A New Law Just Forced Valve To Change Steam.

just go back to storage media problem solved

@BellularNews Got a question is there anyway to message you?

Steam has always been DRM... the difference between it and what has came before (and most of what has come after) is that the DRM is surrounded by actual value (updating, comments, etc).

GOG might be one of the alternatives that do things right but Steam is still better, in aggregate.

Online games have ways to ban users who are using the game incorrectly. If Steam goes away and all the games purchased just stop having access, that is a ton of money wasted. Half the games I play are solo, no reason to lose access to them regardless of the platform they were bought from. I will definitely be focusing my purchases on platforms that let me keep the games in the same way that when I do get a multiplayer game, I make sure its one that lets the users host servers rather than relying on the game company to host a server. No company last forever, I want to know that I can play the game fully even if the company or purchase platform are gone.

Say what you want. I'm going thru my steam library tomorrow and any game on it that I can buy from GoG, I'm buying it. And from now on, my first choice to buy is GoG.

Well I guess I'll be buying any game I can from GOG. I wish I had been doing that all along.

Does it matter if it’s a permanent license? Unless it says it’s a limited time license, then there is a problem.

Valve has a "button'' to kill the DRM? Does that mean everything in their databanks will become a pirate's loot essentially? :D

This is why GoG exists. I mean, specifically why. Read up on the gaming media at the time when GoG was on the way to being a new thing. It's something that came together due to a mandate from the masses. Steam's general improvements and corresponding faster market growth had carry-on effects.

Also, you physical music and game media was licensed as well. So this really just law makers who don't know law.

Valve's approach would meet the laws requirements. You already had to be told what you were purchasing, this just made it so it couldn't be behind a link.

if this law becomes this much of a problem and steam gets banned, imma be demanding money for my games back or piracy will become the only option (or i suppose ill go with GOG depending on the games on there), thats like taking candy from a kid and 6 minutes later, the cops are at ur door cause of it. SMH

Because of This drm, patent and stuppid online platform shenanigans. Gamers were decreasing now a days. There no new offline games.

Why no one is sue the steams. Then if we dont want anymore will they refund the money in first place. The game industry need to sue the steam for user not owning the bought games. With this policy games were not even cheap in first place. We were paying full game prices and not owning the game.

I wish we could just return to physical media. While optical media isn't entirely feasible anymore, imagine being able to buy games on USB flash drives, Plug it, install it, plug it in to play. Put in a case when not in use. I miss physical copies. Not only were they convenient, but they also add a splash of decor on any shelf.

Things like all the BS going on with STEAM are why I prefer Hard-copy CDs if I BUY something I should OWN that thing...
I understand if a user cheats having their copy disabled but Otherwise consumers should own the things that they purchase unless its specified that it's a monthly service or rentel...

If Valve needs this licensing model then maybe they shoudl just license the use of online servers for people who are banned for bad behaviour/cheating. I see no other reason.

I doubt steam is going down anytime. With that said, if something were to happen id reccon many people would begin pirating. Other clients are simply just worse. Epic literally has to release free games to get people onto their client and stay on people's computers. A lot of the reason pirating seems to happen nowadays is because the product might just not be worth the money or the client you are purchasing to get said product is simply bad (again not worth your money). For instance, like most I used to pirate anime, and while I may not be the biggest fan of crunchyroll as a company, their client is actually pretty nice and makes it easier to watch on devices that are harder to block ads on (which made it really hard to use something like 9anime). Another instance was peglin. Nearly $20 is an insane initial pricetag for what looks to be a fairly simple game. But once I played and had the money I went and bought the game on steam. Its a good game and was absolutely worth the money if you are into those kind of games.

In general, I trust valve as a company, they have yet to do me wrong. But I don't feel too good about not actually owning a game because that could easily be twisted if morals change.

If you create a service your potential customers aren't asking for, then defeat other options for them that were already meeting that need, all to force the customers into altering their needs to the service you want to provide instead of what they are demanding, they're not initiating that, and so it's not a demand, and you're not supplying consumer demand, you're forcing what would otherwise be your customers to supply you.

Yeah they're just not asking the customer what they want, since the customer is always right and they don't want to do beneficial things for their customers. Theyre not that type of people. California could put this to a referendum, how do you want games to be sold and distributed, and the people would vote in self interest on every detail, and Valve would still try to find a way to defeat their customer, presumably due to a series of personality disorders among their staff.

If you buy from gog would you be able to still play online and get updates to the game? And after you buy it, how does I play it can you play on the website like Steam? Or

I ALWAYS BUY ON GOG first and only steam as a last resort BECAUSE you don't get ownership and personally think this should be illegal if you paid 50 bucks for a fucking game you should get a digital copy PERIOD!!

I see that steam has "add to cart" then "continue to payment" no "buy" or "purchase", on the buttons, this makes sense now.

GOG does have DRM.

For example I bought Worms W.M.D from GOG when it was on sale and thought let's have an online game... I couldn't play online...

I had to launch the game through GOG Galaxy (or whatever it is called now) this is to verify my copy of the game before going online...

And I am pretty sure Cyberpunk uses a launcher to verify it's your copy...

This is authentication, or DRM.

Sure if you wanna play some old classic dos game bundled with dosbox that's fine. But modern games require a form of DRM even if it's for multiplayer. I understand they wanna protect their servers but it's still a form of DRM.

Deal breaker for me even I am heavily invested in steam. It will be painful like switching from chome to Firefox. But for the right reason it is worth it.

so wait, are you saying i don't actually need constant internet connection to play games? like on the train even if it goes through tunnels? and GOG is ok with that??? well well well... guess i know where i'll be getting my games from in the future

I love to play games before buying them

I wish that gog had all the games steam does

Guess I'm giving up games and computers then.

idk if I would call their return policy killer

They refused to refund two of my games because I accidentally sat on the title screen for too long. Thought I closed the game completely and left to go eat dinner with some people , came back to try and refund it but couldn’t since it was technically “open” for that whole time. Mouse didn’t move once , but I was still considered “playing”. Few other things happened as well of course , but that one pissed me off the most

Those days were definitely better. The technology may be better now but everything else was better then. I still have a lot of my physical media and will never give em up. Digital is a rip off money grab disguised as a convenience, which it is.

This is why Valve is a false savior, the one true evil they have that matters MOST

Man, these investors just keep trying to reach their hands in our pockets. End outside investors. Only the generators of said capital should be able to own it. IE employees can only own the stock of the company they work for. That and end politicians from being able to invest in companies they write laws for. Right now the shareholders of these companies (super rich elites) tell them to make games for the MoDeRn AuDiEnCe. That's why the devs keep pumping out dogshit and now why you can't own games AND why congress struck down our library of game history. Investors pay politicians in shares and holdings to write laws that benefits only them. Seriously Trump is not going to help. None of them are. The entire system is a fuckin joke and a scam.

I buy it? It belongs to me to do with what I want. Anything else is renting.

Regarding new regulation having the unintended side effect of reducing start ups who can't afford to comply with legislation: if they can't afford to give people the games they are selling them, they shouldn't be in business anyway. I'm not going to feel bad for scammer startups who aren't going to get away with not being transparent about what they're selling because they "can't afford to". Competition is good, but not if it's just people taking our money and not being able to give us what the law requires they give us for that money.

We were already warned like 7 or 8 years ago. You all thought that "Silvermania Gabe interview" was a joke? And ...how about now?

this guy has a knack for dragging out what can be said in 2 mins over 20 mins, and 90% of it is just waffle and filler

Gamers could end the Tyranny in an instant. Stop buying on Steam. Simple. BUt gamers are addicted, and dont care so wewill continue to be abused

I've hated steam ever since it became impossible to play games without installing it. I bought a physical disk (cant remember which game it was) from a store back in the early 2000's. Went home and popped it into my computer to install it. I couldn't, I had no choice but to install steam first. I couldn't return the game either because it had been opened. The fact that they can just take away games that you paid for is wrong. It pissed me off then and still pisses me off now. I remember all the old Halflife mod servers died because of steam. They used to utilize the old WON servers and there were thousands of players playing all the time. Then steam came out and now nobody plays those old games anymore. It also made modding more difficult and it was just a complete pain to do anything without having steam installed. I have refused to buy so many games in the past simply because of steam.

So wait... renting is the same price as buying?! That's insane right???

well for e.u laws that can only be apply for the new game you will buy not those you have buy in the past when it was not told, the term buy the game instead of buy the license at the moment we have buy it change everything. And since you accept the cgu after have buy the game, if only the cgu say you only buy the license, it can be consider something hidden.
It's the same for video game than for music and movie for our laws, or at least it's a grey point that you can't really be put in front of the justice for it. If when you have buy a ps1 game as sample, the laws was not say about the license, buy mean the game become your property, so even if the cd stop working, you can't be put in justice if you emulate that game on your pc now.
If they really want a chance to put someone in justice, they need to transform the steam button buy by rent as sample (since buy a license would just be like rent a game finaly) and that would be applicate only on our new purchases, not for the game we have already do.
As sample, even if they close the crew 1, we can still make it turn with hamachi server as sample and it's in grey law becose they have change the rules now but we have buy it before it was said. And if think it's even more dead for them since they have "end" that license, that mean they don't really own it anymore.
Like when a certain anime is not license in your country, it's not really illegal to watch it on streaming website that are not official. At least that's how our rules in e.u work. Since you can't pay to can watch it, it can't be turned against you if you want to see that anime.
And with the number of gamers, and how the justice already struggle to can judge stuff, imagin if they must try to put in justice every player one by one. Specialy when in e.u some of us can have free decent lawyer with our inssurance without need to pay even 1 cent and all of that in a grey zone area of the justice. Yes they say NOW it's just a license, but all my game i have buy them before 2021 and it was say BUY the game not buy the license at that time, if they want to have it retroactiv i ask to be refound to the price i have buy it becose i would not have buy a license for 40-50-60 €. If they want to make it from now on ok we know it it's their "right", but that mean many of us will stop spend a lot and just spend on some specific game. They can say what they want about cgu already talking about it, it was not mention on the moment of the buy but after the download and installation after have already pay.

You never owned the game in the first place if you bought it on steam. I don't know why people have only now realized this
🤣

that's why I have never purchased a game that requires online connection to play.

As the saying goes. If buying isn't owning, then piracy isn't stealing. And people who argue with that are in support of scamming customers and using unethical/immoral business ethics.

The example Bellular gave about a ticket for a theme park does not work for this. When you purchase a ticket for a theme park, you spend money on a reusable service and not a product. The ticket is just to show you have that going for you. In the case of video games, you spend money for a product and not a service. A service can come along with the game (such as updates or online play) but you paid for product and not service.

If you are paying money for something, you should have the right to that thing and not something that claims you have access to it. Again, you shouldn't have to pay for what is just a claim which is what a license is. Something that just claims you can play the game. But if your right to play it can be revoked, then the license means nothing and is in the end just a scam in itself since it. It is not a one time experiencing sort of deal either (though i'm sure game companies would love to have you be able to play the game once per purchase, then have you pay again so you can play the game one more time). You are spending money on a product. And that is the key difference here.

Companies sell digital copies for the same price as physical, though it saves them money. So that gives a point towards pirating the games.

Another thing is how companies can sell incomplete products then charge you more to make it a complete product. I'm talking about DLCs (not aesthetic, not soundtrack, not artbook, but actual content for the game). Prime example would be Pokemon. They sell you a "base" game which means it doesn't have everything, but still charge you full pricing. Then they release extra for it that is actual content and charge you even more. Companies should not be allowed to sell an incomplete product. And if they later release DLC that adds actual content into the game, then they cannot charge for it, nor can they increase the price of the product it was made for without heavy repeated fining that would cost how much the product (game and dlc) costs then quadrupled at the least.

I bought a boxed game, The Orange Box, that came with a code for the games on Steam. I assume I can still install from the disks..

Did you know that some coffee machines and printers will just not work if you put a brand of coffee or ink in there that the company that made them doesn't want you to buy from? Like nothing's wrong with the coffee or ink, the machine just says no. I remember that every time gaming companies do stuff to try and gatekeep products we buy.

All they have to do now is change "purchase" to "fee" and we're all cooked.

Digital licences should not cost anywhere near as much as a physical copy. Since it is taking out the manufacturing of the physical case and game, the packaging and transportation of the game, the store front operation and such or delivery cost to individual homes. A digital licence that can be revoked should be far cheaper. By doing that they can easily sell a game on steam that costs $70 for a full physical copy at $30 and still make a profit.

Plus if you can't truely own a digital copy the same as a physical one. Why are we paying the same fucken price?

This is why imo games are far too expensive nowadays, if you can get banned from the game just because someone else said so after spending an unreasonable amount of money on it then wtf is the point in buying the game in the first place. There's no fun if you're having to tiptoe around other people who blow a fuse for something as small as you shortening their username 😂

It's really just not worth the money or time of day especially when (in some cases) admins/mods on some games are power hungry or have favortism of set users.