humans, but that humanity is not inherited. related: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_brain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_brain
mywittyname 4y ago
I believe Valve has promised to unlock all games purchased through their platform in the event that they go out of business. Whether they stick to that is another story, but it should happen for at least some games. They've been operating Steam for 20 years now. So the company has staying power. Plus, the most likely thing to happen to Valve is a MS acquisition.
- ece 4y ago
  They have a backup option built into the Steam client, so you're free to do that anytime. Offcourse, there's no guarantees with multiplayer games or always-on DRM as that's always been the case with publishers who choose to go down that route.
- branon 4y ago
  I hope Valve isn't acquired by Microsoft. Gabe left Microsoft to found Valve so as long as he's around I can't ever see that happening. Is it known who will helm Valve if Gabe decides to leave? Plagman has been a big name there with the recent SteamOS platform development but I'm not sure who the actual second-in-command would be.
- fariszr 4y ago
  After their Linux move, Vlave really want to have nothing to do with Microsoft.
  - pjmlp 4y ago
    It would be a pity to lose the income from those 95% steam customers.
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 4y ago
    I don't think that's true so much as Valve really doesn't trust Microsoft, which is a very reasonable position given the company's history.
- itsoktocry 4y ago
  >They've been operating Steam for 20 years now. So the company has staying power. This is true, but also this is all new. Sooner than later there will be a case of a 20 year old company who licenses media that burns their customer base. It's inevitable.
srmarm 4y ago
If google were going out of business I'd agree with you, but they're not. As a business they have plenty of money. What they're (possibly) doing is shutting this service to save some money. I suspect they'll refund or at least credit the relatively small number of people who purchased games on the service. It was always an odd setup to sell something for a fixed fee that potentially has an endless cost to deliver. Google have always been vague about how to square that circle. They could have sold fixed term or rolling licences but chose not to. I suspect had Stadia game sales reached a certain threshold they'd have done something like that but it's not something you want to talk about with a new system.
- ethbr0 4y ago
  The Google play would have been to track user gameplay. That's currently a large number of user-hours that Google is blind to, given they have no offering in the dedicated console space. ... that said, I'd expect the margins were far lower / cost was higher than what Google was used to, and they financially decided the juice wasn't worth the squeeze.
  - bushbaba 4y ago
    Suspect that the service saw poor growth or even shrinkage of users. Costs were fixed to rising and nobody provided an answer on how to address. So google cut it.
- staticassertion 4y ago
  I doubt they'll credit anyone. Why would they? You purchased a license to play a game through their service. Their service is no longer there. I haven't gone through any terms of service for Stadia but I can't imagine that they aren't covered for this.
  - bliteben 4y ago
    Seems likely there will be lawsuits though. Just too good of a case for publicity.
  - 4y ago
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adamc 4y ago
The result of this will be that Google will be an anathema in the gaming space.
diffeomorphism 4y ago
Are you sure about that? It rather seems like the opposite, just like for buying/renting anything. You absolutely do have a legal right to compensation, but if a company goes bankrupt you might only get it in part and you will have to sue to get it.
toastercat 4y ago
I've already resolved that if this were to ever happen, I would go back to my teenage ways of pirating every video game I want to play. I already make an effort to buy games on GOG or itch.io before Steam in order to have DRM-Free copies when I can.
- anjbe 4y ago
  > I already make an effort to buy games on GOG or itch.io before Steam in order to have DRM-Free copies when I can. It’s important to save the offline installers too. I keep a rather large external for my GOG library.
unity1001 4y ago
That doesn't work that way outside the US. There would be repercussions.
sleepybrett 4y ago
I agree with you that their TOS and all the contracts say 'we leave the business you lose your content'. They are within their legal right to do that. However is it the right thing to do? Will it damage their reputation to do that? If they wanted to dodge that beating they'd offer steam/epic/xbox/ps5/switch keys to their customers to claim. Any game their customer bought is probably over a year old at this point and they can cut a deal with the publishers to get deeply discounted keys and eat the costs.

tokai 4y ago

You would still have your games files and be able to run them. Steam is not a rental or streaming service.

delecti 4y ago
Many/most Steam games use Steam servers to authenticate ownership. It's a store, but it's also a DRM provider. Many games would require cracking to keep working.
- tokai 4y ago
  >most Steam games use Steam servers to authenticate ownership Not true. Maybe if you mainly play ubisoft tiles.
  - delecti 4y ago
    Can you be more specific or offer any evidence? That Valve offers DRM through Steam is unambiguously true. Here's their developer document on it: https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/features/drm https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/features/drm And here's a list of games which are sold through Steam but which nonetheless do not use Steam DRM: https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/The_big_list_of_DRM-free_games_on_Steam https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/The_big_list_of_DRM-free_g... Why would such a list be necessary if games sold through Steam that used Steam DRM were the minority?
  - Karunamon 4y ago
    Any game using Steamworks behaves this way, which is a pretty massive chunk of them. Ubisoft uses their own DRM which is an entirely different system. I think what you may be saying is the behavior if you open a Steamworks game while Steam is opened, it just executes as normal. Any authentication or nonsense happens in the background. Try opening a Steamworks game with steam closed, it will force steam to open and login before the game can be played.
  - vorpalhex 4y ago
    You can test this. Delete steam, restart your computer and launch a title. You'll get a message about steam.dll missing or being unable to authenticate. You can also sign out of steam, unplug from the internet and try to launch - and again, you won't be able to except this time steam will launch and tell you to login.
- xen2xen1 4y ago
  Or a single last update from the servers that made every server check come back legit.
  - delecti 4y ago
    That's always just been a wishful statement of intent with no legal backing. Valve might be unable or unwilling to actually follow through on that urban legend if they do ever shut down for some reason.
Ken_At_EM 4y ago
Yes but if Steam shut down you’d have no way to get to the installers again and you’d be left crossing your fingers the machine you installed them on doesn’t die.
- tokai 4y ago
  Think it through. Of cause you cant get the games files if the provider goes offline. You can make a backup of any of your games in steam, which will make it possible to install it again offline on other machines.
  - flohofwoe 4y ago
    The game won't run on another machine, at best you have a two weeks time window before the DRM checks start to fail. There's this family sharing thing though, where you can share your Steam library between 5 accounts and up to 10 computers: https://store.steampowered.com/promotion/familysharing https://store.steampowered.com/promotion/familysharing
- shagie 4y ago
  I've bought a copy of Iron Dragon for the PC - I can even find the license key in my ancient google mail. It was published by http://www.antigravitybox.com/ http://www.antigravitybox.com/ and the game's website is http://www.irondragon.org/ http://www.irondragon.org/ I don't see too much of a difference other than Steam has more proven longevity - even if the developers that sold games on Steam don't. I can still download Dungeons of Dreadmor from Steam even though the company appears to have disappeared in 2016.
- xen2xen1 4y ago
  Hacks already exist to make the games not check the servers, and only stop working after new Steam updates. If Steam were to never update again it seems likely the hacked dlls would work forever.
gjsman-1000 4y ago
Not very much - many of those game files actually have Steam Runtime or Steam executables blended in. It is not a strong DRM - but you are still going to need to look for cracked copies if Steam went down.
NikolaNovak 4y ago
That's how GoG works. That's not how steam works on its own. Steam explicitly a service where you buy a defined and limited license for permission to execute the files through proprietary framework that might one day disappear. Don't get me wrong, steam is my preferred digital delivery platform and where I play majority of my games. But I am under no illusion that gives me any sort of permanence (without potential hacking and mods). If I want permanence I get a DRM free downloadable game from GoG.
- tokai 4y ago
  >Steam explicitly a service where you buy a defined and limited license for permission Simply not true. There is really no arguments here. You can run most games directly from the game files without steam. In the cases were you can't you would have issues with DRM in all other venues of purchase.
  - flohofwoe 4y ago
    It may look like that from the outside because you can go to the Steam library directory and double click a game executable directly, but this will still start the Steam runtime and do a DRM check. You can run a game in 'offline mode' for up to two weeks before another online DRM check is required though.
    - jeltz 4y ago
      Not necessarily. The DRM part is optional.
  - anjbe 4y ago
    Runtime DRM is sometimes optional with Steam, but install‐time DRM never is.
- fluoridation 4y ago
  You're not describing how Steam is meant to work, but rather how things are likely to play out for a lot of titles if Steam ever shuts down. Yes, if Steam shuts down, any game that (due to technical requirements) requires Steam to be up will be left unusable, and the customers will be left with pretty much no recourse. Not because legally they're not entitled to the products they paid for, but because it would be impractical to enforce such a right. No, Steam sells permanent licenses.
RGamma 4y ago
Steam DRM might not easily allow this, although I trust in Valve's ethics to permit offline play if shit hits the fan. In fact I remember reading from a community representative that there are plans for this in place (not the best source but whatever https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/18mzcn/i_asked_steam_support_what_happens_to_my_games_if/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/18mzcn/i_asked_steam...)
- Karunamon 4y ago
  It also helps that Steamworks DRM is trivially bypassed. All it takes are a couple of replacement DLL files in the games directory and it runs normally (minus multiplayer support, of course). This isn't even a sketchy crack thing, it's an open source tool. Look up Goldberg emulator.

School-Cotton 4y ago

Legally you may be right (probably depends on the country, idk) but it’s still an ethically shitty move and would make me think twice about doing business with Google in the future, even though I personally am not affected.

chunkyguy 4y ago

So it isn't really a purchase but rather rental

Ken_At_EM 4y ago

You’re of course entirely correct. Valve feels different because you can install the games and play them on a machine of your choosing. Maybe if Stadia allowed you to play the games on your machine OR Stadia, the would have been a more compelling offering. Personally, I would have loved a service like that. There are so many games that my machine can play and I don’t want to deal with even the slightest lag, but I’ve never been one to own an impressive gaming rig and dealing with a tiny bit of lag to avoid spending $3000 on a solid rig would be totally worth it. Maybe valve should add a Stadia-like service in the future to allow you to play the game on their machines and stream it back when you want to.

NikolaNovak 4y ago
>>Maybe if Stadia allowed you to play the games on your machine OR Stadia, the would have been a more compelling offering. Personally, I would have loved a service like that GeForce now and xbox cloud both seem to check those boxes, with geforce now offering more permanence. You buy a game on steam or GoG or epic or whatever, than play it offline on your computer or stream via geforce now. I was skeptical but loved it for the last year or so when my computer couldn't run cyberpunk 2077 and I didn't want to sell kidney for a rtx card :)
- kmeisthax 4y ago
  Geforce Now was probably the most consumer-friendly version of game streaming possible and every game publisher shat their pants and blocked it. Hell, even some indie developers blocked it. From a user perspective it's equivalent to renting an EC2 instance and installing Parsec and Steam on it, just automated. But the publishers looked at it like Nvidia had stolen their games to make their own bootleg streaming service. The only reason why this didn't happen with Xcloud is that Microsoft already had pre-existing agreements that covered all the games on consoles. But that's moreso a testament to how much monopoly power platform owners have rather than Xbox developers being more consumer friendly. The general principle that copyright owners have is "any time our work winds up on a new medium, we should get paid". This is the reason why game publishers won't help you port licenses out of failing platforms and successful platforms won't let publishers port them in[0]. Nobody wants license portability for game purchases. Why have that when we can charge people to buy a new one!? Sideloading? Emulators?! That's just piracy with extra steps! The actual law doesn't support their level of copyright maximalism: * RIAA v. Diamond supports a right of consumer format shifting (and also carved a huge hole into the AHRA DRM mandate in the process) * Sony v. Connectix supports the legality of game emulation, including non-clean-room reimplementation of necessary system software to run games The only reason why they are even remotely able to insist that ownership ends with the licensing platform is that the Copyright Office is afraid of adding DMCA 1201 exceptions for format shifting. [0] Valve is one of the few exceptions; they will let their partner developers generate unlimited new license keys for free. Or at least they did - I do remember at one point they had to crack down on some scams that were abusing this. AFAIK everyone else either does not allow partners to generate keys at all or has a strict cap of 100 or so.

User23 4y ago

That's absolutely false under US law[1]. Once you have a legal copy, you are free to run the software without a license, including making additional copies for archival or as necessary to use it (for example, copying the program from disk to memory for execution). The anti-circumvention statutes mean DRM complicates matters, but you definitely have a legal right to the game files themselves. For what it's worth, I believe that a competent lawyer could successfully argue that disabling DRM is an "adaptation" that's an "essential step in the utilization of the computer program." Get the case in front of Judge Alsup or some other computer literate judge and the argument would probably even prevail. [1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/117 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/117

gre 4y ago

Amazon once told me that the music I had purchased was no longer available. I lost access to a digital music purchase...

jaywalk 4y ago
But Amazon sells MP3 downloads?
- gre 4y ago
  I can't download them anymore.
  - jaywalk 4y ago
    Once you download an MP3, you should protect it as you'd protect anything else you purchased instead of expecting that it would be available to re-download indefinitely.
    - gre 4y ago
      Oh, my bad, it was from iTunes from ten years ago, not Amazon. I found the support email. (I still have the mp3s) """ Thank you for contacting iTunes Store Support! My name is Dianne, and I'm sorry to hear that you have been unable to redownload the album "Rachmaninov: Complete Piano Concertos", on your new computer. I can certainly understand how this could be disappointing for you, please be assured that I'm happy to help. Unfortunately, this item is no longer in the iTunes Store, and only items that are currently available can be redownloaded. If the content provider no longer offers these purchases on the iTunes Store, App Store, or iBookstore, your content will not be available for you to download again. However, if you still have this album on the original computer, you can certainly transfer it to you new computer. You can do this in several ways. See the following article for how to transfer iTunes Store purchases using Home Sharing, an external drive, an iOS device (iPhone, iPad, or iPod), the Windows Migration Assistant, and CDs/DVDs: """

TurkTurkleton 4y ago

In addition to what everyone else who has replied said, Valve (or at least a support rep, so this doesn't carry as much weight as Gabe Newell himself saying it, but it was at least someone speaking in an official capacity) has said that in the event that the Steam service has to be discontinued, "measures are in place to ensure that that all users continue to have access to their Steam games".

hbn 4y ago
At least I can rest assured that pretty much anything that's been put on Steam has a cracked version out there, and if one day Valve disappears and I lose my entire library, I'll just go pirate whatever I want to play again. Good luck doing that for a game that consumers were only ever sent frames of. If/when there's a streaming-exclusive game, it'll be conclusively lost to time when the company stops letting people play it.
- endominus 4y ago
  Versions of this have been going on for years now. MMOs and multiplayer-focused titles die all the time, often with no way for players to access any of the content in those games. There might be a few exceptions where an extremely devoted fanbase reverse engineers the server code and runs instances of it, but that is hardly the rule. This is the tragedy of game development. I heard the other day that copies of Anthem are selling for a penny at GameStop. When EA abandons that game (any day now), all of the work of those programmers, artists, and everyone else will basically be lost. Hundreds of thousands of man-hours of work, gone.
bzxcvbn 4y ago
Hearsay in an HN comment about an unnamed support rep making a promise in a comment taken out of context isn't a legal contract. Meanwhile, here is what Steam's subscriber agreement says https://store.steampowered.com/subscriber_agreement/english/ https://store.steampowered.com/subscriber_agreement/english/ > Steam and your Subscription(s) require the download and installation of Content and Services onto your computer. Valve hereby grants, and you accept, a non-exclusive license and right, to use the Content and Services for your personal, non-commercial use (except where commercial use is expressly allowed herein or in the applicable Subscription Terms). This license ends upon termination of (a) this Agreement or (b) a Subscription that includes the license. The Content and Services are licensed, not sold. Your license confers no title or ownership in the Content and Services. To make use of the Content and Services, you must have a Steam Account and you may be required to be running the Steam client and maintaining a connection to the Internet. > Valve may restrict or cancel your Account or any particular Subscription(s) at any time in the event that (a) Valve ceases providing such Subscriptions to similarly situated Subscribers generally [...]

gambiting 4y ago

The obvious difference is that games downloaded from steam are on your machine and are yours to keep forever - if Valve goes bankrupt you can still have copies(whether they would launch or not is a different question, but I'm sure someone would find a technical solution). When Stadia shuts down that's it, the games are gone, because you can't make an offline copies of them.

dijit 4y ago
That’s not really as true as you say, I remember in the mid-00s when I had trouble with the internet at home, that I couldn’t play offline games without logging in to steam. There was a “remember password” option, but the session would still expire. There would have to be some effort to unlink those games from the auth services.
- gambiting 4y ago
  Hi ;-) Also, yes, but I mean you could find a solution I'm sure. As long as you have the copies a solution would be found - just like I can play my PS1 games without owning a PS1. With Stadia there aren't any copies to speak of. Once the servers go down that's it.
MichaelCollins 4y ago
If you have to download a pirate's crack to play a game, you may as well download a pirate version of the game in the first place. I don't see much substantial difference between these two scenarios. Steam is a DRM system with good branding, that gamers treat as special because it comes from Valve. Anecdotally, a lot of gamers believe and trust that Valve would free their games of DRM if Valve ever went out of business or otherwise shut down Steam. Of course this isn't true, they wouldn't have the legal right to do that with any game that wasn't their own (which is the vast majority of the games on Steam) and whatever informal promises Gabe made years aren't worth a damn. Nevertheless, this sort of mistaken expectation affords Valve/Steam a lot of good will they really don't deserve.
- gambiting 4y ago

roody15 4y ago

It is unique in that Google has plenty of money and is not going out of business. In fact it just posted excellent earnings this week. To say this project failed and everyone is just out of luck would really shows what kind of company Alphabet/Google really is.

ocdtrekkie 4y ago
If they do this, they're probably hoping that developers of the games themselves will hand out free Steam keys to their now-angry customer base. More than likely this would happen for several titles, and they're probably counting on it.
drumhead 4y ago
It really does feel like the company isnt being run by humans but a rudimentary AI somewhere.
- MichaelCollins 4y ago
  Corporations may be comprised of humans, but the corporation itself is not human. This is particularly true for large corporations with a lot of organizational complexity, like Google. They are forms of artificial intelligence, but instead of running on silicon they run on the organizational chart. Corporations are capable of doing things that no individual human in the organization personally agrees with but go along with anyway because of the way the organization is structured and enforces compliance with itself. Even the executives at the top, who may believe they're in charge, are ultimately components in the machine whose perspective and insight into the true workings of the machine are filtered by the machine itself. Don't expect human decency from a corporation, because corporations aren't humans. They're alien intelligence constructed out of humans, but that humanity is not inherited. related: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_brain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_brain

mywittyname 4y ago

I believe Valve has promised to unlock all games purchased through their platform in the event that they go out of business. Whether they stick to that is another story, but it should happen for at least some games. They've been operating Steam for 20 years now. So the company has staying power. Plus, the most likely thing to happen to Valve is a MS acquisition.

ece 4y ago
They have a backup option built into the Steam client, so you're free to do that anytime. Offcourse, there's no guarantees with multiplayer games or always-on DRM as that's always been the case with publishers who choose to go down that route.
branon 4y ago
I hope Valve isn't acquired by Microsoft. Gabe left Microsoft to found Valve so as long as he's around I can't ever see that happening. Is it known who will helm Valve if Gabe decides to leave? Plagman has been a big name there with the recent SteamOS platform development but I'm not sure who the actual second-in-command would be.
fariszr 4y ago
After their Linux move, Vlave really want to have nothing to do with Microsoft.
- pjmlp 4y ago
  It would be a pity to lose the income from those 95% steam customers.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 4y ago
  I don't think that's true so much as Valve really doesn't trust Microsoft, which is a very reasonable position given the company's history.
itsoktocry 4y ago
>They've been operating Steam for 20 years now. So the company has staying power. This is true, but also this is all new. Sooner than later there will be a case of a 20 year old company who licenses media that burns their customer base. It's inevitable.

srmarm 4y ago

If google were going out of business I'd agree with you, but they're not. As a business they have plenty of money. What they're (possibly) doing is shutting this service to save some money. I suspect they'll refund or at least credit the relatively small number of people who purchased games on the service. It was always an odd setup to sell something for a fixed fee that potentially has an endless cost to deliver. Google have always been vague about how to square that circle. They could have sold fixed term or rolling licences but chose not to. I suspect had Stadia game sales reached a certain threshold they'd have done something like that but it's not something you want to talk about with a new system.

ethbr0 4y ago
The Google play would have been to track user gameplay. That's currently a large number of user-hours that Google is blind to, given they have no offering in the dedicated console space. ... that said, I'd expect the margins were far lower / cost was higher than what Google was used to, and they financially decided the juice wasn't worth the squeeze.
- bushbaba 4y ago
  Suspect that the service saw poor growth or even shrinkage of users. Costs were fixed to rising and nobody provided an answer on how to address. So google cut it.
staticassertion 4y ago
I doubt they'll credit anyone. Why would they? You purchased a license to play a game through their service. Their service is no longer there. I haven't gone through any terms of service for Stadia but I can't imagine that they aren't covered for this.
- bliteben 4y ago
  Seems likely there will be lawsuits though. Just too good of a case for publicity.
- 4y ago

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

adamc 4y ago

The result of this will be that Google will be an anathema in the gaming space.

diffeomorphism 4y ago

Are you sure about that? It rather seems like the opposite, just like for buying/renting anything. You absolutely do have a legal right to compensation, but if a company goes bankrupt you might only get it in part and you will have to sue to get it.

toastercat 4y ago

I've already resolved that if this were to ever happen, I would go back to my teenage ways of pirating every video game I want to play. I already make an effort to buy games on GOG or itch.io before Steam in order to have DRM-Free copies when I can.

anjbe 4y ago
> I already make an effort to buy games on GOG or itch.io before Steam in order to have DRM-Free copies when I can. It’s important to save the offline installers too. I keep a rather large external for my GOG library.

unity1001 4y ago

That doesn't work that way outside the US. There would be repercussions.

sleepybrett 4y ago

I agree with you that their TOS and all the contracts say 'we leave the business you lose your content'. They are within their legal right to do that. However is it the right thing to do? Will it damage their reputation to do that? If they wanted to dodge that beating they'd offer steam/epic/xbox/ps5/switch keys to their customers to claim. Any game their customer bought is probably over a year old at this point and they can cut a deal with the publishers to get deeply discounted keys and eat the costs.