[HN Gopher] Steam's new disclaimer reminds everyone that you don...
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Steam's new disclaimer reminds everyone that you don't own your
games
Author : doener
Score : 51 points
Date : 2024-10-12 20:19 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.pcgamer.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.pcgamer.com)
| dp-hackernews wrote:
| WTF DO you own - just a transaction entry?
| paxys wrote:
| You own a "license" to play the game which they can revoke
| whenever they want for any or no reason.
| wmf wrote:
| No, you don't even own that; if your account is disabled for
| any reason you will lose everything. You don't own anything.
| mendym wrote:
| Does GOG games have built-in way to launch a windows game via
| proton?
|
| Because currently my main reason for using steam is the easy
| linux installation
| Frenchgeek wrote:
| I use Lutris for that, a bit clunky (especially updating games)
| but it does work.
| LocutusOfBorges wrote:
| Heroic is reasonably seamless - it integrates with GOG and your
| Steam library, and by extension Proton. Pretty popular among
| Steam Deck users.
|
| https://heroicgameslauncher.com/
| airstrike wrote:
| I just want to play HoMM3 on Mac OS... maybe one day
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| Oh man, I just showed my kid homm3 with HD mod. I dunno
| what are VM options exist on Mac OS, but it may be the way.
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| See the other two posts for recommendations, but be aware that
| neither of the options listed is at the level of experience
| Steam may have spoiled us with. My last try was 4 or 5 months
| ago and I ended up just going with a VM.
| righthand wrote:
| Lutris the popular option. Heroic is another but is a chromium
| app fyi.
| pseudosaid wrote:
| this has always been the case. ownership has predominately been a
| license to a key, regardless of your offline installer or cd.
| Dibby053 wrote:
| This goes a step further than a typical CD key because the
| license is contingent on one's Steam account. If you lose your
| Steam account you lose all your licenses.
|
| >The Content and Services are licensed, not sold. Your license
| confers no title or ownership in the Content and Services. To
| make use of the Content and Services, you must have a Steam
| Account and you may be required to be running the Steam client
| and maintaining a connection to the Internet. [1]
|
| [1] https://store.steampowered.com/subscriber_agreement#2
| bitwize wrote:
| It used to be written on the disk pack in the back of software
| manuals: "THIS SOFTWARE IS LICENSED, NOT SOLD. By opening this
| packet you agree to be bound by the terms of the End User License
| Agreement." Which was usually written in very "rules-for-thee-
| but-not-for-me" terms that bound you, the end user, and benefited
| the publisher. You couldn't resell it, you couldn't reverse-
| engineer or decompile it, you couldn't do anything but run it on
| one (1) computer for the specific purpose for which it was
| written. Some EULAs even stipulated license expiry terms; the one
| for dBASE III demanded that you return the software disks and
| other materials after a period of fifty (50) years from the date
| of purchase.
|
| You've never _owned_ the proprietary software you 've used. You
| only used it as long as the whim of the copyright owner allowed
| it (and/or they couldn't enforce it). This is why Stallman chose
| twenty-three individuals to establish Free Software Zion several
| cycles ago.
| add-sub-mul-div wrote:
| But when you owned a disc you could use offline, they were
| never going to come to your home and take it. It was
| effectively yours. Steam normalized a world where that license
| revocation could actually be invoked and enforced from afar.
| actionfromafar wrote:
| I lot of those terms were thrown at the wall to see if they
| stuck, though. There's the First Sale doctrine for instance. If
| you actually signed a contract, all bets are off, but if you
| just bought a shrink-wrap, a lot of these terms were make-
| believe.
| bitwize wrote:
| Vernor v. Autodesk says no.
| actionfromafar wrote:
| Ouch, that's sad. But I must say I don't quite understand
| the implications of that ruling. Also, there are many
| jurisdictions, and the shopping list of terms on shrink-
| wrap can't possibly hold in all of them..
| apatheticonion wrote:
| Hey EU, we need you again...
| a1o wrote:
| This has always been the case and is the case in anything digital
| game related.
| a3w wrote:
| No, steam is the worst of both worlds of digital selling: It is
| a mandatory subscription service, on top, to access your games,
| not just a one time purchase.
| dialup_sounds wrote:
| How much is a Steam subscription?
| ApolloFortyNine wrote:
| ... Do you think steam is a mandatory subscription service?
| Maxatar wrote:
| The subscription is mandatory to play your games.
| inexcf wrote:
| What subscription? And if anything it is only necessary
| for games with Steam DRM.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| I'm sure there are some services that work like this
| (whichever console has an online service called "Live" comes
| to mind), but Steam doesn't appear to - unless there's some
| fine print I've forgotten.
| to11mtm wrote:
| It depends whether they are using Steam's form of DRM
| (AFAIR it can require at minimum some form of time-based
| token auth where you can still play offline so long as you
| have done so recently.)
|
| PS4/PS5 as well as XBox%whatever% have a setup close to
| this, however based on my observations the tokens tend to
| 'auto-refresh' (at least on PS4/PS5) so long as you
| actually turn the thing on once in a while.
| bugfix wrote:
| Once you buy a game on Steam, you don't need to pay any kind
| of subscription to play it. The vast majority of games sold
| there are, in fact, one-time purchases. The games stay in
| your library even if the developer/publisher decides to
| delist them.
|
| There are games like MMOs that do require a subscription, but
| that has nothing to do with Steam itself.
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| Oddly, I see it as a good thing. The more people realize how
| badly the system is taking advantage of them, the more of a
| chance we get a new status quo that is a little more reasonable.
| righthand wrote:
| Valve gets a lot of love for game design and leaking employee
| manuals but when it comes to software freedom they are just
| another Microsoft.
| add-sub-mul-div wrote:
| I can buy Windows software without Microsoft being a middleman.
| Steam on the other hand exists only to be a middleman. You
| could (most naturally) buy a game without paying a middleman,
| but it's the exception now for some reason and not the rule.
| greenstalk wrote:
| Steam, in terms of consumer policy, has only ever been as strong
| as Gabe Newell. I think we'll see another Activision/Blizzard
| situation in the near future as Gabe looks to step back into
| (semi-)retirement.
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| Sadly, this is pretty accurate and not that different a
| situation from linux kernel where Linus still reigns. Their
| vision is driving both and, thankfully for most, they have been
| fairly benevolent dictators.
|
| But, and it is not a small but, even with their benevolent
| dictatorship in place, it can only get much worse after they
| are gone. The pieces to a rather bad ecosystem are all in
| place.
| beached_whale wrote:
| Funny thing is, this made me look at places like Gog again,
| bought a few games. But I am ok waiting years to play a game on
| lower end hardware with all the games bug fixes already in place.
| a3w wrote:
| Steam says it is subscription, currently at "zero monetary
| units"/month. But if the fee is ever raised and goes unpaid, it
| reserves the right to lock you out from half-life 2 and every
| game after that, since day one of its invention.
|
| I get downvoted for 15 years of posting this online, every time.
| Not today?
| clhodapp wrote:
| Even this new wording feels designed to misdirect:
|
| The purpose of the California law is to tell customers that that
| _aren 't_ buying a digital product but _only_ the license.
|
| And yet there remains language that customers are likely to
| interpret to mean that they've bought the game.
| pajeets wrote:
| if buying isn't owning then pirating isn't stealing
| georgeplusplus wrote:
| Unfortunately it doesn't work like that.
|
| I'm so pro physical media it's ridiculous that people can't be
| bothered to go in a store and get a copy. They will only care
| when they get locked out of their account and realize that when
| steam says you really don't own your games that they weren't
| bluffing.
| YurgenJurgensen wrote:
| Are you saying that it's due to laziness that some $12
| strategy game from Eastern Europe that might sell 1000 copies
| worldwide doesn't have copies in every Best Buy?
| ThunderSizzle wrote:
| Buying physical media is still renting if it uses any sort of
| internet validation or online check, because those servers
| aren't guaranteed to always be online in the immediate or far
| future.
| threecheese wrote:
| Especially with shared key material that has an expiry in
| that future, that consumers aren't aware of or wouldn't
| understand if they were.
| falcolas wrote:
| Well, the government owns _all_ of the land, so by that logic
| you should just steal whatever land you want, right?
|
| 43 CFR 2920
| catlikesshrimp wrote:
| At least it is now clear For Millenials who expected products to
| be sold.
|
| Newer generations are happy with owning nothing. At least it is
| the default for software.
| m463 wrote:
| If you have GOG, good time to point out software like
| lgogdownloader will let you download the offline installers for
| your entire library.
|
| I suspect there are partial ways to do similar things for steam,
| except for the actual play-the-game part is dependent on the DRM.
|
| [1] https://github.com/Sude-/lgogdownloader
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(page generated 2024-10-12 23:01 UTC)