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.
It’s way worse because it’s not EULA, it’s the Steam User Agreement contract. The same contract that says if you agree, you can not sue Valve corporation. The same contract that decides to sell your data to 3rd parties. The same contract for locking your account in any reason or time.
EULA protects games from being sold on shady websites and the developers. Steam User Agreement doesn’t protect anyone against Valve Corporation.
Ummm if you don’t think GOG or Itch don’t have similar clauses you’re in for bitter disappointment.
GOG also reserve the right to terminate your account. You have a license to use it. Almost all games on GOG have a ‘you don’t own it, you own a license to use it’ clause as well. No arbitration clauses though.
Itch has a class action waiver, and many games on it have a ‘you don’t own it, you own a license to use it’ clause.
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.
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.
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.
It’s way worse because it’s not EULA, it’s the Steam User Agreement contract. The same contract that says if you agree, you can not sue Valve corporation. The same contract that decides to sell your data to 3rd parties. The same contract for locking your account in any reason or time.
EULA protects games from being sold on shady websites and the developers. Steam User Agreement doesn’t protect anyone against Valve Corporation.
Ummm if you don’t think GOG or Itch don’t have similar clauses you’re in for bitter disappointment.
GOG also reserve the right to terminate your account. You have a license to use it. Almost all games on GOG have a ‘you don’t own it, you own a license to use it’ clause as well. No arbitration clauses though.
Itch has a class action waiver, and many games on it have a ‘you don’t own it, you own a license to use it’ clause.
That’s why I only get my games from archive.org
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.