bampop@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
What nonsense. What matters isn’t whether we use physical disks or not. And it’s all digital anyway, you don’t get many games on vinyl these days. The real issue is whether you own the games you buy. As GOG is proving, game ownership is something that publishers can easily offer, regardless of the delivery mechanism.
boonhet@sopuli.xyz 4 weeks ago
GOG doesn’t give you ownership of the game the way physical media does though. Unless they’ve added a feature to sell your used games?
sirico@feddit.uk 4 weeks ago
Hard drives are physical you can even put it on tape or break out the floppies. No drm is the real winner and true ownership
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Wish more people understood this, rather than fetishizing hardware.
Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 weeks ago
Download the offline installer and now you have possession.
Further, because GOG enforces no DRM or mandatory sign-ins, so that means that you also have control over that copy of the game - you can install it and play it however and whenever you see fit.
For GOG games were you downloaded and kept the offline installer, the only way that the righsholder has of stopping you from installing and playing that game is to sue you, which is:
With other stores they can just force the store to take down the game and now it’s up to YOU to sue THEM to get restitution and the “not worth it” is now something that goes against you (unless you have access to a Small Claims Court in the jurisdiction you’re in, are you really going to sue them for a 50 bucks game?)
In fact, physical media is worse than digital GOG games, because the former can have phone-home DRM or mandatory sign-ins so you have possession but not control.
bampop@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Good point, I’m guessing it probably falls short of physical media in that way. As I understand it, they let you download an install file for the games you purchase, which you can save and use offline. I doubt that publishers would put effort into enabling a second hand games market
mimavox@piefed.social 3 weeks ago
That is true, you can download and keep the install files wherever you wish. You could burn it onto a CD if you want to have it like in the old days.