- cross-posted to:
- pcgaming@lemmy.ca
- games@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- pcgaming@lemmy.ca
- games@lemmy.world
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Steam has got to be the most loved monopoly ever. It’s inherently toxic to the gaming community in ways that aren’t instantly apparent but it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that it’s not a great thing that every game you buy isn’t yours, it’s effectively an unlimited time rental that can be withdrawn for a multitude of reasons. GOG and the like actually sell you the game proper such that it’s yours to keep forever no matter what happens to GOG. But still they sit at single digit market share for anything that’s not their own game and even Cyberpunk 2077 only sold 10% of copies on GOG…
Steam doesn’t enforce anything. They provide a very weak opt-in DRM that they literally tell developers they should expect will by bypassed. There are plenty of actual DRM free games on Steam.
People use Steam instead of GoG because Steam works and provides a wide array of value adding features and GoG doesn’t.
That doesn’t invalidate anything they said.
If it’s actual ownership instead of availability, then according to GOG’s own EULA, you don’t own the games there either.
Wouldn’t even matter anyway. If either service dies the games are gone unless you go through the hassle of manually backing up every single one - which you can do with the majority of games on Steam too.
No, you can’t.
And that’s a big “unless”. I actually do have a stored backup of my GOG library installers (of the ones where I don’t own a physical copy, anyway). GOG could disappear into thin air tomorrow and I would lose zero access. Not so with Steam.
You have it backwards I believe
That’s a technicality that has applied to all media formats for decades. You know what I am talking about colloquially.
“You know what I am talking about colloquially”
I must not, because I see zero difference between Steam and GoG in this regard other than the fact that Steam provides a bunch of side services that GoG does not. Otherwise they’re both just selling you a revokable license to play a game.
Guess you don’t either.
“I’m right and you’re wrong”. Colloquially, of course.
Thanks for helping to derail the conversation you weren’t a part of. Really appreciate it.
People prefer Steam to GoG because Steam is a massively better product than GoG. It’s not complicated.
I mean it’s not technically a monopoly. Steam’s advantage is that Valve is a private company and can do what they like, it’s not without problems, but it does a great job where it needs to.
Steam also sells DRM-free games, so that’s just mis-information. You can copy the files anywhere and use them without Steam running, it’s entirely on the developers/publishers to make that decision. Cyberpunk 2077 is DRM-free on Steam, just like GOG. Steamworks just has an incredible feature set for developers to use, so for multiplayer games it’s unlikey to see DRM-free anymore as people would rather invite via a friendslist than sharing IPs directly, having to open ports etc.
Not misinformation. GOG requires games to be DRM free to sell there, Steam provides first party DRM (being crackable doesn’t make it not DRM) and it actively encourages developers publishing on Steam to double down with more GaaS features and secondary DRM in their instructions to developers.
Why do people feel the need to shill for billionaires? I don’t get it.
Nobody is shilling. It’s completely up to the developers/publishers to sell DRM-free or not - CDPR aren’t the holy grail company you think they are.
every game you buy isn’t yours, it’s effectively an unlimited time rental that can be withdrawn for a multitude of reasons. GOG and the like actually sell you the game proper such that it’s yours to keep forever no matter what happens to GOG
This is mis-information - every game you buy on Steam is not DRM and thus is not subject to the ‘digital license’ approach.
Look, I like GOG, I will buy from there if I can’t get a DRM-free version on Steam and the deal is good, I own many GOG titles.
Steam 1000% needs to label what games have DRM or not and embrace that with a category.Nobody is shilling? This entire post is called “Steam keeps on winning”, sharing a link to an article about how other competitors are becoming less relevant. The shilling is gleeful at this point.
And hey, no, I don’t claim that CDPR is “the holy grail”. You want me to give them crap? I have multiple active grudges. Why is Galaxy so slow when fully packed? Why can’t I cull games imported from integrations if they’re not gonna bother to cache the DB and insist on auditing on load? Why is the browser in their launcher slower than opening their own store on Firefox? Will they ever stop with the surveys about the Discovery view? It’s bad enough that you started inserting ads in the launcher, you don’t need to pester me about it every time I open the thing.
I don’t need GOG to be perfect to tell you Valve isn’t your friend. GOG is, though, actually DRM free. Steam is not. They will let you upload a DRM free game if you want, but they don’t recommend it, they actively want you to use Steamworks, and even when you do that, they recommend you add a second layer of DRM to your game.
That sucks.
They also overmonetize their games aggressively, insist on rather toxic MTX and aggressively crowdsource as many parts of their business as they can, just like any other tech startup.
And they have the most feature-rich launcher, great controller support and it’s cool that they want to safeguard against Windows having a monopoly on PC gaming.
Neither of those big companies is my firend or yours and if they want either of us to sell their product they should pay us for it.
Steam provides first party DRM (being crackable doesn’t make it not DRM) and it actively encourages developers publishing on Steam to double down with more GaaS features and secondary DRM in their instructions to developers.
The copy of Krita that I bought on Steam not only has no DRM at all, it even runs completely independent of Steam. I have several DRM-free games from Steam as well. It’s definitively optional.
I think it says something that people still prefer Steam in spite of all that. Even people who pirate games appreciate it. Convenience is a wonderful thing and most people don’t really care to own if the game they want will be there when and if they need it.
Convenience is paramount. It’s why the in-app purchases that are most likely to be bought in games by the most people (not counting whales) are ones that make the game experience more convenient, rather than just giving special currency.
My issue is that I use Linux, so I either need to download games from their website (no automatic updates) or use a third party client like Heroic launcher. If GOG had first class support for Linux, I’d probably buy most of my games through them.
But Linux users are a small minority, so the main issue is probably selection. Steam has pretty much all of the popular games, whereas GOG only has the DRM-free games. It’s the same problem Linux has had and continues to have, why would you use platform A if platform B is the same price and has more of the games you want to play? Splitting your library across services sucks, so most people will go with the one has most of their games.
The solution here imo it’s make licenses portable so you can easily switch platforms. If I want to move my brokerage, I just need to fill out a form and wait a few days. If I want to switch game platforms, I need to repurchase or abandon my games. That doesn’t sound like a big deal, but it is a real reason people don’t switch.
Or maybe the solution is to use the right tool for the job? I don’t complain that I can’t play PS5 games because I made the choice to buy a Switch or that I can’t play the newest AAA game because I bought a Chromebook or that I can’t go see my friend that lives 600km away over the weekend because I made the choice to only own a bike!
A lot of Linux users talk like entitled children wherever there’s a discussion about Epic. I can’t count the number of times their gripe can be summarized to “Fuck Epic for not supporting Linux!” They made the choice to use Linux instead of Windows, that means they were ready to make some sacrifices when it comes to what’s available, they can’t complain about GOG or Epic not supporting their favorite OS when they never said they would! And why would they? Nvidia hardware works when it feels like it, AMD is better but still not as user friendly as on Windows and who’s getting shat on when a game won’t work? Who’s asked for a refund because a game won’t launch because of an issue with the user’s Arch install? All that trouble for what % of gamers compared to Windows?
When you run a business you don’t go chasing after that extra 1% of clients unless you’re very well established and at the moment there’s only one distributor that is in a position where it’s worth it to give themselves all that trouble and it’s Valve, the others have much more to gain from trying to take a bite from their 70% hold on 96% of the market.
Steam has got to be the most loved monopoly ever. It’s inherently toxic to the gaming community
Steam isn’t a monopoly but Windows is. Money earned on Steam goes into developing open source technologies that undermine the Windows monopoly.
I have been playing computer games since the late 90s and for me steam hits all the important things with few of the downsides that existed prior to an online storefront.
Games had DRM prior to steam and other online services. A key you had to keep track of, something from the instructions, or in some cases an online authentication process. All of these could be lost or the online component be retired and you ended up needing to hack the games anyway.
Games often had issues over time due to a lack of ongoing support. Driver issues or other problems might cause a game that previously worked to fail after a decade. The earliest game I remember with that issue was Crescent Hawks Revenge which was tied to the processor speed and over time it sped up so fast that it was unplayable as games got faster. Again, it was necessary to hack the game or the PC to address the issue. If the games did have updates, they were often tedious to find and install.
Games on PC have pretty much always been a license to use and not actual ownership. If you read the EULA you were banned from hacking to fix the issues I already mentioned just to get it to play.
Then there is a personal thing I noticed which was that I didn’t want to put forth any effort for older games just to play them. Like, sure I might want to give it a spin for an hour, but not if it took an hour to address issues due to changes in hardware or software since I last played it.
So along comes steam and while it had a rough start, it solved all of my computer gaming issues. Games were perpetually maintained, so if I bought an older game it would most likely work on current hardware. Sales meant I could afford to try out new games at a decent price! Games updated automatically when one was available and I didn’t need to do anything extra! Every game I have purchased from steam can be downloaded on a whim and be expected to play. Maybe there are some exceptions, but I haven’t run into any.
Only one game I purchased stopped working because it was multiplayer only and the servers shut down. Owning it outright wouldn’t have mattered.
While it is possible that steam could shit the bed at any point in time and I could lose all the games on it, the value for the money has been totally worth it. I am glad that there are alternates and that GOG exists for DRM free versions of games, but the ease of use and reliability that I have had with steam has made it worth far more than I have paid into it.
I think the points about GOG being DRM free and selling you the game (not just a license) need to be made as often as possible.
I am going to try to look there first from now on because of this.
I think the points about GOG being DRM free and selling you the game (not just a license) need to be made as often as possible.
Just because there is no DRM on GOG doesn’t mean that the games aren’t just licensed. Copyright law doesn’t get magically circumvented. You aren’t allowed to sell the GOG downloads. All GOG allows you to do is to make backups of the games you licensed.
I think people actually realised back in the mid-to-late 2010s. The paid mod debacle, the shlock that kept going through, the failure of Steam Machines in their attempt to move to Linux… you get the idea. It was to the point where people were flat-out cheering for Epic Games joining the scene when they attached a storefront to their Fortnite launcher, which is unthinkable now.
True, Epic could have provided good competition, but instead of gaining the trust of potential users and building a feature rich store - they immediately went down the most anti-consumer route they could with exclusive deals and free game bait, all while pretending they are the good buys and Valve are an evil-mega corp. The pot calling the kettle black. So yeah, fuck Epic Games.
It was to the point where people were flat-out cheering for Epic Games joining the scene
Windows users maybe, Linux users liked that Steam Machines resulted in a bunch of native Linux ports of high-profile games such as Borderlands 2 or X-Com.
I mean, yes, there will always be a minority (often quite vocal) who will cheer on the failure of any platform. No matter how good or bad it is.
They weren’t by any stretch, an effective representation of the userbase. Most either stuck with Steam or installed the Epic launcher as well to get some free games.
Steam gets all of my gaming money until other vendors support Linux.
Yup. I didn’t use Steam until they came to Linux, and I don’t have any loyalty to them. I’ll buy from any platform that supports my OS of choice.
If I used Windows, I would probably use GOG because I value DRM-free games. But I desire convenience more, and GOG isn’t as convenient as Steam on Linux, so I don’t. It’s pretty simple.
I should really start pirating copies of games that I buy on Steam. Servers and licenses don’t last forever.
I keep meaning to buy a dvd writer…
I still have a couple in operation, but mostly it’s for ingest. These days all my backups go into a NAS, including my GOG installers. Honestly, given the increasing waves of (sigh) enshittification it’s becoming more and more justifiable to keep your own home network services, storage included.
You’ll probably be better off paying for a backup service. Backblaze sells 1TB for $6/month, plus $0.01/GB for downloads. DVDs can be lost, get scratched, or simply snapped, whereas cloud storage is usually redundant so it’s unlikely to fail.
I personally have a NAS at home for various media with 8TB capacity, but that’s mostly because I want to stream from it. If I just needed data storage like games, I’d use a cloud host.
My biggest problem with Epic store is their push for exclusives. I understand exclusives on platforms (PS vs XBox) - those are physically different hardware and are closed platforms. But we are talking about PC games, it is the same platform. I want to chose the best product (best delivery system - STEAM or Epic Store, or whatever), and not being forced by the power of monopoly to use a particular launcher.
It would be extra cool to separate licenses from delivery. So I could buy a license from Rockstar directly or through my service if choice, and then play it on another delivery service if I wanted. That way, if Steam or EGS goes under, I can move my games elsewhere, just like I can today with stocks at a brokerage. In other words, I’d have a Rockstar key, not a Steam key.
I imagine store fronts would then charge some fee for access to their network to download games or whatever, and that would trigger price competition on the delivery end. I imagine stores would end up with a “free service if you spend $X/year” or whatever.
I can do that occasionally, but it’s far from the norm. For example, I bought Factorio directly from the devs, and they provided me a free Steam key as well. So I could download it from them directly or through Steam, at my option. I want more of that.
I don’t see the problem with exclusives considering it’s a guarantee for the devs that they’ll have an income instead of playing the popularity with influencers lottery by releasing on all platforms.
After that I’ve got a link on my desktop so I don’t give a crap what launcher is running in the background.
Steam feels like a library with a store attached. Epic feels like a store with a library attached. If they changed the way they presented the epic app then I’d be more inclined to use their services.
On the one hand valve having a monopoly is bad for the industry and it’s consumers.
On the other hand nobody seems to be trying to provide a truly competitive service without also being far more anti-consumer than valve from the get go.
Yup, I’m with Steam because it’s better, not because I like Valve or something. If someone else provides a better service for my use case (Linux with a mix of PC and handheld PC), I’ll use them.
I avoid Epic on the principle of hating exclusives (I give Valve a pass on their games because they don’t make many), I avoid UPlay and EA because I hate their stupid DRM, and I don’t use GOG because they don’t have an official Linux client and they don’t support third party clients. Any of those could win by business if they catered to what I care about, for example:
- make a Linux client
- make their games offline capable
- offer a good selection of games
That’s it. They don’t even need to beat Steam in terms of investing in Linux, I just want to be a first class citizen on their platform.
It feels really weird how so many people here seem to just…be okay with steam being to gaming what chrome is to browsers? Its for all intends and purposes a monopoly and just because they barely support linux its all happy sunshine and roses?
People should have a sledgehammer pointed at them at all times just in case, cause yall know, no matter how good the intention may or may not be for whoever gaben selects as the next big boss (not like hes that all good saviors either), once gaben is out, hes out and things will get worse sooner or later.
They have hardon for Gabe.
If Steam could just ban 3rd party launchers in Steam - that would be great.
Need to login to rockstar/uplay/gog/EA account? Do it in-game…
What is it about people here thet worship this company. I can remember several years ago people screaming about how much they hate them.
meanwhile ive finally stopped using steam! very happy and proud to say i only purchase on itch and GOG now! (as well as a few indie stores) hope i can get a few friends to join me.
whats your reason(s) to ditch steam? (honest question)
Philosophically, obviously I’m against DRM blah blah and no matter how easy it is to crack I just don’t really like the idea of spending money on a license to play something instead of the something itself. I also don’t really like contributing to the online services monopoly steam seems to be maintaining. There’s a myriad smaller stuff that drives me away from steam that I don’t really feel like explaining, but those two are the main philosophical reasons.
Practically, for reasons I obviously won’t disclose, my account is at risk of spontaneous termination if they wanted to, so its not really worth investing more money into my walking time bomb of an account.
I get why steam makes sense for most people and I don’t have any intention to shame people for… well, being normal where I’m not. I just like having friends who share my personal preferences!
You don’t own the games.
Is that not also true of itch and GOG?
You gain access to the installer files. This means that, if you wanted, you could back up them up on as many hard drives as you want and have them for the rest of the your life. Steam, on the other hands, you are purchasing a license to play the game.
This depends on the game. The DRM is opt-in. A lot of the games that are available on GOG are also DRM free on Steam. For other games, they may have DRM, but its usually because the publisher isn’t willing to sell without, meaning its not on GOG anyway.
Ubisoft has proven itself to remove games from the market and become unplayable. You also legally agree in the Steam User Agreement that all games in Steam don’t belong to you. This isn’t a legal copyrighted material but the concept of ownership of the game at all in Steam is legally prohibited to own.
That sounds like a reason to stop buying Ubisoft games, not switch from Steam.
You also legally agree in the Steam User Agreement that all games in Steam don’t belong to you.
Pretty sure that’s in almost every game EULA ever. May be a 1-up for Itch but I’m pretty sure almost all games on GOG have similar terms.
That’s every license of every commercial game no matter how it’s sold, unless it’s open source. So technically even with GoG you only get the license to play. You can only use the installer to install and play the game. You can’t resell it or decompile it for commercial use since you don’t own the binary code.
Yup, but there’s no DRM to lock you out a few years down the road when the DRM servers go down, and you don’t need to login to their service to play your games.
Yes, the license has restrictions and Steam has been a good actor so far, but you don’t have to look far to see how they could flip (see Sony revoking Discover video purchases, which they have since postponed). GOG wouldn’t be able to do that since they have no mechanism to remove things you have already downloaded, they can merely revoke future access to it.
Same for much on Steam. They wouldn’t be able to go erase stuff off your hard drives.
Many of the older games on Steam don’t have any DRM. Typically if they’re on GOG, they come the same way on Steam.
That said, I like GOG. It’s one of the few services I buy games on. But this argument that Steam games are locked down by DRM is is silly. Most games that are released on both platforms are identical.
You can do the same with the Steam installation files for games that do not have DRM - those that do wouldn’t appear in Itch or GOG in the first place.
hope i can get a few friends to join me.
Maybe if CD Project put their big Witcher and Cyberpunk money into Wine, SDL, DXVK, Linux HDR support, etc. instead of licensing Unreal Engine from Epic for upcoming games…
Yup. If they just port GOG Galaxy to Linux and provide a decent way to manage Proton/WINE versions, they’d get way more of my money. As it stands, I’ve only gotten their games through bundles, so they’ve made something like $20 from me, whereas Steam gets hundreds every year.
