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| ▲ | dangus 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Which is basically never. They have no incentive to do that except for extreme circumstances, and they have all the leverage in the world over game publishers. Delisted games tend to stay in your library for redownload. I never understood the cynicism for digital media, it’s been multiple decades now and the model clearly works. Obviously I prefer zero DRM but it’s also not a hard line requirement for me personally. | | |
| ▲ | benoau 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | All of this is based on the assumption that the way it was done is the way it will be done. Who will own and run Steam 30 years from now? Gabe Newell will be long-gone, his nepobaby next-CEO will be closing in on retirement if they don't check-out early to enjoy their vast wealth like Gabe has done. What does Steam look like 60 years from now? Adults using it today are mostly dead and all of their licenses revoked forever, the games removed from circulation gone forever because nobody can ever have a license to use them again. They might be onto their 4th, 5th or 6th CEO by then, half a century removed from Gabe and any expectations we have around the ways he did things. There's a lot of room for improvement securing some sort of legacy for Steam. | | |
| ▲ | fernie 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I can assure you that offline installer you got today from GOG will not work on Windows 20 or whatever OS will be the dominant for PC in 30 or 60 years time. | | |
| ▲ | prmoustache 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Most C64, MSX, Apple,Amiga, Atari ST and Dos games can still be played on all majors operating systems. In fact I used "most" but I can't name one that couldn't be played. | | |
| ▲ | benoau an hour ago | parent [-] | | If anything it will be easier than ever to run those games, the platforms you mention can be run in a web browser these days with nothing at all to install or configure or download. |
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| ▲ | yjftsjthsd-h 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | If it works on WINE today, I would expect it to work on WINE tomorrow. Worst case, you can probably just install an older WINE on a newer OS to ensure it. | |
| ▲ | oarsinsync 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > I can assure you that offline installer you got today from GOG will not work on Windows 20 Given the lengths the Windows development team has gone to, to preserve backward compatibility, to the point that there was individual-game-specific workarounds codified in Windows, makes this claim the same as the GP’s, that Steam will change 30-60 years from now. The cynic in me thinks you’re both right, mind. | |
| ▲ | wewtyflakes 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | It would presumably work in a virtualized environment. | |
| ▲ | cropcirclbureau 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Are you willing to put monies on that? |
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| ▲ | this_user an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > What does Steam look like 60 years from now? Does it matter? You are treating this like these games are some valuable collector's items, when they really are just toys you play once and then never touch again for the most part. But let's assume you had physical copies of all of these games you own on Steam. Once you are gone, there is a > 90% chance that whoever inherits it, will throw it away, just like Millenials now are throwing away all this junk they are inheriting that Boomers used to collect. The point is, Steam is good enough for all practical purposes, which is to acquire and play games in the now. | | |
| ▲ | benoau 34 minutes ago | parent [-] | | My library includes games I played with my father and games I played with my own children. Given the option my children would certainly revisit their favourite titles with their own children one day, or for their own nostalgic memories. One thing you are missing with your logic is that "throw it out" is probably more like "give to charity", the unwanted goods are not necessarily being destroyed and may be redistributed to people who do value them. If my kids didn't want my Steam account I'm sure there's others who would, and preservation groups and museums that would probably take it. |
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| ▲ | andoando 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I mean I don't really give a shit. Im buying a game to play it now, maybe next year. Besides you only need Steam if the publisher chooses to use Steam DRM. There's clearly an incentive for it, don't think its purely Steam's fault. If that's the model the publisher offers, that's the model you have. Its your choice to participate in it or not. |
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| ▲ | paxys 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Ever bought anything from MSN Music? Yahoo Music? Desura? Microsoft eBook Store? Walmart MP3s? Anything using Adobe Content Server? MusicNet? CinemaNow? UltraViolet? It is laughable to think that digital media "clearly works". Companies shut down and stores shutter all the time. In most cases there is no recourse for customers, because – surprise – you didn't actually own the rights to what you bought, just a revocable license. You have to be pretty young and/or naive to think that this can't eventually happen to Steam as well. And even if you fully trust Steam to stick around and keep its word, digital licensing means you can still get screwed. For example - if the publisher's license to in-game music expires, the game will automatically be updated to remove all the tracks (e.g. GTA Vice City and San Andreas). For larger issues and conflicts the game might be removed entirely (e.g. Spec Ops: The Line). Or the publisher might decide to just switch off the DRM servers, even for single player games (e.g. The Crew). Outside of gaming there are countless examples of publishers "upgrading" music tracks you own to different versions or censoring/altering content of books you own. The only recourse to all this is to buy and store DRM-free versions of your media. | | |
| ▲ | stodor89 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | > "buy" Hozier's album > change countries > oh, you own this album for Bulgaria, but not for the US, so you can no longer play it | | |
| ▲ | tart-lemonade 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | Region-locked physical media (and before explicit region locking, PAL vs NTSC vs SECAM vs variants like PAL-M) also have this problem to some extent. | | |
| ▲ | oarsinsync 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | Yes and no. I took my physical media with me along with my player, and all was fine. I took my digital media with me along with my computer, and all was not fine. |
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| ▲ | satvikpendem 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | You never know, Gaben is getting older. Who knows what the next CEO of Valve will do? | | |
| ▲ | SXX 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | At least with Valve we can hope its gonna be okay for 4 reasons: 1. Even though Gabe is formally CEO he from his own words was barelly controllibg company for years. He spend more time on his other projects. 2. Flat structure and and a small team. I know few people who has worked at Valve and while there are some downsides company of ~400 employees with a lot of internal power play is just more resilient than normal corporation. Many of people on the team are just rich enough already and they dont need to go and cash out. 3. From what is publicly known Valve is family owned basically since Gabe own major part of company. And while a lot of people would hate example of e.g Ubisoft its good example how family controlled business often sink before selling out. 4. It would be just hard to sell Valve and remove control from the team without destroying both company and gaming community goodwill. Yet I fully agree that Valve just like other company can be sold off just for userbase and run to the ground. Valve just have better chance to stay customer friendly than your overall VC/PE/BlackRock owned corporation with 10,000 employees and 50 for-hire top managers / board directors. |
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| ▲ | prmoustache 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | They can't control the licenses rights for some assets like music that can expire and become undistributable. You may not know it until you install them on a new computer n years from now. | |
| ▲ | bsimpson 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Physical media rots too. I don't watch my DVD collection anymore because I don't have access to a working DVD player, but I've read that a lot of those discs don't play anymore because the publishers cheaped out on materials when they minted the discs. | |
| ▲ | ThrowawayR2 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | There have been several earlier generation game consoles that have had their online stores closed already. |
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| ▲ | mariusor 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Which is the same as what can happen to GOG if you don't have the files backed up. And if you do happen to have them backed up, is there such a large difference between having the installer vs the full game installation stored? | | |
| ▲ | paxys 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | Yes there is a difference. Steam sells you a license that can be revoked at any time. The games have DRM, and rely on cloud servers to authenticate you. If you turn your internet off they will all stop working after a certain period, even if fully downloaded. And if Steam or the DRM owner goes out of business you will end up with nothing. If you buy and download something from GOG, it is yours. You can still play it in the next millenium as long as you have suitable hardware or an emulator. | | |
| ▲ | mariusor 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > The games have DRM, and rely on cloud servers to authenticate you. That is not true as a global rule. Game developers can release fully independent versions of their games even on steam. | | | |
| ▲ | candiddevmike 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Not all steam games have DRM | | |
| ▲ | badsectoracula 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | This is true but you don't know ahead of time before you buy a game, you have to gamble on it being the case or not (i've found that while some lists exist in places like pcgamingwiki, they tend to be both very incomplete and often wrong). Usually indie games tend to be DRM-free though, so if an indie game isn't available on GOG or Zoom Platform (another DRM-free store), i end up buying on Steam. |
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