The answer is to introduce law which would force digital products to be owned, not licenced for non commercial users.
what’s old is new again! they tried to pull this shit back in the day but physical media was the only delivery method. now that everything is downloaded there’s a bunch of legal grey area they’re hiding in.
so the next question, is this retroactive? if so, then when will I get my money back? Licensed software is cheaper than the full MSRP I paid for titles that had physical options I could have bought at a store. this is because licensed software usually has an expiration date while physical media with software can be installed anytime after purchase.
so, Valve, one last question.
I think there’s one key thing you missed: you have never bought a copy of the game on Steam! It’s always been a license. Valve simply made the fact clear now because of legal changes.
so the next question, is this retroactive
So the answer for this is a solid no.
Thanks, new California law!
If the game is FOSS, does this warning still show? 🤔
Yes.
If only there was a Girl who was Fit that could, I don’t know, Repack this situation, thus saving us from it…
Hey thanks for describing this hypothetical situation, I pay Steam for a lot of game licenses so I’ve lost touch with the current philosophy of hypothetical alternatives.
I’m pretty sure this is in response to a recent California bill that forces digital storefronts to disclose if it is a license you are getting. Otherwise the storefront is not allowed to use words like “buy” or “purchase”.
https://www.theverge.com/2024/9/26/24254922/california-digital-purchase-disclosure-law-ab-2426
10/10 law can we please get this in Canada too?
Better yet, can we just get a law that makes it so when we buy something we own it?
At least for steam it looks like it might be rolled out worldwide
We knew it 10 years ago, we know it now, how is this news to anyone consuming online digital content?
If there’s an offline game you love and play all the time, consider buying it again on GOG.com.
Soon, GOG and all other storefronts will state that you’re purchasing a temporary digital license for any game who’s publisher uses an EULA that states you don’t own the game. This is due to the recently signed California law that forces storefronts to be transparent about the publishers EULA.
https://www.theverge.com/2024/9/26/24254922/california-digital-purchase-disclosure-law-ab-2426
But GoG provides it DRM free, so you can always play what you’ve downloaded til the end of time. It’s as good as piracy in that way.
But also with GOG you can download the installers and play offline. It’s literally one of their big selling points. It’s less convenient than things like steam, but you can do whatever the hell you want when you buy it. So in that regard, it literally is a purchase. Or as close as you can get with digital goods.
Depends on the game, they still sell DRM games which are limited in being able to be downloaded freely
DRM is added by the developers/publishers not by GOG, tho.
Same thing applies to Steam. You don’t need to use the Steam DRM if you don’t want to, it gets added by the developers/publishers. There are plenty of DRM-free games on Steam
you can do whatever the hell you want when you buy it
Mmm, not quite.
And I point that out because Lemmy is a very FOSS-friendly place where that sentiment is actually true.
That’s not GOG works. Get your offline installers.
On a legal level, it is how GOG works. They still only sell licenses. You just have the loophole that their installers and the games installed by them will work regardless.
While that may be partly true, (also likely) depending on the county you’re located, they’re not able to revoke the license though.
So in this specific case you having the files makes a world of difference.
But then the same is also true for Steam
https://support.gog.com/hc/en-us/articles/212632089-GOG-User-Agreement?product=gog
Check 2.1, GOG is the same.
If I back up a DRM-free installer what’s the difference?
Legally, it’s still a license, it’s just effectively impossible to revoke.
Edit to expand on this: A truly offline forever-purchase of physical goods can be re-sold. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-sale_doctrine (this is the US-specific version, other jurisdictions may have similar doctrines).
American legal concept that limits the rights of an intellectual property owner to control resale of products embodying its intellectual property.
A digital “purchase” is usually non-transferable, even from GOG. It can’t be removed from your own HDD once you download the installer, but there are still restrictions attached on what you can do with it, even if those are limited and hard to enforce.
Just like any game ever sold on a CD.
Technically, probably yes, but you can buy old, opened games on eBay. I doubt you can do the same with GOG games. Digital media is much harder if not impossible to resell.
If you back up the folder of a steam installed game that doesn’t need steam to run, what’s the difference?
Owning the copy in a legal sense doesn’t affect most of the userbase tbh.
unless you keep the offline installers.
I mean at that point you can just make backups of your steam games too. A lot work straight from the exe and for the rest there are steam simulators.
Well, gentlemen. I guess we got this all sorted out. Not a big deal, after all.
A small minority of GOG games have DRM, a majority of Steam games have a form of DRM. “Use a simulator” isn’t a solution, I shouldn’t need a third party program to play the games I paid for.
I would say, if you’ve purchased, just get a free version.
Also don’t forget to download the offline installers from GOG. I spent all of last week doing that
Is there a nice FOSS utility to do that? I need to do a backup of my GOG library.
I did find a few on GitHub, but the one I tried had an error after a few downloads, so I just manually got them all.
Nah, I’m good 😂
Hey, at least they’re clearing the air a little bit
Isn’t this only because it’s soon to be legally required in California? I don’t think they’re doing this out of the goodness of their hearts.
“EA, play the license”.
We all know here that you don’t own anything on Steam or any other client with DRM. Duh…
B this shit should be illegal, I buy a product, game, license whatever you call it, it is mine. This farce of consumer protection… "do you understand the words coming out of my mouth!?..License!!'. Yeah we do, let us own our purchased games.
And that’s why the bulk of my game library comes from GOG, and I have Steam more out of commitment than taste.
We know about we been buying a license not a game.
gestures to the other 99% of gamers
