5 ms·

If steam and gog proved anything, it is that piracy is a service level issue. It is so much easier for me to purchase from of those, because I can trust ( at le

If steam and gog proved anything, it is that piracy is a service level issue. It is so much easier for me to purchase from of those, because I can trust ( at least until Gabe dies in Steam's case ) to some reasonable extent that they won't try to pull a rug from under me. CD Projekt is a public company now, but you CAN download raw ISOs if you are so inclined. If there was a similar reasonable repository for other media. Right now.. what we have almost the exact opposite that will likely result in a spike of piracy. I have 3 streaming services ( wife's bidding; don't judge ), but it is going to end up soon if they don't have anything worthwhile on it -- and I already argue that they do not.

amatecha 3y ago
Unfortunately, Steam has indeed engaged in some degree of "rug-pulling". Their client has locked out older OSes, and thus prevented users from continuing to be able to play the games they purchased for those given OSes. I've been on Steam since 2004, just a few months after it launched, and I have purchased some ~600 titles on there since that time. Of course, there are countless titles that are no longer playable because Steam will no longer run on the OSes some of the earliest titles were designed for. In some cases the titles will run in a newer version of Windows, but a computer that initially ran Windows XP can't realistically be upgraded to Windows 10. I still have ~every computer I've ever owned, and that includes the one I originally ran Steam on. So, after buying a ton of games, nothing changed on my end, but Valve decided to end access to my purchases because they decided I need to buy a new computer so I can continue to play what already ran just fine since 2004. There was quite a long time that I didn't foresee this inevitability with Steam and purchased a ton of games, but now I only buy them on steep discount because I know I'm only getting a "temporary pass" to play them until Valve decides my computer is too old. Oh yeah needless to say, GOG is awesome in this regard. All my purchases are backed up on my NAS. I can play them on my Windows XP/7 computers if I want to. As much as it's a hassle to store all that stuff (and not have cool social/network features like Steam does), at least I can keep and play my games as long as I want, without limitation.
- opan 3y ago
  There's a chance those older Windows titles would work in Proton on GNU/Linux. Probably not the solution you want, but I thought it worth mentioning.
  - amatecha 3y ago
    Oh, yeah that is in fact exactly my workaround - play them on Linux/SteamOS! :D
ghaff 3y ago
A number of years back, an analyst friend of mine made a claim in a talk that Napster was more about convenience (i.e. near instant access) than it was about cheapness. I didn't buy the argument at the time but habits that have developed in the time since suggest there's a lot of truth in what he said. Video is more complicated than music because of fragmentation and outright unavailability of a lot of content. But most people with even remotely mainstream music tastes are very widely fine with just streaming.
- hotnfresh 3y ago
  I’d happily pay $50/m for a streaming service with a single UI that had all the shit my piracy server does, and a guarantee that things won’t disappear (or at least a track record of that rarely happening). Hell, I might pay as much as $100/m. Maintaining the server and pirating stuff takes time, and hard drives cost real money. It’s only the combo of money savings, higher quality (most steams are shit), unavailability of what I want (the best versions of several TV shows and movies are piracy exclusives, for one thing), and unified UI that make it worth it. Start chipping away at those, and it gets not-worth-it pretty fast. Apple tried with their unified streaming service UI on Apple TV, but several big players who hate their paying customers refused to implement it, so that’s a dud. Hell, I in-fact still pay for like five streaming services despite all the above. I’d gladly pay one higher bill if it let me stop fussing with this crap.
  - lotsofpulp 3y ago
    > but several big players who hate their paying customers refused to implement it, so that’s a dud. Only Netflix in my experience.
    - hotnfresh 3y ago
      Could’ve sworn (HBO) Max and Disney don’t work through it, either.
      - lotsofpulp 3y ago

amatecha 3y ago

Unfortunately, Steam has indeed engaged in some degree of "rug-pulling". Their client has locked out older OSes, and thus prevented users from continuing to be able to play the games they purchased for those given OSes. I've been on Steam since 2004, just a few months after it launched, and I have purchased some ~600 titles on there since that time. Of course, there are countless titles that are no longer playable because Steam will no longer run on the OSes some of the earliest titles were designed for. In some cases the titles will run in a newer version of Windows, but a computer that initially ran Windows XP can't realistically be upgraded to Windows 10. I still have ~every computer I've ever owned, and that includes the one I originally ran Steam on. So, after buying a ton of games, nothing changed on my end, but Valve decided to end access to my purchases because they decided I need to buy a new computer so I can continue to play what already ran just fine since 2004. There was quite a long time that I didn't foresee this inevitability with Steam and purchased a ton of games, but now I only buy them on steep discount because I know I'm only getting a "temporary pass" to play them until Valve decides my computer is too old. Oh yeah needless to say, GOG is awesome in this regard. All my purchases are backed up on my NAS. I can play them on my Windows XP/7 computers if I want to. As much as it's a hassle to store all that stuff (and not have cool social/network features like Steam does), at least I can keep and play my games as long as I want, without limitation.

opan 3y ago
There's a chance those older Windows titles would work in Proton on GNU/Linux. Probably not the solution you want, but I thought it worth mentioning.
- amatecha 3y ago
  Oh, yeah that is in fact exactly my workaround - play them on Linux/SteamOS! :D

ghaff 3y ago

A number of years back, an analyst friend of mine made a claim in a talk that Napster was more about convenience (i.e. near instant access) than it was about cheapness. I didn't buy the argument at the time but habits that have developed in the time since suggest there's a lot of truth in what he said. Video is more complicated than music because of fragmentation and outright unavailability of a lot of content. But most people with even remotely mainstream music tastes are very widely fine with just streaming.

hotnfresh 3y ago
I’d happily pay $50/m for a streaming service with a single UI that had all the shit my piracy server does, and a guarantee that things won’t disappear (or at least a track record of that rarely happening). Hell, I might pay as much as $100/m. Maintaining the server and pirating stuff takes time, and hard drives cost real money. It’s only the combo of money savings, higher quality (most steams are shit), unavailability of what I want (the best versions of several TV shows and movies are piracy exclusives, for one thing), and unified UI that make it worth it. Start chipping away at those, and it gets not-worth-it pretty fast. Apple tried with their unified streaming service UI on Apple TV, but several big players who hate their paying customers refused to implement it, so that’s a dud. Hell, I in-fact still pay for like five streaming services despite all the above. I’d gladly pay one higher bill if it let me stop fussing with this crap.
- lotsofpulp 3y ago
  > but several big players who hate their paying customers refused to implement it, so that’s a dud. Only Netflix in my experience.
  - hotnfresh 3y ago
    Could’ve sworn (HBO) Max and Disney don’t work through it, either.
    - lotsofpulp 3y ago