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Steam's new disclaimer reminds everyone that you don't own your games
- dp-hackernews 2y agoWTF DO you own - just a transaction entry?
- mendym 2y agoDoes GOG games have built-in way to launch a windows game via proton? Because currently my main reason for using steam is the easy linux installation
- Frenchgeek 2y agoI use Lutris for that, a bit clunky (especially updating games) but it does work.
- LocutusOfBorges 2y agoHeroic is reasonably seamless - it integrates with GOG and your Steam library, and by extension Proton. Pretty popular among Steam Deck users. https://heroicgameslauncher.com/ https://heroicgameslauncher.com/
- airstrike 2y agoI just want to play HoMM3 on Mac OS... maybe one day
- A4ET8a8uTh0 2y agoOh man, I just showed my kid homm3 with HD mod. I dunno what are VM options exist on Mac OS, but it may be the way.
- A4ET8a8uTh0 2y agoSee the other two posts for recommendations, but be aware that neither of the options listed is at the level of experience Steam may have spoiled us with. My last try was 4 or 5 months ago and I ended up just going with a VM.
- righthand 2y agoLutris the popular option. Heroic is another but is a chromium app fyi.
- II2II 2y agoI have heard of alternative game launchers that will take care of launching Windows games (including GOG titles) under Linux. But I usually just end up purchasing Linux games through GOG and Windows games through Steam.
- pseudosaid 2y agothis has always been the case. ownership has predominately been a license to a key, regardless of your offline installer or cd.
- Dibby053 2y agoThis goes a step further than a typical CD key because the license is contingent on one's Steam account. If you lose your Steam account you lose all your licenses. >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. [1] [1] https://store.steampowered.com/subscriber_agreement#2 https://store.steampowered.com/subscriber_agreement#2
- pseudosaid 2y agothis IS true. your key access is umbrella’d under your steam account, which licenses you access to their software distribution services and other platform features. How is this different than apple’s walled garden, or my email service, or nintendo digital downloads?
- a1o 2y agoThis has always been the case and is the case in anything digital game related.
- a3w 2y agoNo, steam is the worst of both worlds of digital selling: It is a mandatory subscription service, on top, to access your games, not just a one time purchase.
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- dialup_sounds 2y agoHow much is a Steam subscription?
- ApolloFortyNine 2y ago... Do you think steam is a mandatory subscription service?
- Maxatar 2y agoThe subscription is mandatory to play your games.
- inexcf 2y agoWhat subscription? And if anything it is only necessary for games with Steam DRM.
- Maxatar 2y agoThe very subscription that the article posted is about. I suppose no one bothers reading submissions before commenting on them, but anyways here you go, the Steam Subscriber Agreement. https://store.steampowered.com/subscriber_agreement/ https://store.steampowered.com/subscriber_agreement/
- bitwize 2y agoIt used to be written on the disk pack in the back of software manuals: "THIS SOFTWARE IS LICENSED, NOT SOLD. By opening this packet you agree to be bound by the terms of the End User License Agreement." Which was usually written in very "rules-for-thee-but-not-for-me" terms that bound you, the end user, and benefited the publisher. You couldn't resell it, you couldn't reverse-engineer or decompile it, you couldn't do anything but run it on one (1) computer for the specific purpose for which it was written. Some EULAs even stipulated license expiry terms; the one for dBASE III demanded that you return the software disks and other materials after a period of fifty (50) years from the date of purchase. You've never owned the proprietary software you've used. You only used it as long as the whim of the copyright owner allowed it (and/or they couldn't enforce it). This is why Stallman chose twenty-three individuals to establish Free Software Zion several cycles ago.
- add-sub-mul-div 2y agoBut when you owned a disc you could use offline, they were never going to come to your home and take it. It was effectively yours. Steam normalized a world where that license revocation could actually be invoked and enforced from afar.
- actionfromafar 2y agoI lot of those terms were thrown at the wall to see if they stuck, though. There's the First Sale doctrine for instance. If you actually signed a contract, all bets are off, but if you just bought a shrink-wrap, a lot of these terms were make-believe.
- bitwize 2y agoVernor v. Autodesk says no.
- actionfromafar 2y agoOuch, that's sad. But I must say I don't quite understand the implications of that ruling. Also, there are many jurisdictions, and the shopping list of terms on shrink-wrap can't possibly hold in all of them..
- apatheticonion 2y agoHey EU, we need you again...
- teroshan 2y agoEuropeans, do your part: https://www.stopkillinggames.com/ https://www.stopkillinggames.com/
- A4ET8a8uTh0 2y agoOddly, I see it as a good thing. The more people realize how badly the system is taking advantage of them, the more of a chance we get a new status quo that is a little more reasonable.
- righthand 2y agoValve gets a lot of love for game design and leaking employee manuals but when it comes to software freedom they are just another Microsoft.
- add-sub-mul-div 2y agoI can buy Windows software without Microsoft being a middleman. Steam on the other hand exists only to be a middleman. You could (most naturally) buy a game without paying a middleman, but it's the exception now for some reason and not the rule.
- to11mtm 2y ago> You could (most naturally) buy a game without paying a middleman, but it's the exception now for some reason and not the rule. Publishing rights. Ironically, Apogee, Epic, and iD [0] and others got their fortunes by hacking the systems in place back then. Apogee and Epic in their way, by doing 'shareware', however the final distributor was distributing the shareware [1] the had a chance to get a cut, and they were spreading the brand. iD, when they did Doom, went even further. We easily forget that in the 90s, 'only' a 30% take from the publisher was nearly unheard of. When it came to retail I think it was almost inverted if not worse. Uploading to FTP and letting whoever distribute the shareware, then they got all the mail orders in and only had to pay their duplication/printing costs and recoup whatever other art costs were involved. Publishers -can- provide value. I'll posit there's lots of titles I've only purchased because they showed up on a Steam/GOG feed. [0] I think that's how you were supposed to type it back then, been a hot minute. [1] Oh the 'Shareware store' is a thing I should blog about someday, in retrospect that place was weird lol.
- Ekaros 2y agoWould be interesting to hear or find at some point what was the split for early iD games for example. Commander Keen and Wolfenstein 3D. Which seems to have been published by Apogee(3D realms later).
- greenstalk 2y agoSteam, in terms of consumer policy, has only ever been as strong as Gabe Newell. I think we'll see another Activision/Blizzard situation in the near future as Gabe looks to step back into (semi-)retirement.
- A4ET8a8uTh0 2y agoSadly, this is pretty accurate and not that different a situation from linux kernel where Linus still reigns. Their vision is driving both and, thankfully for most, they have been fairly benevolent dictators. But, and it is not a small but, even with their benevolent dictatorship in place, it can only get much worse after they are gone. The pieces to a rather bad ecosystem are all in place.
- lofaszvanitt 2y agoWell, basically nothing happened in the last 10 years with Steam.
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- beached_whale 2y agoFunny thing is, this made me look at places like Gog again, bought a few games. But I am ok waiting years to play a game on lower end hardware with all the games bug fixes already in place.
- a3w 2y agoSteam says it is subscription, currently at "zero monetary units"/month. But if the fee is ever raised and goes unpaid, it reserves the right to lock you out from half-life 2 and every game after that, since day one of its invention. I get downvoted for 15 years of posting this online, every time. Not today?
- Fuzzwah 2y agoWhere does steam say that it is a $0/mo subscription?
- clhodapp 2y agoEven this new wording feels designed to misdirect: The purpose of the California law is to tell customers that that aren't buying a digital product but only the license. And yet there remains language that customers are likely to interpret to mean that they've bought the game.
- pajeets 2y agoif buying isn't owning then pirating isn't stealing
- georgeplusplus 2y agoUnfortunately it doesn’t work like that. I’m so pro physical media it’s ridiculous that people can’t be bothered to go in a store and get a copy. They will only care when they get locked out of their account and realize that when steam says you really don’t own your games that they weren’t bluffing.
- ThunderSizzle 2y agoBuying physical media is still renting if it uses any sort of internet validation or online check, because those servers aren't guaranteed to always be online in the immediate or far future.
- threecheese 2y agoEspecially with shared key material that has an expiry in that future, that consumers aren’t aware of or wouldn’t understand if they were.
- YurgenJurgensen 2y agoAre you saying that it’s due to laziness that some $12 strategy game from Eastern Europe that might sell 1000 copies worldwide doesn’t have copies in every Best Buy?
- pajeets 2y agoThat is the "digital media & software is a rivalrous good therefore not paying for it is stealing" argument that copyright lobbyists have preached to Americans since the "You wouldn't download a car" campaign in the early 2000s
- pajeets 2y agoI must respectfully disagree with your assertion. The non-rivalrous nature of software, as established in numerous legal precedents (see Sony Corp. v. Universal City Studios, 464 U.S. 417 (1984) and Vernor v. Autodesk, Inc., 621 F.3d 1102 (9th Cir. 2010)), fundamentally alters the traditional concept of ownership in the digital realm. While your preference for physical media is duly noted, it fails to account for the evolving landscape of digital rights management (DRM) and end-user license agreements (EULAs). The legal framework surrounding digital distribution platforms like Steam is predicated on a licensing model, not a transfer of ownership per se. Your concern about account lockouts, while not entirely unfounded, overlooks the myriad benefits of digital distribution, including but not limited to: reduced environmental impact, instant access, automatic updates, and cloud saves. Furthermore, it disregards the legal protections afforded to consumers under various jurisdictions' consumer protection laws. In conclusion, while your nostalgia for physical media is understandable, it does not negate the legal and practical realities of modern software distribution. The non-rivalrous nature of software necessitates a different paradigm of ownership and access, one that the current legal and technological frameworks are still grappling with.
- catlikesshrimp 2y agoAt least it is now clear For Millenials who expected products to be sold. Newer generations are happy with owning nothing. At least it is the default for software.
- m463 2y agoIf you have GOG, good time to point out software like lgogdownloaderⁱ will let you download the offline installers for your entire library. I suspect there are partial ways to do similar things for steam, except for the actual play-the-game part is dependent on the DRM. [1] https://github.com/Sude-/lgogdownloader https://github.com/Sude-/lgogdownloader
- benoau 2y agoGOG have also said they will help honour bequeathing your library if you leave it to someone and identify your username/email. Steam have expressed no such desire. https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/gog-will-let-you-bequeath-your-game-library-to-someone-else-as-long-as-you-can-prove-youre-actually-dead/ https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/gog-will-let-you-beq... > "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."
- getwiththeprog 2y agoIn this age, I do not play soccer or cricket with my kids. We game together. Many kids will grow up remembering the good old games with the good old folks.
- benoau 2y agoThe worst part about this sad status quo is as games are removed from sale they will probably never be able to be lawfully obtained again because the IP ownership fragments and gets lost through descendants and bankruptcies and acquisitions. Meanwhile the people who bought them are told they only have “licenses” that can’t be transferred or bequeathed. It will all just disappear forever within a few decades.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- lofaszvanitt 2y agoOh, the GOG client is one of the worst. If you firewall certain parts of it, it just constantly cries to a central log server that something is wrong, every 5 seconds or so. Terrible stitched together abomination.
- II2II 2y agoThen download the individual game installers. I understand that there is some convenience to the GOG client but, if memory serves me correctly, you have to configure the client to keep the installers. If you do not keep the game installers, you are not much better off than you would be if you obtained the game through Steam. If anything were to happen to GOG you would eventually end up losing access to the game. Besides, the ability to run games without the client is a huge benefit in my books. You simply launch the game and immerse yourself in it. You have do not have to go through the marketing department (erm, store) in order to play the game.