4 ms·

Which is basically never. They have no incentive to do that except for extreme circumstances, and they have all the leverage in the world over game publishers.

by dangus 10mo ago

Which is basically never. They have no incentive to do that except for extreme circumstances, and they have all the leverage in the world over game publishers. Delisted games tend to stay in your library for redownload. I never understood the cynicism for digital media, it’s been multiple decades now and the model clearly works. Obviously I prefer zero DRM but it’s also not a hard line requirement for me personally.

paxys 10mo ago
Ever bought anything from MSN Music? Yahoo Music? Desura? Microsoft eBook Store? Walmart MP3s? Anything using Adobe Content Server? MusicNet? CinemaNow? UltraViolet? It is laughable to think that digital media "clearly works". Companies shut down and stores shutter all the time. In most cases there is no recourse for customers, because – surprise – you didn't actually own the rights to what you bought, just a revocable license. You have to be pretty young and/or naive to think that this can't eventually happen to Steam as well. And even if you fully trust Steam to stick around and keep its word, digital licensing means you can still get screwed. For example - if the publisher's license to in-game music expires, the game will automatically be updated to remove all the tracks (e.g. GTA Vice City and San Andreas). For larger issues and conflicts the game might be removed entirely (e.g. Spec Ops: The Line). Or the publisher might decide to just switch off the DRM servers, even for single player games (e.g. The Crew). Outside of gaming there are countless examples of publishers "upgrading" music tracks you own to different versions or censoring/altering content of books you own. The only recourse to all this is to buy and store DRM-free versions of your media.
- stodor89 10mo ago
  > "buy" Hozier's album > change countries > oh, you own this album for Bulgaria, but not for the US, so you can no longer play it
  - tart-lemonade 10mo ago
    Region-locked physical media (and before explicit region locking, PAL vs NTSC vs SECAM vs variants like PAL-M) also have this problem to some extent.
    - oarsinsync 10mo ago
      Yes and no. I took my physical media with me along with my player, and all was fine. I took my digital media with me along with my computer, and all was not fine.
- tjpnz 10mo ago
  Censorship. Like GOG?
satvikpendem 10mo ago
You never know, Gaben is getting older. Who knows what the next CEO of Valve will do?
- SXX 10mo ago
  At least with Valve we can hope its gonna be okay for 4 reasons: 1. Even though Gabe is formally CEO he from his own words was barelly controllibg company for years. He spend more time on his other projects. 2. Flat structure and and a small team. I know few people who has worked at Valve and while there are some downsides company of ~400 employees with a lot of internal power play is just more resilient than normal corporation. Many of people on the team are just rich enough already and they dont need to go and cash out. 3. From what is publicly known Valve is family owned basically since Gabe own major part of company. And while a lot of people would hate example of e.g Ubisoft its good example how family controlled business often sink before selling out. 4. It would be just hard to sell Valve and remove control from the team without destroying both company and gaming community goodwill. Yet I fully agree that Valve just like other company can be sold off just for userbase and run to the ground. Valve just have better chance to stay customer friendly than your overall VC/PE/BlackRock owned corporation with 10,000 employees and 50 for-hire top managers / board directors.
  - account42 10mo ago
    > Even though Gabe is formally CEO he from his own words was barelly controllibg company for years. He spend more time on his other projects. The time he spends on Valve day to day is irrelevant to the question of what would happen if those actually running the company decided to do something stupid like taking games away from people vs. what would happen in the same scenario without Gabe around. > Many of people on the team are just rich enough already and they dont need to go and cash out. Rich people are largely the kind that can never have enough money. > From what is publicly known Valve is family owned basically since Gabe own major part of company. And there is no reason to believe his heirs will want to keep the company rather than cash out for the right offer just because Gabe wouldn't have. > It would be just hard to sell Valve and remove control from the team without destroying both company and gaming community goodwill. That has never been an a showstopper for vulture capitalists.
bsimpson 10mo ago
Physical media rots too. I don't watch my DVD collection anymore because I don't have access to a working DVD player, but I've read that a lot of those discs don't play anymore because the publishers cheaped out on materials when they minted the discs.
- Brian_K_White 10mo ago
  This in not an equivalence.
- account42 10mo ago
  Pressed optical media are fairly durable when stored at reasonable conditions (i.e. indoors in non-maritime climates).
benoau 10mo ago
All of this is based on the assumption that the way it was done is the way it will be done. Who will own and run Steam 30 years from now? Gabe Newell will be long-gone, his nepobaby next-CEO will be closing in on retirement if they don't check-out early to enjoy their vast wealth like Gabe has done. What does Steam look like 60 years from now? Adults using it today are mostly dead and all of their licenses revoked forever, the games removed from circulation gone forever because nobody can ever have a license to use them again. They might be onto their 4th, 5th or 6th CEO by then, half a century removed from Gabe and any expectations we have around the ways he did things. There's a lot of room for improvement securing some sort of legacy for Steam.
- fernie 10mo ago
  I can assure you that offline installer you got today from GOG will not work on Windows 20 or whatever OS will be the dominant for PC in 30 or 60 years time.
  - cropcirclbureau 10mo ago
    Are you willing to put monies on that?
  - prmoustache 10mo ago
    Most C64, MSX, Apple,Amiga, Atari ST and Dos games can still be played on all majors operating systems. In fact I used "most" but I can't name one that couldn't be played.
    - benoau 10mo ago
      If anything it will be easier than ever to run those games, the platforms you mention can be run in a web browser these days with nothing at all to install or configure or download.
  - oarsinsync 10mo ago
    > I can assure you that offline installer you got today from GOG will not work on Windows 20 Given the lengths the Windows development team has gone to, to preserve backward compatibility, to the point that there was individual-game-specific workarounds codified in Windows, makes this claim the same as the GP’s, that Steam will change 30-60 years from now. The cynic in me thinks you’re both right, mind.
prmoustache 10mo ago
They can't control the licenses rights for some assets like music that can expire and become undistributable. You may not know it until you install them on a new computer n years from now.
- m4rtink 10mo ago
  I find even just the possibility of this happening frankly insane - if the current licensing or copyright system allows something like this, the we need a new one.
  - prmoustache 10mo ago
    It has already happened and been documented here.
ThrowawayR2 10mo ago
There have been several earlier generation game consoles that have had their online stores closed already.

by dangus 10mo ago

paxys 10mo ago

Ever bought anything from MSN Music? Yahoo Music? Desura? Microsoft eBook Store? Walmart MP3s? Anything using Adobe Content Server? MusicNet? CinemaNow? UltraViolet? It is laughable to think that digital media "clearly works". Companies shut down and stores shutter all the time. In most cases there is no recourse for customers, because – surprise – you didn't actually own the rights to what you bought, just a revocable license. You have to be pretty young and/or naive to think that this can't eventually happen to Steam as well. And even if you fully trust Steam to stick around and keep its word, digital licensing means you can still get screwed. For example - if the publisher's license to in-game music expires, the game will automatically be updated to remove all the tracks (e.g. GTA Vice City and San Andreas). For larger issues and conflicts the game might be removed entirely (e.g. Spec Ops: The Line). Or the publisher might decide to just switch off the DRM servers, even for single player games (e.g. The Crew). Outside of gaming there are countless examples of publishers "upgrading" music tracks you own to different versions or censoring/altering content of books you own. The only recourse to all this is to buy and store DRM-free versions of your media.

stodor89 10mo ago
> "buy" Hozier's album > change countries > oh, you own this album for Bulgaria, but not for the US, so you can no longer play it
- tart-lemonade 10mo ago
  Region-locked physical media (and before explicit region locking, PAL vs NTSC vs SECAM vs variants like PAL-M) also have this problem to some extent.
  - oarsinsync 10mo ago
    Yes and no. I took my physical media with me along with my player, and all was fine. I took my digital media with me along with my computer, and all was not fine.
tjpnz 10mo ago
Censorship. Like GOG?

satvikpendem 10mo ago

You never know, Gaben is getting older. Who knows what the next CEO of Valve will do?

SXX 10mo ago
At least with Valve we can hope its gonna be okay for 4 reasons: 1. Even though Gabe is formally CEO he from his own words was barelly controllibg company for years. He spend more time on his other projects. 2. Flat structure and and a small team. I know few people who has worked at Valve and while there are some downsides company of ~400 employees with a lot of internal power play is just more resilient than normal corporation. Many of people on the team are just rich enough already and they dont need to go and cash out. 3. From what is publicly known Valve is family owned basically since Gabe own major part of company. And while a lot of people would hate example of e.g Ubisoft its good example how family controlled business often sink before selling out. 4. It would be just hard to sell Valve and remove control from the team without destroying both company and gaming community goodwill. Yet I fully agree that Valve just like other company can be sold off just for userbase and run to the ground. Valve just have better chance to stay customer friendly than your overall VC/PE/BlackRock owned corporation with 10,000 employees and 50 for-hire top managers / board directors.
- account42 10mo ago
  > Even though Gabe is formally CEO he from his own words was barelly controllibg company for years. He spend more time on his other projects. The time he spends on Valve day to day is irrelevant to the question of what would happen if those actually running the company decided to do something stupid like taking games away from people vs. what would happen in the same scenario without Gabe around. > Many of people on the team are just rich enough already and they dont need to go and cash out. Rich people are largely the kind that can never have enough money. > From what is publicly known Valve is family owned basically since Gabe own major part of company. And there is no reason to believe his heirs will want to keep the company rather than cash out for the right offer just because Gabe wouldn't have. > It would be just hard to sell Valve and remove control from the team without destroying both company and gaming community goodwill. That has never been an a showstopper for vulture capitalists.

bsimpson 10mo ago

Physical media rots too. I don't watch my DVD collection anymore because I don't have access to a working DVD player, but I've read that a lot of those discs don't play anymore because the publishers cheaped out on materials when they minted the discs.

Brian_K_White 10mo ago
This in not an equivalence.
account42 10mo ago
Pressed optical media are fairly durable when stored at reasonable conditions (i.e. indoors in non-maritime climates).

benoau 10mo ago

All of this is based on the assumption that the way it was done is the way it will be done. Who will own and run Steam 30 years from now? Gabe Newell will be long-gone, his nepobaby next-CEO will be closing in on retirement if they don't check-out early to enjoy their vast wealth like Gabe has done. What does Steam look like 60 years from now? Adults using it today are mostly dead and all of their licenses revoked forever, the games removed from circulation gone forever because nobody can ever have a license to use them again. They might be onto their 4th, 5th or 6th CEO by then, half a century removed from Gabe and any expectations we have around the ways he did things. There's a lot of room for improvement securing some sort of legacy for Steam.

fernie 10mo ago
I can assure you that offline installer you got today from GOG will not work on Windows 20 or whatever OS will be the dominant for PC in 30 or 60 years time.
- cropcirclbureau 10mo ago
  Are you willing to put monies on that?
- prmoustache 10mo ago
  Most C64, MSX, Apple,Amiga, Atari ST and Dos games can still be played on all majors operating systems. In fact I used "most" but I can't name one that couldn't be played.
  - benoau 10mo ago
    If anything it will be easier than ever to run those games, the platforms you mention can be run in a web browser these days with nothing at all to install or configure or download.
- oarsinsync 10mo ago
  > I can assure you that offline installer you got today from GOG will not work on Windows 20 Given the lengths the Windows development team has gone to, to preserve backward compatibility, to the point that there was individual-game-specific workarounds codified in Windows, makes this claim the same as the GP’s, that Steam will change 30-60 years from now. The cynic in me thinks you’re both right, mind.

prmoustache 10mo ago

They can't control the licenses rights for some assets like music that can expire and become undistributable. You may not know it until you install them on a new computer n years from now.

m4rtink 10mo ago
I find even just the possibility of this happening frankly insane - if the current licensing or copyright system allows something like this, the we need a new one.
- prmoustache 10mo ago
  It has already happened and been documented here.

ThrowawayR2 10mo ago

There have been several earlier generation game consoles that have had their online stores closed already.