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Yep. I had tons of Sony games across the first three Playstation consoles. I was a grad student with a PS3 at the time and I actually used Yellow Dog Linux on i
by garciansmith 3mo ago
Yep. I had tons of Sony games across the first three Playstation consoles. I was a grad student with a PS3 at the time and I actually used Yellow Dog Linux on it as a computer to write papers when my laptop broke. Then the update came and I chose to ignore it, but that meant I couldn't play online games. Soon new games required a firmware update (still remember putting in the Dark Souls disc and being stunned I wasn't allowed to play it!).
And with games it's just getting worse (Sony announced they won't make discs starting 2028; the Switch 2 takes carts but very, very few games release on a cart). If you care about control over the games you purchased, if you care about going back and playing older games, then the only choice is to use platforms that are DRM free. (Or, well, non-legal means.)
- Fire-Dragon-DoL 3mo agoKinda. On Steam I can still play games I bought 18 years ago. Still walled garden, but they act way better.
- garciansmith 3mo agoTrue, but Steam still controls Steam and they can change their terms whenever they want. But for now it's ok, at least. And their hardware is happily open: I've played a bunch of games I got on GOG, DRM-free, on my Steam Deck, for example.
- Fire-Dragon-DoL 3mo agoI don't disagree with you, but open hardware DOES make a difference, in the worst case scenario I can turn the hardware into a GOG machine, or into a PC. Also if they ever lock my library, I am turning to piracy (I have 1000+ games)
- garciansmith 3mo agoAgreed, for sure. Open hardware is the only way forward honestly. As someone who has traditionally played mostly on consoles, it does make me sad, partially because consoles are so much less finicky. But the control is worth it (and work on things like Proton has made playing older games so much smoother). Now if the RAM companies make it so you won't ever be able to afford your own hardware and every game company pushes cloud-only gaming... Well, we aren't there yet thankfully, but I fear it'll happen.
- bsimpson 3mo agoSteamOS got me to migrate from a Nintendo. There's a lot that I love about it, but "choose which of these thousand settings permutations to get the game to look good without crashing" is a major chore. One nice thing about Valve/Steam leading with hardware is that it gives console-esque performance targets. If you know your device is a bit better than a Steam Deck, you can probably start at the Steam Deck preset and adjust accordingly.
- someonebaggy 3mo agoThey're always good until they aren't. They can only be trusted if they don't have a way to be bad. Steam could lock down tomorrow and you couldn't do anything about it.
- Shalomboy 3mo agoValve is in a funny position now. They lived long enough to see every one of Sony and XBOX's moats dry up by being pro-consumer where possible, but with Steam as the leader of a fungible game distribution market it may no longer make good business sense to continue to act so benevolently. We've reached a sort of gaming singularity where nearly every video game can be run on any hardware you choose or be streamed over the network to a thin client. PlayStation and XBOX consoles are basically dedicated gaming PCs that can only run Sony or Microsoft's version of Steam. DirectX is losing ground too thanks to Proton and Vulkan, so Microsoft won't have the last laugh there either. If Valve controls the store you purchase games from, the software which runs the games, and the operating system running the software, they are an ODM contract away from becoming Sony's PlayStation division, and look where they are now.
- wongarsu 3mo agoSteam still has to deal with Epic being willing to throw billions at trying to dethrone Steam, and Gog being alive and well and being in the perfect position to say "we told you all along that you shouldn't have to trust Steam, buy your DRM free games here". Also every big publisher wanting to pull their own games to their own storefront and only being forced to crawl back because gamers refuse to leave Steam And even if they somehow arrived in a market position where being less benevolent would make more money: Valve isn't publicly traded, nobody is forcing them to make the most profitable move. As long as Gabe and the other owners prefer being benevolent they can continue doing it (not that they are all around benevolent. "consistent" and "usually choosing the side of the customer over the side of the publisher" is maybe the better framing)
- ChoGGi 3mo ago> As long as Gabe and the other owners prefer being benevolent they can continue doing i I think Gabe prefers hanging out on his yacht nowadays looking at fish, his son is the one running Valve?
- kibwen 3mo agoOne point in Steam's favor (not to suggest that Valve is above reproach) is that it doesn't impose any DRM. If games have DRM, that's the publisher's decision.
- wing-_-nuts 3mo agoTill Gabe dies and valve is bought out by private equity
- quantumink 3mo agoImagine if Gabe went the Yvon Chouinard way? (founder of Patagonia refused to IPO, never sold controlling stake, recently left the entire company to an environmental conservation trust - certified LEGEND) Gabe seems like the kinda guy who is in the Game for the love of games. It would be a legendary legacy indeed to commit Valve and it's profits to a trust which defends digital rights and freedom.
- ChoGGi 3mo agoGabe's son is apparently the one steering the ship now. He's hanging out on his yacht looking at fish.
- Henchman21 3mo agoI’m wondering what happens when Gabe dies?
- Fire-Dragon-DoL 3mo agoIt's been discussed a long time. Nobody knows, but apparently he had been preparing his son for it. Don't quote me on that, it's what I heard
- a96 3mo agoThat's still a terribly small bus factor.
- Fire-Dragon-DoL 3mo agoIndeed the danger is there, but their hardware is open, so there is always the option to switch. Also piracy will go rampant if Steam stops being a good actor. That being said, what alternatives you have? GOG lacks support for Linux, Sony cares doesn't care for you, Nintendo likes to s** all over you and their most passionate fans, Microsoft killed itself. There is just no other option
- hn773746483 3mo agoNintendo outright ships incomplete games on carts sometimes, requiring a day 1 patch to have the game in a non-buggy state (one of the recent pokemon games was like this) And "gamers" refuse to listen to reason and assume physical copy = they can play it for eternity, when in reality, in 5 or 10 years when a server is inevitably shut down, they're forced to pirate. Nintendo does not allow offline patches.
- flerchin 3mo agoI joined the class action lawsuit and got a small check a decade later. My proof that I had OtherOS ended up being timestamped whinging on the ars technica forums. My ps3 stopped working shortly after receiving the check due to bad solder, which was I guess fitting.
- garciansmith 3mo agoI got my $10 too. I remember laughing at the amount when I got the check. Thankfully after the OtherOS issue people worked to crack open the PS3, so by the time I got that check I had long since installed custom firmware on it.
- itintheory 3mo ago> the Switch 2 takes carts I believe the switch 2 carts don't contain the actual game, just a license key. The game is downloaded on first run.
- cheesemonk66 3mo agoMany Switch 2 carts contain the entire game. A larger portion just act as a license key.