I’m all for competition and against forced DRM. But the PC gaming service ʀᴇᴅᴀᴄᴛᴇᴅ that you’re referring to offers genuinely good services on top of just accessing games - social platform, (voice) chat, remote play (together), streaming video to friends, communities, easy access to mods, linux support, makes multiplayer easy, etc…
So are most services and then at some point do some type of rug pull with BS EULA changes, etc. that change the functionality of what you’re using. This is prevailant in everything now a days. I’d say with Steam the writing is on the walls. They have so much power in the PC gaming market (like with the examples you gave) it’s only a matter of time.
I do see how useful and user friendly those services you mentioned are
GOG has no DRM. Once purchased you can download the files and own it. You could even write your games to CDs if you wanted and play like the old days.
Edit. I was setting up a new laptop for my Dad. I remembered we used to play an old fighter jet game when I was young. I looked it up and found out it was Falcon 3. I then found GoG sells it. So I purchased it on my account and loaded it onto his computer with no reference to GoG, no clients, etc. It was a surprise for him when he got his new computer.
I own a lot of games on GoG, but I fail to see the practical difference. If GoG were to go under, there’s not going to be any free service hosting all your data and the games for download. It all disappears, just like if Steam were to go under.
The difference is that if you have your files you still can play the games if GoG goes under, while steam games will be unplayable because they need to communicate to steam (or have steam offline on your PC). I heard that steam drm is easy to remove but I don’t have much knowledge in that regard
If steam goes under, a significant portion of your steam games won’t launch anymore, period. If GOG goes under, you can still use 100% of their installers, provided you still have them backed up. No, they are not going to be able to do that step for you. Did the store you bought physical games from put your discs in storage for you, so they wouldn’t clog up your basement? Did they give you a new copy if you lost or threw out your disc and then changed your mind?
The vast majority of digital purchases are licenses, this isn’t something new or unique to Steam. Digital purchases where you actually own the product are more the exception than the rule.
So what do you suggest? Gog is not a contender for me unless they add equivalent regional pricing (in my region), payment options, Linux support (proton), mod workshop, easy multiplayer connectivity, community pages like guides, friend list with messaging and voice chat, etc. Would love to get things on gog but the only thing it has going is DRM free and a ton more negatives. If steam were to rug pull or whatever then I would just go back to the seas.
That’s unfortunate to hear. I doubt anything will compete with Steam with all the things you want. People need to choose to put value where it really matters and have some inconveniences. Pirating certainly won’t get you what you want. Supporting DRM free services (and the games devs) will do more good. You could download your GoG games through the Heroic launcher and it’ll use wine proton (or whatever it’s called). Also Nexus mods has a new mod manager that’ll work on Linux but it’s only in alpha stage currently.
I don’t mind the lack of launcher too much as I already use heroic and have a couple of free gog and epic games there. The biggest blocker for me rn is the payment options and not so great regional pricing compared to steam. It seems to have improved but still not enough so maybe they it will get better in a couple years.
Edit: One more thing. It’s not that I don’t want to support gog but I actually want to support steam for what they did for Linux and still be relatively consumer friendly. I wouldn’t even be using Linux right now if it wasn’t for proton.
Renting most things long term is dumb as fuck, yet Rent-A-Center is a thing. Technically they do rent to own, but they will set you up with a whole shitty bachelor pad. $10 a month for the table, 20 for the couch, and only 50 for the TV. Over a five year loan. They will and do repo shit and rent it to the next dumbass. Quick what’s 50 times 12 times 5? Doesn’t matter I have a shitty big screen for only fifty bucks!
Even if it works out to spending $3000 on the end, that’s still only $80/month, and their demographic is people living paycheck to paycheck who don’t have the few hundred at any one time to buy the stuff outright.
I’m interested but not especially optimistic. Depends on who is actually making the game, I believe they know tabletop games well, but that doesn’t necessarily translate to a CRPG.
Random aside, the article says Marisha Ray voiced Jaina Proudmoore, but it was really Laura Bailey.
No, at least in the US, you can only back up your own ROM if you own the game, not download someone else’s backup. The real problem here is that Nintendo’s (idiotic) stance is ALL emulation/backups are piracy and here they are being hypocrites about it.
These articles are basically just advertising for GoG.
They have the same issues as steam does regarding only selling licenses, or not having inheritable or transferable accounts.
DRM free is great, but as a service they aren’t fundamentally different from steam. They just like to market themselves like they are.
This has been posted a million times already, but I am still going to repeat it. Yes you are right, in their own legal docs they also only talk about licenses.
Difference for the consumer however is that you get the installation files which are supposed to work offline. Meaning if you take care to store that, it will not be gone ever, no matter if GOG goes down. With Steam this gets more complicated and may only work for some games.
I get that. DRM free is great and better. I just don’t like the advertisement that casts it as “you own the game”, or entire articles built around posts by their marketing department.
It feels very ambulance-chaser-y.
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