I appreciate the transparency tbh. Would be better if things were different but it is what it is for now.
For context, Steam is now forced to display this due to a new law passed in California: https://www.theverge.com/2024/9/26/24254922/california-digital-purchase-disclosure-law-ab-2426
Valve is not doing this out of the goodness of their hearts.
Its pretty much up to the developer. You can have no DRM and not even require steam to be open, or you can make your game unplayable.
Imo Steam should tell people whether or not a game actually requires Steam (or another form of DRM) to run. I know they already do it for things like Denuvo, but they should also note if the game actually uses Steam as DRM or if the game can be launched without it.
PCGamingWiki has that info for most titles I believe. It would be nice to see it in Steam though.
Yeah that would be nice.
Afaik, Steam only sells licences.
Steam sells DRM-free games too, you can download them and then uninstall Steam and they will work. In this case though, on top of purchasing the game, you are buying a license to download updates for it through Steam. It’s a developer decision.
DRM is orthagonal to ownership
I do not disagree?
You still aren’t “purchasing” it.
For example, you don’t have right of resale the same way you would with physical goods. You’re buying a license to the game for personal use, regardless, you just don’t have DRM limiting your access.
Well that’s just digital goods, not Steam specifically.
You do get all the files for the game, that will work for as long as the OS will run them, with or without Steam (this is as close as you can come to ownership for software). Rather than a license to use them files, which become useless if you don’t run the game through Steam.
If buying isn’t owning then piracy isn’t stealing.
Bad argument piracy has never been stealing
Sure it has, back when it was on boats at sea
Only when they were stealing things.
If buying becomes owning, will people stop pirating?
People were more inclined to buy software when it was a one time purchase rather than a license subscription (for example Adobe).
If piracy was stealing I would do it even more
Stealing potential profits is no where near as fun as stealing actual profits
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You know, I tried telling them this at Hertz, but they still called the cops on me! WTF! I gave them money, they gave me car. What’s the problem officer?!?!?
based and property tax should be illegal pillec
based and property
taxshould be illegal pillecFix’d
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They can though
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Yeah isn’t this like the thing that California required them to do?
You know what else used to be standard? Slavery and feudalism. Things don’t have to be this way.
I mean, slavery is still standard if you consider the prison industrial complex
I’ve been trying to tell people for years this is how it actually works, now they’re being ultra transparent about it so maybe people will actually care.
This was always the case, just stated explicitly now
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Twitter is bad.
This is also the case for physical copies, and has been since software was first sold
According to media lawyers, maybe. But when I have a CD of music, or a game cartridge, I can sell it to someone else. For money. Because it’s my copy I’m selling. So, what the fuck are you talking about except ceding the point to corporate lawyers for no good reason?
You own the license and can sell the license (generally), not the actual game. To use an analogy, if you buy and own a car, you could take it apart or replace any part you like, put the engine into another car, etc. You can’t do the equivalent with a typical game and other propertary software, at least not legally, because you don’t own it, you just own the right to use it.
Might not make a noticable difference to most people because most people don’t do much with games/software apart from using it, but there still is a difference.
That’s technically piracy. You should be careful as some have been sued for selling 2nd hand goods.
Just because it makes sense and is intuitive doesn’t make it correct legally speaking
No it’s not. It’s well established law that we are allowed to resell our physical media. You’re just wrong. Like I said, if it were up to corporate media lawyers, you would be correct, which is why it’s frustrating to see people like OP & yourself falling into line when no one’s even asking you to. Stop that.
I am not falling in line, I am asking you to be aware so you don’t get sued for doing a reasonable thing. Maybe games are safe but I heard of other goods causing lawsuits.
Take my word with a grain of salt, but as far as I understand with my limited knowledge, you do not own the content stored on the disc; however, you do own the physical medium itself. That is how game stores are allowed to sell you second hand games. They aren’t selling you the disc contents, they are selling you the disc. Regardless, readers, do your own research and don’t take the word of random people on Lemmy including myself.
Yeah, if a game needs online activation it doesn’t matter which medium you buy…
That’s a lie told by every new industry since the printing press. Books tried writing “by anonymously exchanging money for this mass-produced object, you’ve secretly entered into a contract that limits your” blah blah blah. Courts threw that shit out, one hundred years ago. Same thing happened for videos and music.
Only software emerged recently enough, and under enough corruption, to keep pretending that opening shrink-wrap was magically the same as ink-on-paper agreement to some negotiated tradeoff.
Moving to digital distribution changed nothing. These assholes would be the first to insist as much. They would agree, you own Factorio on Steam in exactly the same way you own SimCity on SNES. But anyone who points to the cartridge in your hands and insists “you don’t own that” is being a fucking idiot.
Gog games
Good Old Games Games
By now my GOG library has far exceeded my Steam library in size. I was surprised by how many games on my Steam wishlist are also on GOG.
I would love to do that, but GoG does not have the better regional pricing that steam does.
GOG shills no longer make full sentences to spread their lies now.
As a clueless gog-game-buying normie, can you elaborate?
2.1 We give you and other GOG users the personal right (known legally as a ‘license’) to use GOG services and to download, access and/or stream (depending on the content) and use GOG content. This license is for your personal use. We can stop or suspend this license in some situations, which are explained later on.
https://support.gog.com/hc/en-us/articles/212632089-GOG-User-Agreement?product=gog
You do not own games purchased on GOG. Same as Steam, EGS, Ubisoft Connect… GOG shills like to spread the lie that you own GOG games, thus justifying the use of their garbage platform, but when asked to explain how, they just say you can download the EXE so it’s functionally the same as owning (omitting, of course, that you can run most Steam or EGS games without having their respective clients installed, as that would go against their narrative).
Okay, I see your point, but I’d still say it’s a better license than Steam’s/Epic’s, because the games are DRM free (unless they’ve changed that and I’m not aware of it) and so once I’ve downloaded them, I can then play them whether or not GOG still exists or my “license to use GOG services” was revoked.
you can run most Steam or EGS games without having their respective clients installed
This is not consistent with my personal experience (though admittedly it’s been a while since I’ve tried – maybe a lot of games on Steam are now DRM free).
EGS doesn’t require the client, you can simply run the EXE.
Steam games most commonly use Steamworks DRM, which is so easy to bypass it might as well not exist.
That’s beside the point, however. GOG doesn’t sell you games, but licenses. Playing the game after your license has been revoked is copyright infringement, and no different than using a cracked version. DRM is another topic entirely.
What matters is I can put that exe on a harddrive/usb stick, plug it into any PC, and play it. Does that work with epic and steam? If I copy the game folder onto a usb stick and buy a new pc, can I plug it in and play it without ever installing the launchers? Or having to do some other workaround like download software I don’t know if I can trust that I wouldn’t have to do with GOG?
I don’t care about whether it’s technically illegal or not, I only care about how easily I can play the game using nothing but the game, exactly like a cartridge.
Did California’s new law requiring this already go into effect?
January 1 2025, guess Steam preferred not waiting in this case
This is literally how it has always been.
You don’t own any of the games you paid for, you bought a license to play those games under specific circumstances. It’s the same with books & movies.
Valve have (allegedly) stated that in the case of Steam shutting down, games they can update to remove Steam DRM, they will.
It’s a good job Gabe Newell has made gamers comfortable with not owning their games.
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You also won’t be authorised to play them if your account is banned for any or no reason, or if steam somehow shut down (at least for any you hasn’t already downloaded or if you ever uninstall them).
That doesn’t sound much like owning to me. Could you imagine if gamestop banned you from their store and suddenly you couldn’t play any game you bought there? Would any logical person consider that ownership?
no need be angry at steam. that is how it always has been. kudos to them to point it out very cleanly and not hiding it on page 400 of the 3rd EULA.
Thank you California law!
OK. I know I’m about to get blown the fuck up but… You will own nothing and be happy. But. Like. Unironically.
I really don’t think most people want to manage thousands of music files on their computer. Or hundreds of movie files. Or thousands of picture files. Or hundreds of video game files.
There are definitely options for doing this, but people who go this route are usually tech elite nerds. Not your parents or grandparents. Not normies.
(I self-host Navidrome, Jellyfin, Immich, etc.)
You will be blown up, and you will be happy. Enjoy the technofeudalism you so desperately long for.
That’s why sharing tools or information via libraries is the most convenient and efficient way of managing. We don’t need to own everything if it’s easily available for everyone.
May be true but the core of the problem with buying games online is that you can pay for the game, the platform holder can just remove the game from the storefront at any tile, and essentially remove any access to the game you had previously purchased under the pretense that it is yours to keep, since you’ve paid for it, without citing any reasons or giving warnings. When we buy something, we usually assume, since that’s the way it is with physical goods, that you’re keeping what your buying.
I feel like this transparent language is a good step in the right direction
I think that a step in the actual right direction would be forcing platforms to give people actual ownership of what they pay for. If they have a licensing issue and want to pull the game, they can stop new sales, but they shouldn’t be allowed to make it unavailable to people who’ve already paid unless the entire company is going under and the store is shutting down (and even then, they should be forced to provide non-DRM downloads).
Yep, the step forward would be to regulate licensing in a consumer-friendly way. Not going back to buying every song or album separately.
No doubt
Currently I have multiple games in stream which have no store page and I still am able to install them just fine. And they even run on Linux guys proton
I’m not sure how Steam works exactly, but can’t you redownload games once you’ve added them to your library regardless of any store pages?
Yes that’s exactly my point. The comment I was responding to was saying stuff gets deleted on steam, which is true. But that you can still play them/they are still in my library
Remember the people who long ago told you “in the future you will own nothing, and you will be happy”?
How’d you react? Did you call them crazy? Conspiracy theorists? Perhaps a Doomer?
You know what they should be called? Correct.
Yeah I called them all those things and I still do.
Steam doesn’t have a monopoly on digital games distribution if you’re unhappy with their service just use another one that allows you to own a direct software license.
Stop being a conspiracy nutjob.
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