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MrSpArkle, do games w CD Projekt boss pushes back on 'conspiracy theories' against diversity in gaming: 'We live in times where anyone can record complete nonsense and make a story out of it'

This would be a non controversy if they just ignored twitter.

Twitter is just the new Parler.

p03locke,
@p03locke@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

It’s made much worse by the games “journalists” industry paying too much attention to X. They find some crackpot spouting off controversy, elevate that shit to the moon, and suddenly other people are talking about this opinion that only lives in a vacuum.

IGN, PCGamer, RPS, Kotaku… they all live for this shit.

A_Random_Idiot, do games w Steam's new disclaimer reminds everyone that you don't actually own your games, GOG moves in for the killshot: Its offline installers 'cannot be taken away from you'

Okay steam, if its just a digital license and not ownership… Then surely you’ll be significantly lowering prices, Since you charge full ownership prices for games, not license prices… Right?

Capricorn_Geriatric,

I don’t think it’s Steam setting the prices.

Kecessa,

They indirectly are inflating it with their 30% cut

SpacetimeMachine,

They are also deflating it by providing services that developers would otherwise have to spend time and money on to develop themselves.

Kecessa,

Their 30% cuts allowed Gabe to start collecting yachts, they could charge a lot less while still offering the same services and only Gabe would see his finances take the hit, no one else in the world would be poorer if they charged 20% instead.

emax_gomax,

So games sold on storefronts owned by the same publishers as the game should be 30% cheaper right? Right?

Kecessa, (edited )

Should be cheaper, emphasis on should, but at the same time if they sell directly and take the same cut, that’s one less intermediary in the chain so more money going to the devs.

None of the managerial class are good people, wake up, all billionaires are taking advantage of us.

Telodzrum,

G*mers really don’t want the industry to evaluate the $60 price point and apply inflationary adjustments going back to when it became the standard.

Dontfearthereaper123,

Fr tho people seem to forget abt inflation a lot when talking abt the old days

https://lemm.ee/pictrs/image/a82631d5-72e1-4a04-b520-d270675215e1.png

Corgana,
@Corgana@startrek.website avatar

This is a really interesting chart. A lot of N64 games were $70 and even $80 at launch which is upwards of $150 today. Just crazy.

A_Random_Idiot,

People keep saying SNES/N64/etc games were super expensive…and i just wanna ask where they were buying them?

Cause everytime I went into the stores to get one they were 49.99.

Corgana,
@Corgana@startrek.website avatar
A_Random_Idiot,

People seem to forget that just moderately decent games sell magnitudes more today than they did 20 years ago, too, thus continuing to bring in insane cash (as long as you arent sony or other companies that are obscenely wasteful…) despite inflation, this stable pricing making them a good entertainment investment for people whose minimum wage hasnt changed in like 15 years

InverseParallax,

The $60 was based on 55%+ going to distribution channels, +physical media costs, so it could be down from there.

A_Random_Idiot,

regular reminder that digital distribution was sold to us under the false promise that games would be cheaper, because they wouldnt have to pay for printing boxes, CDs, manuals, greebles, Wouldnt have to pay for shipping or storage, or any other burden addition of physical media.

That we’d be able to buy games for 30 dollars, and that that the developers and everyone involved would make more money than they would have paying 50 for a physical game.

InverseParallax,

Yeah, this is the original sin, they just banked the cost the whole time until they could cry that they need to charge more because of inflation.

A_Random_Idiot,

and now, they are wanting to sell games for 70-80 bucks for AAA titles.

Its not cause the games are 50 dollars that they arent making enough hundreds of millions. The only reason these AAA games arent making bank is because they’re shit

Can anyone honestly remember the last AAA title that wasnt an absolute dog pile?

TheDoctor, do gaming w Steam's new disclaimer reminds everyone that you don't actually own your games, GOG moves in for the killshot: Its offline installers 'cannot be taken away from you'
@TheDoctor@hexbear.net avatar

I have every gog installer I’ve ever downloaded for this exact reason. You can’t rescind the bytes that are already on my drive.

Vespair, (edited ) do games w Steam's new disclaimer reminds everyone that you don't actually own your games, GOG moves in for the killshot: Its offline installers 'cannot be taken away from you'

I like GOG, but this is just weasel-words to take advantage of the ignorance of the public. Whether you receive the installs directly or not, you still don’t own your games, you are just licensing them, same as Steam.

This doesn’t tip the scales into the “this is wrong” territory for me, but I do think this kind of word manipulation exploiting an unknowledgeable public is a little bit slimy.

edit: I had a bit of knee-jerk reaction to the sensationalism of the headline; what GOG actually says is fine and doesn’t imply anything beyond licensing in my eyes.

Vintor,

I don’t think “weasel words” is the right term here.

You own the GOG games like you own a book you bought, and like you don’t own a DRM-crippled book, even though you might be entitled to read it under certain circumstances. The difference between downloading an installer and downloading a game on Steam is, the installer will continue to work even if GOG folds or decides they don’t like you anymore. But if Steam blocks your account, all the games you bought are gone, and Steam is fully in the right to do so since you don’t own their games.

cadekat,

That’s not true. You still only receive a license to play the game, you do not own it. Directly from GOG’s website:

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.

Practically this means you cannot resell your GOG installer in the way you could resell a physical book.

Gestrid,

I think OP is saying that, while you can buy a book to read it, you do not own the copyright to that book. They’re saying it’s basically the same idea with GOG.

The illustration does break down, but I think their point still stands.

Imhotep,

You can resell, trade, give, lend a book you bought. You’re just not allowed to do the same with any copies you’ve made. At least where I live

Gestrid,

Like I said, the illustration does break down.

Imhotep, (edited )

There are no products for which you get the IP because you bought one unit. Edit: IANAL, there might be.

Not a book, nor a car. So I don’t see how that’s relevant.

Sorry if I misunderstood your point.

Rolive,

That’s fair I guess. But you can keep a backup of your GoG games in case the server goes down. With Steam that isn’t possible.

cadekat,

Absolutely. GOG has a much better license and distribution model, but it’s still a license.

Vespair,

I don’t think “weasel words” is the right term here.

I agree with you. GOG’s wording is fine, I was hasty in my reaction.

UnderpantsWeevil,
@UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world avatar

I just like calling it “the kill shot”, as though GOG is about to take all of Steam’s market share some time next week.

disdain,

please let this be true it would be really funny

ipkpjersi,

I think it is fair. When you buy games through GOG, you get the offline installer. Nobody can take that away from you.

When you buy games through Steam, you can only install them via the Steam client. If the Steam servers are offline, you cannot install your games. In theory, some games are without any DRM, and you can just zip them up, but even then that doesn’t always work, and you shouldn’t have to. That’s not to take away from Steam, of course, it is great at what it does.

Providing an offline installer that works no matter what is as good as “owning” the game IMO, even if “technically” you are just purchasing a license to use the game.

Vespair,

edit: I went and read what GOG itself actually says. The headline is slimy, GOG’s disclosure is fine. I don’t think they’re implying anything beyond what they offer.

Ganbat,

The headline is slimy

Are you referring to the use of the word “killshot”? Otherwise, the headline says exactly the same thing.

Its offline installers ‘cannot be taken away from you’

No implication of outright ownership, just that they can’t take away the offline installers. I mean, I guess it doesn’t outright say “that you’ve already downloaded,” but given the length, I’d say that’s a passable omission.

Vespair,

We don’t have to do this. It’s the juxtaposition of GOG’s claim paired being intentionally paired with the steam disclaimer so as to present it as if an alternative.

Coasting0942, do gaming w Steam's new disclaimer reminds everyone that you don't actually own your games, GOG moves in for the killshot: Its offline installers 'cannot be taken away from you'

Steam should have taken the opportunity to recommend a gamer to GOG, mentioning that it’s only a license unfortunately. Or offer installers that can’t be taken away.

KomfortablesKissen, do games w Steam's new disclaimer reminds everyone that you don't actually own your games, GOG moves in for the killshot: Its offline installers 'cannot be taken away from you'

The amount of people thinking they are getting ripped off by steam now is astounding.

They are the reason this step is incredibly necessary.

Kecessa,

I mean, we are… Gabe became a billionaire that owns a yacht collection, his money came from somewhere, there’s no reason to defend any billionaires or their companies unless you are a billionaire yourself.

Adalast,

Gabe heads a company which is successful because it respects its employees, customers, and suppliers instead of constantly trying to marginalize and abuse them. They are not perfect by any means, but they do fit into the definition of ethical capitalism, which should not be understated. They don’t employ anticompetitive tactics like bribing/coercing developers into exclusivity contracts. They don’t operate with a bunch of 1099 contractors so they can avoid providing benefits. Etc.

Kecessa, (edited )

And they could do all of these good things while charging less than 30% and Gabe would be the only one feeling a negative impact on his finances.

As for contractors, they do hire them, court documents came out and their profits per actually employees are way higher than most companies, why? Contractors aren’t employees.

jacksilver,

I mean I’ve always had an issue that digital goods could always be revoked/taken back. That’s why I didn’t buy things on steam until it became basically the only way (as consoles have less physical media). This is just a great reminder for the public that we’re consistently loosing control over our digital lives.

I’ve been an advocate for forcing companies to change the wording for digital goofs to “lease” rather than “buy”. Cause at the end of the day, no one owns their steam library.

BartyDeCanter, do games w Steam's new disclaimer reminds everyone that you don't actually own your games, GOG moves in for the killshot: Its offline installers 'cannot be taken away from you'

Now can we get proton support for GoG that is as convient and reliable as it is in Steam?

MentalEdge,
@MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz avatar

Remember when they said Galaxy would get linux support? That didn’t happen, and that promise got quietly retracted…

That said, Heroic is unofficial but has worked quite well.

brrt,

Heroic giving GOG an excuse not to get their shit together.

ampersandrew,
@ampersandrew@lemmy.world avatar

If you buy through Heroic, Heroic gets a cut. So it creates a data point that they can use to see how big that market is, so they know what they have to do to get 100% of my sale in their own pocket.

Banichan,
@Banichan@dormi.zone avatar

Dafuq is a proton

officermike,

A proton is a positively charged subatomic particle doing in the nucleus of an atom. But in this context, Proton is a translation layer that allows games that were built for Windows to run on Linux.

_Sprite,
@_Sprite@lemmy.world avatar

it’s what people on linux use to play windows games on linux

Blaiz0r,

That’s Wine

IronKrill,
@IronKrill@lemmy.ca avatar

Are you being purposefully obtuse? Proton is based on Wine yes, but it is it’s own distinct project.

Draghetta,

Yes, that is the upstream. Valve’s downstream of wine is called proton.

ulkesh,
@ulkesh@lemmy.world avatar

Lutris + GE-Proton + umu works. If you use GE-Proton as the runner, Lutris automatically uses umu to launch the game which launches within the Steam Pressure Vessel container.

You can manage GE-Proton downloads using Protonplus. The latest version, last I checked, is GE-Proton9-15.

Aceticon,

I’ve been playing more GoG games with Lutris + Wine in Linux than Steam games with Proton and I even have one situation of a game were the copy I bought in Steam doesn’t work with Proton, but the pirated copy I downloaded to see if that would work runs absolutely fine with Lutris + Wine.

For me at least it’s actually easier to sort problems out with games when using Lutris + Wine than it is with Proton and I can even make sure all games I run from Lutris are wrapped in a “firejail” sandbox, which amongst other things blocks all network access, something I can’t do with Proton.

It’s a vendor-tied solution meant to keep you in the Steam ecosystem, so for all the great work they did in past getting it to have broad compatibility, the future is not Proton, it’s Wine.

ampersandrew,
@ampersandrew@lemmy.world avatar

Proton in Steam is absolutely easier. Lutris just automates work that some other user did, and if you’re doing it in something like Heroic launcher instead, you have to figure that out yourself. It often involves things like installing other Microsoft components that are bundled with the application on Steam, and in one case, even though the game was verified on Steam, there was no Lutris script, and I just couldn’t get it working on the GOG version.

Aceticon,

Proton too just automates the work that somebody did in the form of install instructions, same as Lutris.

The difference is that those making the install scripts for Proton are paid for and you don’t get the option to fix them or make your own, which means that there are in fact fewer games with Steam install instructions (i.e. Steam Support) than games with Lutris install scripts.

Further, there are fewer things you can tweak in Proton and they’re all either changing the proton version or some badly documented text parameters that get fed to its command line, whilst Lutris actually has most such options in menus: the learning curve for just starting a game is lower in Steam that in Lutris when it works but the learning curve for fixing it when it does not work is lower in Lutris and sometimes you simply don’t have access to change what’s needed to fix it in Steam but you do in Lutris.

If you use Lutris with its GoG integration the experience is generally the same kind of Click & Play as Proton of Steam and whilst the rate of problems seems to still be a bit bigger in Lutris, surprisingly (at least for me) it’s not by much.

For me in Lutris having to go and install Microsoft components using Winetricks is generally only needed for some standalone installer executables, not when using GoG integration.

Steam is great when it works and a massive headache and pretty limited on what you can do when it doesn’t, whilst at least with GoG integration Lutris is great when it works and still a headache when it doesn’t but not as much as Steam and it gives you a lot more options to try and get it to work, plus the coverage of pre-made installer scripts in Lutris (which is what makes games “just work” in it) seems to be broader than in Steam, including covering older and more obscure titles, plus that coverage is probably growing faster because the scripts are user contributed rather than the work that can be done adding support being limited by how many people Valve (who are notorious for having very few employees for a company that size) hired to work on it.

ampersandrew,
@ampersandrew@lemmy.world avatar

Paying someone else to do it and verify that it works is exactly part of why I parted with my money in the first place. At least GOG has a very generous refund policy, but it’s a lot more work on my end.

Aceticon,

Oh, absolutely.

The point I’m making is that with its process Lutris + Wine are scaling up much faster to seamlessly make all sorts of Windows games Click & Play in Linux, than Steam can or even will try to (don’t expect Steam to get around to cover older games that aren’t successful AAA titles).

It’s the same old same old, open source software solution vs closed corporate software solution that happens in so many other domains: the open source one starts clunky and quirky and it will always tend towards the side of “giving users enough rope to hang themselves with” (too many option, many very powerful) whilst the closed corporate one will from the very start be slick and easier to use but very limited when it comes to what users can do to customize it or even fix it when it doesn’t work, but over time and if it manages to survive the open source one will be better and far more capable and flexible than the corporate one simply because contributions to it scale up with interest in it and number of users whilst that’s not so for the corporate one.

It’s what you see with for example Blender vs Adobe’s suit of 3D modelling programs or Linux vs Windows (if it weren’t for the well entrenched ecosystem of Windows-only applications, I doubt Windows would still be around).

That’s why I think something like Lutris + Wine are the future, not Proton integrated into the Store application of Steam.

ampersandrew,
@ampersandrew@lemmy.world avatar

But really what I’m asking for, as a customer, is for GOG to do this work for me before I buy. Because it’s all open source, there’s nothing stopping them. Valve pumped a bunch of money into the projects to improve things for everyone, but they’re still doing more work on their end.

Aceticon, (edited )

Valve is a much, much bigger company than GoG, plus Valve’s Linux strategy is really a “have our own console on the cheap” strategy.

But yeah, GoG should be doing more for gaming on Linux, maybe not as much as Valve but proportionally so. At the moment they’re doing almost nothing at all: they have Linux offline installers available for games which do support Linux directly, but that’s it.

So whilst I find it unrealistic to expect that GoG should be contributing to gaming on Linux as much as Valve, I do agree they should be doing more.

PS: Mind you, I’m not trying to make the case that GoG is perfect and Steam is shit, I’m trying to make the case that open and flexible to use is better than closed and tightly integrated with a specific store, which is why I generally prefer GoG with their offline installers, as well as Lutris + Wine (quite independently of GoG) and would be happy enough even if Lutris had no GoG integration since long before moving my gaming rig to Linux I had the habit of downloading and using the offline installers and did not at all use GoG Galaxy.

If there’s one thing that 30 years of being a Software Engineer have taught me is that you want your system to be as decoupled as possible from any business, because even if they are nice at the moment that’s no guarantee that at a later date they won’t leverage people having their systems integrated with theirs to take advantage of their customers (the phenomenon of enshittification being a good example of that).

BartyDeCanter,

I’m not saying it doesn’t work. I’ve set several things from GoG up using Lutris. But in Steam it’s a two step process:

  1. Click Install
  2. Click Play

I want that level of ease from GoG.

Aceticon, (edited )

Lutris has GoG integration and it’s exactly that same 2 step process if you use it (I believe it passes you through 3 screens of options were you invariably do nothing but click “Continue”, so strictly it’s 5 steps were 3 of the are just “Press Continue”)

The difference is that when it does NOT just work, it’s easier to figure out and there are more options to fix it with Lutris + Wine.

I even have some weird weird cases on Steam - like Borderlands 2 were Steam would often and randomly, before actually starting the game spend almost 1h doing shader conversions that if you stopped it the game would fail to start (the solution was to force an older Proton version and now you just get random downloads from the Internet that last a few minutes before the game starts).

IMHO, here too what one sees is the general design philosophy difference between open source software and corporate solutions - the former gives you tons of options and lots of ways to tune it so it looks more complicated to use and has a steeper learning curve but that also means when things go wrong you have a lot more ways to try to fix it, whilst the latter is click & play until things go wrong and then you have very little info and just a few things you can change to try and fix it.

Mind you, Lutris itself seems to be an attempt to also be click & play (hence why you generally get a steam-like experience if you use its GoG integration) but all the “buttons and knobs” are still there (those 3 screens of options that’s usually fine to just press “Continue” on that I mentioned above) just in case you want to muck about with them, making it look daunting to use.

MentalEdge,
@MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz avatar

Heroic gets a lot closer in this regard.

style99, do games w A Disco Elysium successor studio has been announced for the second time today, meaning there are now 4 companies battling for the title of ZA/UM's true inheritor

Oh, yeah. That reminds me. I still haven’t played Disco Elysium yet.

Ganbat,

I would personally recommend not purchasing it. Not saying don’t play it, but there’s no one who will profit from it who should.

callouscomic, (edited ) do games w Steam's new disclaimer reminds everyone that you don't actually own your games, GOG moves in for the killshot: Its offline installers 'cannot be taken away from you'

I’ll stick with my Steam cloud saves and game notes and community forums and community guides and custom controller configurations and community controller configurations and overlay and workshop and screenshots and steam deck and steam link and …

Also, the very first game I ever bought on Steam was almost 15 years ago, and it was delisted and has not been available on Steam for over 10 years. Yet I can still re-download and play it right now.

Steam is not the evil corporation people pretend it is. Take your rage to Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo.

woelkchen,
@woelkchen@lemmy.world avatar

Steam is not the evil corporation people pretend it is.

Indeed. They’re not saints either but for my personal demands, they offer the best arguments right now. I rank funding improvements to the FOSS Linux stack higher than a DRM-free pile of shame. That may change in the future but for now I prefer Steam over GOG. CD Project is a rich company. They could make a Linux version of Galaxy, put it onto Flathub, make it behave well under Steam Deck Game Mode, and put a tiny fraction of their revenue into Linux improvements.

asexualchangeling,

deleted_by_author

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  • woelkchen,
    @woelkchen@lemmy.world avatar

    And yet somehow I still doubt we’ll see it until Linux gets a much higher marketshare.

    CD Project is doing nothing to improve that market share, hence why I don’t care to spend any money on GOG.

    HKayn,
    @HKayn@dormi.zone avatar

    GOG is funding the FOSS Heroic Games Launcher through an affiliate partnership: heroicgameslauncher.com/donate

    woelkchen, (edited )
    @woelkchen@lemmy.world avatar

    GOG is funding the FOSS Heroic Games Launcher through an affiliate partnership

    GOG has an affiliate links program. Heroic signed up for that. GOG isn’t specifically funding Heroic. Wake me up when CD Project / GOG is hiring a developer of Mesa or something along those lines. You know, an actual part of the technology foundation that’s being used by a wide range of Linux distributions.

    An office worker sitting at a desk somewhere at a Linux-running PC is benefiting from technology advancements upstreamed by Valve as part of Steam Deck performance improvements.

    Edit: GOG’s “funding” is an advertising tracker:

    https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/1aec85c6-672f-4cdd-a3b6-c78bce8aa1a1.png

    HKayn,
    @HKayn@dormi.zone avatar

    The end result is still part of GOG’s revenue going toward the development of Heroic.

    It doesn’t meet your high standard and that’s okay. I prefer to count my blessings in this regard.

    Grimy,

    Steam colludes with Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo. It’s all one big club meant to extract as much profit as possible.

    Steam could charge 2% and Gaben would still be able to afford the 75 to 100 million he spends every year to maintained his fleet of 6 mega yatchs, worth an estimated 1 billion.

    Stop defending billionaires.

    YeetPics,
    @YeetPics@mander.xyz avatar

    What a weird hill to die on.

    Anyway, enjoy being wrong.

    Ashtear,

    Meanwhile I’m over here thinking about how I greatly prefer to put my saves in my own cloud storage (too many games these days not giving me as many slots as I’d like), the community forums are some of the most toxic places on the Internet right now, it’s a coin flip whether Steam’s going to give me a problem with my DualShock4, I hate how the Workshop is a walled garden, and I’m so much happier with my streaming now that I’ve dropped Steam Link and moved to Moonlight.

    I guess the guides and Big Picture Mode can be nice?

    Steam’s still the #2 best option for me on PC storefronts; the battle.net launcher has some aggressive advertising, as an example of hellscape we’re avoiding here. But Steam continues to not offer me much added value. I go there only because some of my games aren’t available on GOG.

    I will say I appreciate what Valve is doing with the Steam Deck, and I’m really hoping it continues to grow an ecosystem that directly competes with Nintendo. They are actively burning up banked goodwill right now, and that segment of the market is getting unhealthy without someone keeping them in check.

    ampersandrew,
    @ampersandrew@lemmy.world avatar

    Man, the forums really got bad at such at a rapid pace, and I’d love to know what changed to make it that way.

    Ashtear,

    Probably the same reason it’s happening all over the corporate web: fewer eyeballs moderating content. I was never enough of a regular on Steam communities to be sure, unlike GameFAQs (which I can tell you has always been that way).

    callouscomic,

    I do agree the community discussions have gone to shit. But that’s true of the entire fucking internet. People are assholes when veiled behind anonymity. That’s not a Steam issue. It’s a human issue.

    Ashtear,

    Sure. There’s just degrees of it. Your average Steam community discussion board is far, far worse than the community you’re in right now.

    Kolanaki, do games w Steam's new disclaimer reminds everyone that you don't actually own your games, GOG moves in for the killshot: Its offline installers 'cannot be taken away from you'
    !deleted6508 avatar

    What the hell happened to Steam’s built in offline backup system, anyway? It used to have that when it was brand new.

    catloaf,

    I don’t remember that ever being a thing. It’s had an offline mode for decades, but for the longest time it never worked properly.

    Kolanaki,
    !deleted6508 avatar

    It had a way of packing a game into a CD/DVD when it launched. I used it all of two times. It was slow as fuck. If it still has it, as another commenter suggests, I don’t know how to access it.

    bjoern_tantau,
    @bjoern_tantau@swg-empire.de avatar

    It’s still there. But I never tried it and it probably won’t work with DRMed games.

    chameleon,
    @chameleon@fedia.io avatar

    It technically still exists in the game properties -> installed files tab, but it doesn't really work. The backup files you get require you to be online to meaningfully restore and will trigger a patch to the latest game version.

    Practically speaking it's better to just make a copy of the game install directory manually, gives you a better chance of things working (even though most games require some kind of external tooling for that).

    ouch,

    What file format does the Steam backup use?

    chameleon,
    @chameleon@fedia.io avatar

    For current exports, it's some custom .csm/.csd file combo. Not sure if there's any tools for working with it, seems like it'd be more annoying than just using a normal archive format either way.

    ouch,

    That’s bad. I guess if I want to back up my Steam games, it’s going to be tarballs.

    ekZepp, do games w Steam's new disclaimer reminds everyone that you don't actually own your games, GOG moves in for the killshot: Its offline installers 'cannot be taken away from you'
    @ekZepp@lemmy.world avatar

    As long as you understand the terms of your agreement with Steam as a platform, everything is fine. Physical media for games are outdated anyway, especially with frequent updates, patches, and DLC releases. Regarding older titles that are no longer supported, well, as the saying goes: “If buying isn’t owing…”

    WatDabney, do games w Steam's new disclaimer reminds everyone that you don't actually own your games, GOG moves in for the killshot: Its offline installers 'cannot be taken away from you'

    Which neatly sums up why I do not and will not even have a Steam account, but buy many games from GOG.

    secret300,

    Love gog but fuck them for spamming my email. I found out to claim the new games it’ll auto subscribe you to the news letter. So I stopped claiming the games. But still I get emails for promotions and crap. More annoying then freaking scam callers. I’ve unsubscribed every time I get one and stopped claiming free games. I’m so close to just cut my loses and delete my account but I feel like that still won’t stop those parasites

    xapr,

    How weird, I wonder if there’s something wrong with my GOG account? I don’t think I’ve received an email from them in years?

    catloaf,

    No, if you claim the giveaways you have to subscribe to their newsletter. That’s all. If you aren’t doing that, you’ll almost never get an email.

    xapr,

    I see, that makes sense. Thanks!

    secret300,

    Ye that’s why I stopped claiming games

    bread,
    @bread@feddit.nl avatar

    You should not be getting promotional emails if you opt out, so something is wrong with your account/settings specifically. Contact them or filter your emails.

    secret300,

    That’s what I figured… Some bug on their end or something because every time I get one I unsubscribe. I plan to just delete my account and go back to a mix of pirating and steam

    Blaiz0r,

    You realise GOG sells DRM games right?

    style99,

    Like…?

    DrSteveBrule,

    I believe Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous has DRM and is still sold on GOG.

    style99,

    Okay, let’s see

    No mention of DRM in the reviews or anywhere in the forum…

    No mention of DRM anywhere…

    DrSteveBrule,

    You’re right I was misremembering the reviews complaining about the UELA instead

    theneverfox, do games w Steam's new disclaimer reminds everyone that you don't actually own your games, GOG moves in for the killshot: Its offline installers 'cannot be taken away from you'
    @theneverfox@pawb.social avatar

    Doesn’t steam have a clause to the effect of “if we go out of business, you’ll get X period to download your games so you can manage them yourself”?

    Whitebrow,

    If there’s a grace period, perhaps, however:

    1. Steam does not provide installers for games, this means that whatever game you want, needs to be 100% functional and already be parsed/deployed/installed by steam on your hard drive.
    2. That game needs to be DRM free, meaning that it has an executable available that can be launched without steam running or requiring any sort of authentication or input from the steam servers/services before being able to launch, play or even interact with the menus

    So only the DRM free games will remain, and only the installed ones at that. Anything that wasn’t will be lost to the wind the moment the distribution service or storage (yours or theirs) bits the dust…

    theneverfox,
    @theneverfox@pawb.social avatar
    1. installers for games are usually just a script that unzips the game and makes some shortcuts. Steam installs all your games in a standard way in a folder of your choice. You can straight up copy that folder to another computer. You can use another launcher and just play your games, there are already many that can read steam’s standardized format. I’ve done it multiple times to avoid redownloading my library
    2. It depends how steam sunsets their DRM, but yes - obviously if a game has 3rd party DRM, that third party is in control. Steam could choose a user hostile way to sunset their own DRM, but they could release ways to deactivate it

    DRM is bad, steam provides an easy way for developers to use steam DRM, and it’s generally less user hostile than most DRM. To me, this seems like harm reduction

    Ultimately, it’s not up to steam what, if any, DRM a game uses. They manage their in house offering, but the developer doesn’t have to use it if they don’t want to

    Veneroso,

    I don’t know if it’s a clause but Gabe said it at one point. Is that legally binding though? It wouldn’t surprise me one bit that whatever VC eventually buys steam and then runs it into the ground would have no problem changing the user agreement to whatever suited them…

    theneverfox,
    @theneverfox@pawb.social avatar

    I think I read in the steam agreement itself - I could be wrong, but I generally have a source tagged to my knowledge, and the knowledge is tagged as a direct quote from the document

    And yes, if a VC buys out steam I’d be horrified, but it’s structurally resistant to that. It’s largely employee owned and heavily employee managed, their handbook helped me understand the concept of how employee owned businesses could be the answer to many of society’s problems

    HKayn,
    @HKayn@dormi.zone avatar

    It’s not legally binding, since it isn’t part of the user agreement you review when buying games on Steam.

    DragonOracleIX,

    Even if that’s not the case, the drm is very easy to crack.

    bender223, do games w Steam's new disclaimer reminds everyone that you don't actually own your games, GOG moves in for the killshot: Its offline installers 'cannot be taken away from you'

    Chad GOG

    shiroininja, do games w Steam's new disclaimer reminds everyone that you don't actually own your games, GOG moves in for the killshot: Its offline installers 'cannot be taken away from you'

    Unpopular opinion: if I have to fudge with Wine instead of Proton, I simply will not bother. It’s 2024. I’m not going to fiddle with configs, or get a setup together just to play a single game. That’s ridiculous. A game should 100% be one click to run, whether it’s native or not. and if that’s not what is expected in 2024, Linux get it together. sincerely: a full time Linux gamer that is a single parent and doesn’t have time to fiddle just to play a game. Wine and most of its front ends need a major overhaul.

    dingleberrylover,

    Then just use Proton? You don’t need Steam for it. And sitting there and demanding “Linux” to get it “together” because it is 2024 is rather ignorant due to the fact that it is not Linux’ fault that the software in question needs additional workarounds in order to make it run. People out there are using their freetime to come up with solutions for problems caused by corporations using proprietary libraries and software. I don’t think that your opinion is unpopular. I get what you want, I do wish the same, and a lot of peoole would agree with it as well, but the context in which we operate here matters a lot.

    PushButton,

    You need to “get it together” and buy games for your platform.

    “That’s ridiculous”

    mrvictory1,

    Heroic is decent imo. It lets you download Wine, manage prefixes, enable/disable dxvk/vkd3d, configure gamescope & mangohud and so on.

    quick,

    So does lutris and bottles. Don’t know what OP is talking about.

    Eyck_of_denesle,

    I test games for a living and most of the time wine runs perfectly fine. You can also just use umu laucher which does everything for you.

    Also I don’t really get your point. Who’s forcing you to use wine instead of proton?

    Allero,

    I’m not aware of how things are now, but at least previously you couldn’t really use Proton outside of Steam.

    So I assume OC defends Steam as the only platform that can smoothly run games with Proton instead of regular Wine, which does not work as well for certain games and/or requires tedious configuration.

    Eyck_of_denesle,

    You are right about proton. But the tedious configuration part is not true. Proton and ge-wine(now UMU) do the same thing, i.e applying custom patches. Wine base package is not expected to do this.

    Allero,

    I see, thanks!

    keystome,

    What an ignorant and meaningless comment.

    ouch,

    Linux get it together

    Who are you making demands to, precisely?

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