Twitter is bad.
If buying isn’t owning then piracy isn’t stealing.
Bad argument piracy has never been stealing
If buying becomes owning, will people stop pirating?
based and property tax should be illegal pillec
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so once I’ve downloaded them, I can then play them whether or not GOG still exists or my “license to use GOG services” was revoked.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 Playing the game after your license has been revoked is copyright infringement, and no different than using a cracked version.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.
This is also the case for physical copies, and has been since software was first sold
Yeah, if a game needs online activation it doesn’t matter which medium you buy…
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?
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
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.
it’s not stealing it’s not stealing it’s not stealing it’s not stealing it’s not stealing it’s not stealing it’s not stealing it’s not stealing it’s not stealing it’s not stealing it’s not stealing it’s not stealing it’s not stealing it’s not stealing it’s not stealing it’s not stealing
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?
Personally I think we should bring back physical games to PC. Imagine a cartridge like device that can effectively use external storage as swap memory (which copies to ram as needed), laptops and desktops can be built with this while other computers could use an adapter.
And hopefully it dosent require the original game drive to be plugged in all the time when you want to play
The problem is how do you do that while preventing fraud?
The same way you do it digitally: add a thin layer of DRM that gives you legal protection, but doesn’t actually do much on a technical level. Check a license key from the game drive in the same way you’d check the key of software someone paid you for, then let the code run on their machine.
DRM itself isn’t a very good way of protecting media. The functional protections are almost nonexistent due to the nature of it. If you want to let someone play/watch/read content, you can’t also make it magically impossible for them to just take the code/video/text, and copy paste it somewhere else. The only thing DRM does is give you the legal right to invoke the state as a way of enforcing copyright law against anyone who ‘pirates’ your work.
Any fraud that could happen likely wouldn’t be stopped no matter what they tried. (or rather, if they did nothing protection-wise)
This was always the case, just stated explicitly now
Did California’s new law requiring this already go into effect?
January 1 2025, guess Steam preferred not waiting in this case
new law
I hope we don’t get expiration dates now…
