Comment on Steam Now Warns Consumers That They're Buying a License, Not a Game During a Purchase

JoMiran@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

• Aphelion@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  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.

  theverge.com/…/california-digital-purchase-disclo…

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  • TommySoda@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    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.

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    • Blaiz0r@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      Depends on the game, they still sell DRM games which are limited in being able to be downloaded freely

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      • finitebanjo@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        DRM is added by the developers/publishers not by GOG, tho.

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    • null@slrpnk.net ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      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.

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  • acosmichippo@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    pcgamer.com/…/steams-new-disclaimer-reminds-every…

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  • JoMiran@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    That’s not GOG works.

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    • wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      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.

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      • Strider@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

        While that may be partly true, 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.

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  • tehmics@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    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.

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    • lastweakness@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      At that point, why not buy the game on any platform of your choosing and just pirate it when it stops being accessible on the platform you bought it on? I understand wanting to support GOG, I “own” a lot of games on GOG as well. But it’s not really “owning” even on GOG if at some point, I could lose the ability to download the game.

      Any game that isn’t available as a pirated game isn’t going to be on GOG anyway… The problem here is that GOG needs to be better than piracy in any tangible way and right now, that’s not the case. It would be the case for me if GOG Galaxy was available on Linux but it’s not, as one example.

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      • tehmics@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        It’s data.

        It’s never “owning” in the traditional sense, because data is not physical.

        When people say they own something, there’s an implication that it’s theirs until they decide to part with it. That is true for games bought without DRM. DRM free the closest you’ll ever get to ‘owning’ data, you possess that on your own local device and it can’t be taken away.

        You can lose the ability to download the game, sure. But that is an additional service, not the game itself. You have that data until you delete it. Same with GoG Galaxy. that’s an extra service.

        You’re arguing 2 or 3 different things. Ownership as a legal right, ownership as in possession, and a weird third thing where you seem to be confusing meta services with the ownership of the thing itself.

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• Voyajer@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  support.gog.com/…/212632089-GOG-User-Agreement?pr…

  Check 2.1, GOG is the same.

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  • can@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    If I back up a DRM-free installer what’s the difference?

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    • radix@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      Legally, it’s still a license, it’s just effectively impossible to revoke.

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      • TheEntity@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

        Just like any game ever sold on a CD.

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    • fushuan@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      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.

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  • acosmichippo@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    unless you keep the offline installers.

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    • Voyajer@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      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.

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      • GhiLA@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

        Well, gentlemen. I guess we got this all sorted out. Not a big deal, after all.

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      • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

        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.

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• tacosanonymous@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  I would say, if you’ve purchased, just get a free version.

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• prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Nah fuck all that, you own the game already. You pirate it.

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• Retro_unlimited@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  Also don’t forget to download the offline installers from GOG. I spent all of last week doing that

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  • JoMiran@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    Is there a nice FOSS utility to do that? I need to do a backup of my GOG library.

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    • Retro_unlimited@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      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.

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• Banichan@dormi.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  Nah, I’m good 😂

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• KonalaKoala@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Problem there is the games I have in Steam which are Secret of Mana, Trials of Mana, and GTA 5 I was looking at and thinking about whether or not to get, are not coming up on GOG.

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