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Steam now tells gamers up front that they're buying a license, not a game

sainraja

Member
Keep in mind that
- this is often the case on Steam as well (see previous point)
- occasionally when it comes to the GOG version this is made possible by REMOVING features that conversely are available on other stores (i.e. "the GOG version of GAME XY comes without the multiplayer mode" etc).
Older games on GOG obviously won't come with all the features that those games launched with (GOG stands for 'Good Old Games' and when they started, that was their entire identity) and why are we turning this into a GOG vs Steam thing?

GOG's entire existence is about being DRM free. It is like their mission. Steams isn't and it wasn't built for that so just because you are able play some games without DRM, does not change that (specially if you have to follow a specific way to avoid the DRM aspect).

People should also keep in mind that often "owning a physical copy" doesn't mean jack shit.
If your favorite multiplayer game gets its servers shut down you could own a whole freaking pallet filled with hundreds of physical copies and you would still be unable to do fuck anything with them.
And THESE are the games that can be "retired" from your online accounts. No one is taking away your Steam copy of STALKER 1 or Super Meat Boy.
Multiplayer games aren't usually the ones being questioned in discussions like this. Most people understand that those games won't be available forever.

And the point wasn't lost on me, and again, I said this in the first post you responded, the disclosure on Steam is simply requiring them to be more transparent. It hasn't changed anything and even if GOG allows us to download game installers to manage on our own, does not mean we get more rights to those games compared to steam in terms of ownership. The difference is, GOG is choosing to put their trust in us, not to do it, vs steam, which has measures in place to prevent us from doing it. That is what they [steam] offer to publishers willing to put their games there, also why not every game is available on GOG.

So going back to my main point, if you really care about this stuff, and this new disclosure has perhaps made it clearer, then we've still got GOG.
 
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Sentenza

Member
(GOG stands for 'Good Old Games' and when they started, that was their entire identity)
More specifically GOG *used* to be the acronym of GOOD OLD GAMES at the beginning, but it isn't anymore.
They changed the name of the company (a subsidiary of CD Projekt, for the few people still unaware of it) from "Good Old Games" in a more generic "GOG" *exactly* because they gave up on the idea of focusing specifically on older games and started to include day-one releases barely two-three years after the service started.
I know and remember because I was there from the beginning and I watched every step of this happen.

and why are we turning this into a GOG vs Steam thing?
I am... not?
The second half of my very same post you quoted isn't even about GOG at all.
 

Zelduh

Member
This is the inevitable result of the PC Gaymer Masterrace shilling. You will never own anything again, all for your precious Eff Pee Ess
 

pudel

Member
Okay, hear me out. If Valve went bankrupt tomorrow and shut down Steam, our licenses would technically expire, right?
I mean I bought the license to use a certain software. If Steam shuts down, I would guess they could provide me with a "final" functional copy of this certain software (similiar to GOG)....because I still want to use this software and I principally dont need Steam for it. 🤷‍♂️
 

sainraja

Member
More specifically GOG *used* to be the acronym of GOOD OLD GAMES at the beginning, but it isn't anymore.
They changed the name of the company (a subsidiary of CD Projekt, for the few people still unaware of it) from "Good Old Games" in a more generic "GOG" *exactly* because they gave up on the idea of focusing specifically on older games and started to include day-one releases barely two-three years after the service started.
I know and remember because I was there from the beginning and I watched every step of this happen.
I was addressing your point of why certain games didn't launch with all the features. I don't know of any modern games launching on GOG that have features missing and if they do, specially from an online perspective, it is likely due to the fact of how games are distributed on GOG. And, if they have kept GOG as the name, it likely still means Good Old Games.

I am... not?
The second half of my very same post you quoted isn't even about GOG at all.
Well, it looked like that to me and I have edited my post to address the second half.
 

DryvBy

Gold Member
In the age of Netflix, Disney, Spotify and digital stores from Google/Apple etc.. I find that very hard to believe.
Have you talked to other people before? People still think mail-in rebates will make their product free.
 

hinch7

Member
Have you talked to other people before? People still think mail-in rebates will make their product free.
Yes dumb people exist. But people have been buying and renting digital goods for decades. Even the less tech savvy and the average Joe would have picked it up by now.
 
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TGO

Hype Train conductor. Works harder than it steams.
Technically there are EULA's (like that of sony) that explicitly forbid you from selling your physical copy of the game
I'm pretty sure that is duplicate and sell, not selling the copy you own.
We don't even buy it from the publisher either, the retailer does and then sells it to you.
 

Bojji

Member
This is the inevitable result of the PC Gaymer Masterrace shilling. You will never own anything again, all for your precious Eff Pee Ess

More like result of no disc drives standard. No one had BD drives and games were too big to fit on DVD. Digital future happened much faster on PC but it's also much better than one master company hegemony like on consoles.
 

TheContact

Member
this is the downside to digital content. Amazon kindle books you purchased can be revoked at their will. Self driving cars that can be disabled without your consent…hmm
 
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TheAssist

Member
Just wondering why not every other company/industry is doing this "license" trick. You can do it basically with every other product as well. "Sorry bro, you didnt buy that car! You just bought a license to use it!" And when everything is connected to the Internet nowadays....it would be even super easy to shut these products off at any given time. :messenger_winking_tongue:
Is it too late to say that car companies are already selling you access to for example matrix LED lights despite the lights already being installed from the factory. Pretty much the same thing, you just buy a lcense to use certain features of the car, like nav, autopilot, advanced headlights, etc.
 
This is the inevitable result of the PC Gaymer Masterrace shilling. You will never own anything again, all for your precious Eff Pee Ess
Yes, that’s cute and all. On the other hand a ton of console games would be unplayable without PCs unless someone was inclined to mess with ancient hardware and pay hundreds for used physical copies.
 

Danny Dudekisser

I paid good money for this Dynex!
So, GOG is our best bet then but I am sure we don't technically own what we buy there either and to an extent it makes sense, we are buying the product to use it, not to do anything we want with it, which buying would imply... although the disclosure is only making it clear that that's how it has always been.
The language they use own there talks about "buying" and "ownership", so you could reasonably construe it to mean that you own the game, whatever the publishers' intent might be.

But I hate when people get so wrapped up in the legal mumbo jumbo - the reason that GOG is meaningfully different is because *functionally* - not just legally - you have a copy of the game that you can backup or do whatever you want with, without any restrictions. Laws around copyright and digital ownership can and almost certainly will change and could render all of the current thinking around this moot, but at the end of the day, it's having a product that you control that matters.
 
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poppabk

Cheeks Spread for Digital Only Future
This is the inevitable result of the PC Gaymer Masterrace shilling. You will never own anything again, all for your precious Eff Pee Ess
You can continue paying for a storage locker for your VHS collection - I'll continue spending the money I save from not doing that on building my Steam library. The bastards got $0.75 out of me just last night for Portal 2.
 

Sophist

Member
It has been like that since the debut of Steam back in year 2003. Another thing most people don't know: The "contract" between you and valve about your account automatically terminate when you die, including all the associated services, licenses, data, ...
 

Superkewl

Member
I always understood this to be the case when making digital purchases, so doesn't really change anything on my part.

I know a lot of people here make a big deal out of this, but has never affected me personally.
 

Guilty_AI

Member
I'm pretty sure that is duplicate and sell, not selling the copy you own.
We don't even buy it from the publisher either, the retailer does and then sells it to you.
Nope, its explicitly about resale or transferring the license in any fashion. Someone posted a pic of it earlier in this thread, and you can find it on PS's website in certain countries like portugal and the UK:
07 Resale
7.1.
You must not resell either disc-based games or digital games, unless expressly authorised by us and, if the publisher is another company, additionally by the publisher.

But like i said, this isn't enforceable and people will do it anyway. Probably wouldn't stand in court either.
 
BUY PHYSICAL!

And get a useless box with most games not being able to run without a day 1 patch or mandatory 60gb extra level textures? We have been digital for 10 years now, half the games on disc are just a part-time storage device thats incomplete without an internet connection. Unlike people playing 30+ years later Super Mario bros, Im pretty sure in 20 years you wont be able to download any of those required patches and updates from the PS4, onwards. They will just be useless boxes.
 

Guilty_AI

Member
I bet Gaben is a trillionaire.
d5wm26eujnf91.jpg
 

HyperSeg

Neo Member
It took me 20 years to realize it, but I honestly don't like steam. I love my retro physical pc game collection. Has so much more soul than a "steam library". It's nice to have manual control over game versions too (talking single player here). Boo me all you want.
 

Buggy Loop

Member
All those GOG comments ..

their own terms of service are no different:


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.

Legally what GOG is selling is the same as Steam: a license, not ownership, and one that GOG reserves the right to revoke.

You might have a local copy, but realistically, how many here with steam accounts would have the space to back their library if the option was given now? Hell some games on steam are entirely DRM free to the point you can have the game on an USB key and go play at a friend’s house with no steam account. Did anyone bother to back those? I would guess not.

Worse that happens if they would pull the plug (again, fear mongering, why would that happen), there’s always the high seas.
 
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The only company really worrying is Nintendo. As they give fuck all about digital ownership. Steam being the most secure in my opinion as they have redundancies and are the largest. GOG isn't the ultimate solution, what happens if GOG goes down in ten years? How would you get your games. You just going to download them all locally, 😂. Microsoft would probably just transfer to cloud rights and Sony isn't going anywhere for awhile. As far as Epic games goes, LOL.
 

TGO

Hype Train conductor. Works harder than it steams.
But like i said, this isn't enforceable and people will do it anyway. Probably wouldn't stand in court either.
It's not enforceable because it conflicts with the sale of goods act which by accepting an agreed sum payment for a physical item the seller must legally transfer ownership to the buyer.
It's one of the things they don't won't you to know like retailers in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland are legally required to repair or replace an item within six years of purchase if it's faulty or doesn't work as advertised.
But they never tell you that.
 
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So, GOG is our best bet then but I am sure we don't technically own what we buy there either and to an extent it makes sense, we are buying the product to use it, not to do anything we want with it, which buying would imply... although the disclosure is only making it clear that that's how it has always been.
the way to do digital is ideally like gog, you get an offline installer so you dont have to rely on anyone's servers.
 

dmaul1114

Banned
All fine by me. It’s been a huge rarity over my nearly 40 years of gaming to replay a game and I’ve never cared about collecting games, owning a game library etc.

I’d go full rental if there were better options, just like I long went full streaming for movies and music. I’m just paying to experience the content until I’m done with it (or bored of it in the case of music
 
Anyone who thinks that Steam rents a license, while GOG is the savior of humanity that gives games you TRULY own, is completely retarded and shouldn't have voting rights.
If you still think you own GOG games, try to upload them on your site and make them available to people to download them. You will get sued to hell, that's for sure.
Some people think that because a GOG game works without launcher, "ItS MiNe, iTs mY CoPY argggggg".
 

Northeastmonk

Gold Member
It’s been this way for years. As long as the service works, I’m fine with buying licenses. People will probably sell my physical stuff when I die and when I’m gone, there isn’t a single game I can take with me.

Most of my gaming friends are online anyway. They’ll probably pay more attention to my game library than my family. Imagine your spouse or SO trashing all your games and systems when you die. Imagine their next SO playing your stuff. I guess it doesn’t bug me because they haven’t taken it away from me (yet?).
 
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It changes user perception, to the real deal.
The question is, if users understand they are only renting a license, will users be willing to pay as much?
I certainly am not. I have only paid full price for one digital game on Steam, and I regretted it. Never again. It has to be 40%+ off for me to even consider it, solely based on the fact that it is digital and non-transferable.
 

MacReady13

Member
And get a useless box with most games not being able to run without a day 1 patch or mandatory 60gb extra level textures? We have been digital for 10 years now, half the games on disc are just a part-time storage device thats incomplete without an internet connection. Unlike people playing 30+ years later Super Mario bros, Im pretty sure in 20 years you wont be able to download any of those required patches and updates from the PS4, onwards. They will just be useless boxes.
And once again, continue to enjoy not owning anything! Money down the drain.
 
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