The concept of a "digital license" isn't new, but there's no pretending you didn't know about it anymore.
  • Coasting0942@reddthat.com
    13·
    2 months ago

    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.

  • ricecake@sh.itjust.works
    163·
    2 months ago

    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.

    • RBG@discuss.tchncs.de
      18·
      2 months ago

      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.

      • ricecake@sh.itjust.works
        42·
        2 months ago

        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.

  • kurcatovium@lemm.eeEnglish
    141·
    2 months ago

    If GOG are such a freedom heroes why do they rely on megacorp Windows OS? That’s what I like about steam - it makes gaming on linux dumb easy. And not just on linux, their “package” is ridiculously good - mods, cummunity, reviews, friends, non stop sales, mobile app (although I hate they removed chat to standalone app), and much, much more.

    I’m not shitting on GOG. I love those guys, they brought back so much memories with reviving long forgotten games, I have hundreds of purchases there. But… it just needs a lite more polish (pun intended).

    • trevor@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
      11·
      2 months ago

      Yeah. I intentionally buy my games on Steam for ethical reasons because Valve contributes to a positive gaming ecosystem by making things run seamlessly on Linux.

      GOG contributes to a negative gaming ecosystem by making Windows the “easy” option and not making use of Proton (or similar tech). Hopefully they fix that one day, but they don’t seem to care.

    • exu@feditown.comEnglish
      8·
      2 months ago

      They really should deliver on their promise of making a Linux client.

      • kurcatovium@lemm.eeEnglish
        1·
        2 months ago

        Not sire how it’s now, but couple years ago that “new galaxy” thing felt like it was precisely crafted to NOT run on linux. I tried multiple ways to run it, but all of them were unstable, crashing and very laggy. The best one was through Bottles but still… Heroic came and was instantly way ahead.

    • MangoPenguin@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
      2·
      2 months ago

      I’d take a guess that from their perspective, putting that time + money into developing and supporting a Linux version isn’t worth it when probably ~3% of the user base is using it.

    • Annoyed_🦀 @monyet.cc
      4·
      2 months ago

      Yeah. And also choice not as wide as Steam exactly because of DRM free. Can’t buy monhunt or any of Capcom’s game on GOG. But if you want to play old game then GOG is the place to go, they make sure everything run.