this post was submitted on 27 Dec 2023
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Is that not also true of itch and GOG?
You gain access to the installer files. This means that, if you wanted, you could back up them up on as many hard drives as you want and have them for the rest of the your life. Steam, on the other hands, you are purchasing a license to play the game.
This depends on the game. The DRM is opt-in. A lot of the games that are available on GOG are also DRM free on Steam. For other games, they may have DRM, but its usually because the publisher isn't willing to sell without, meaning its not on GOG anyway.
Ubisoft has proven itself to remove games from the market and become unplayable. You also legally agree in the Steam User Agreement that all games in Steam don’t belong to you. This isn’t a legal copyrighted material but the concept of ownership of the game at all in Steam is legally prohibited to own.
That sounds like a reason to stop buying Ubisoft games, not switch from Steam.
Pretty sure that's in almost every game EULA ever. May be a 1-up for Itch but I'm pretty sure almost all games on GOG have similar terms.
It’s way worse because it’s not EULA, it’s the Steam User Agreement contract. The same contract that says if you agree, you can not sue Valve corporation. The same contract that decides to sell your data to 3rd parties. The same contract for locking your account in any reason or time.
EULA protects games from being sold on shady websites and the developers. Steam User Agreement doesn’t protect anyone against Valve Corporation.
Ummm if you don't think GOG or Itch don't have similar clauses you're in for bitter disappointment.
GOG also reserve the right to terminate your account. You have a license to use it. Almost all games on GOG have a 'you don't own it, you own a license to use it' clause as well. No arbitration clauses though.
Itch has a class action waiver, and many games on it have a 'you don't own it, you own a license to use it' clause.
That's why I only get my games from archive.org
That’s every license of every commercial game no matter how it’s sold, unless it’s open source. So technically even with GoG you only get the license to play. You can only use the installer to install and play the game. You can’t resell it or decompile it for commercial use since you don’t own the binary code.
Yup, but there's no DRM to lock you out a few years down the road when the DRM servers go down, and you don't need to login to their service to play your games.
Yes, the license has restrictions and Steam has been a good actor so far, but you don't have to look far to see how they could flip (see Sony revoking Discover video purchases, which they have since postponed). GOG wouldn't be able to do that since they have no mechanism to remove things you have already downloaded, they can merely revoke future access to it.
Same for much on Steam. They wouldn’t be able to go erase stuff off your hard drives.
Many of the older games on Steam don’t have any DRM. Typically if they’re on GOG, they come the same way on Steam.
That said, I like GOG. It’s one of the few services I buy games on. But this argument that Steam games are locked down by DRM is is silly. Most games that are released on both platforms are identical.
Yup, but you know you're getting DRM-free with GOG, and there's value to that.
But many games still use Steam DRM even if they remove their other DRM, meaning you need the Steam client to be running for the game to run. And it's relatively common for games available on GOG to have Steam DRM on Steam.
That said, it's not really something I worry about. Steam provides enough value to me personally that I'm okay with not every game being completely DRM-free. But if all things were otherwise equal, I'd opt for GOG.
Steam DRM is easily bypassed. Look up hacked steam DLLs
Okay, but:
DRM-free avoids that, hence why GOG has value.
Sure. And DRM free can become DRM laden with a patch too
No it's not. It doesn't even legally count as copyright infringement. You are legally allowed to crack your own legit copy of software. The only thing possibly in the way is the EULA of the software (almost all of them have a possibly-illegal no reverse engineering clause)
The average person isn't going to be backing up their games in the first place.
Only if you download the update for that game.
The patch to the Steam DLL could impact every game, and it still requires the user to patch the binary. Steam updating the binary to patch out the fix has a much bigger impact than a game adding DRM later.
I'm pretty sure you're not, though there's potential for some gray area. Here's 17 U.S. Code § 1201, (a) (1) (A):
And yes, the average person does "back up" their games by having a copy of the installer in a Downloads directory or maybe a separate drive. They're probably not going to use a NAS or cloud service, but that's probably still more likely than applying a patch to a binary.
Not "many". I think last I checked under 2% of Steam games are DRM-free.
You can do the same with the Steam installation files for games that do not have DRM - those that do wouldn't appear in Itch or GOG in the first place.
You don't own games generally. It's always a license for software use. You may own the game, if you buy the company and the license is fully under its control.
Software is not a product. And there is no guarantee you will be able to run it forever, even if you made a copy of your entire setup. It's especially the case with Windows, because it's bound to a specific hardware that will break one day. Microsoft also cares less and less about gamers (see what they do with their operating system for consumers) and they have a way out with XBox. My bet is that Windows is not making money for Microsoft anymore and it will degrade more and more. Gabe knows it and has a strategy against it. If you're a gamer and want have games on PC, use Linux and support the good cause.
Way ahead of you. Been a Linux user for half my life :)