Welcome to the largest gaming community on Lemmy! Discussion for all kinds of games. Video games, tabletop games, card games etc.
Submissions have to be related to games
No bigotry or harassment, be civil
No excessive self-promotion
Stay on-topic; no memes, funny videos, giveaways, reposts, or low-effort posts
Mark Spoilers and NSFW
No linking to piracy
More information about the community rules can be found here.
The answer is to introduce law which would force digital products to be owned, not licenced for non commercial users.
what's old is new again! they tried to pull this shit back in the day but physical media was the only delivery method. now that everything is downloaded there's a bunch of legal grey area they're hiding in.
so the next question, is this retroactive? if so, then when will I get my money back? Licensed software is cheaper than the full MSRP I paid for titles that had physical options I could have bought at a store. this is because licensed software usually has an expiration date while physical media with software can be installed anytime after purchase.
so, Valve, one last question.
yeah no, this is just fixing the wording to better represent the truth that has always been.
this is because a California law recently passed requiring these kinds of purchases to inform consumers that they don't actually own these games. valve decided it would be easier just to do this for everyone.
this has always been true for all digital games you purchased. the fact that you didn't realize this is why the law was needed.
thanks California for being the only force fighting for consumers rights in the United States. i can see why conservatives give you so much shit. you do things that matter.
I think there's one key thing you missed: you have never bought a copy of the game on Steam! It's always been a license. Valve simply made the fact clear now because of legal changes.
so the next question, is this retroactive
So the answer for this is a solid no.
Thanks, new California law!
If only there was a Girl who was Fit that could, I don't know, Repack this situation, thus saving us from it...
Hey thanks for describing this hypothetical situation, I pay Steam for a lot of game licenses so I've lost touch with the current philosophy of hypothetical alternatives.
If the game is FOSS, does this warning still show? 🤔
Yes.
I’m pretty sure this is in response to a recent California bill that forces digital storefronts to disclose if it is a license you are getting. Otherwise the storefront is not allowed to use words like “buy” or “purchase”.
https://www.theverge.com/2024/9/26/24254922/california-digital-purchase-disclosure-law-ab-2426
10/10 law can we please get this in Canada too?
Better yet, can we just get a law that makes it so when we buy something we own it?
At least for steam it looks like it might be rolled out worldwide
If there's an offline game you love and play all the time, consider buying it again on GOG.com.
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.
https://www.theverge.com/2024/9/26/24254922/california-digital-purchase-disclosure-law-ab-2426
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.
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. So in that regard, it literally is a purchase. Or as close as you can get with digital goods.
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.
Depends on the game, they still sell DRM games which are limited in being able to be downloaded freely
https://support.gog.com/hc/en-us/articles/212632089-GOG-User-Agreement?product=gog
Check 2.1, GOG is the same.
I would say, if you’ve purchased, just get a free version.
Also don’t forget to download the offline installers from GOG. I spent all of last week doing that
Is there a nice FOSS utility to do that? I need to do a backup of my GOG library.
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.
We knew it 10 years ago, we know it now, how is this news to anyone consuming online digital content?
Before Steam you bought a physical disc and it didn't matter that you technically only purchased a license, the disc was yours and nobody was coming to your house to take it away if the publisher started fighting with the developer or whatever.
True, with some modifications:
Some games had online activation built in. Some games would simply not install on a second or third machine without getting permission from the publisher.
Regular CDs have a lifespan of 5-10 years, shorter if not stored ideally. Almost all games had sophisticated mechanisms to prevent backups being taken.
Even if you could take a backup, record associations and publishers lobbied to make it illegal and punishable by severe fines in many countries.
Sony shipped fucking root kits on their CD that would hijack your PC and screw with backup software. EA shipped CDs with autoexexuting software that would actually delete CloneCD and other CD copying software and prevent new installes from working. My copy of Sims 2 came with that bullshit and OH MAN I was not happy about it.
Sony shipped fucking root kits on their CD that would hijack your PC and screw with backup software.
Worse, this thing from Sony was on music CD's and not even games.
The Sony Rootkit debacle is one of the reasons that I still will not do business with Sony in any of its guises, for any reason, no matter the price. And believe me, I have a long memory.
Some games would simply not install on a second or third machine without getting permission from the publisher.
I remember binning DDR2 RAM on a test bench back in the day and Windows deactivated itself after about a dozen times lol
I've got CDs I've had for 25+ years and they're still fine
Yeah good ones allegedly last 200 years if stored correctly. Cheap ones are 5-10. 20 can be expected for quality CDs stored correctly.
But no matter the claimed quality, it's a gamble. Our local library had a lot of 10-20 year old CDs that had developed microbubbles.
5 years is low range for CDs, but common enough that you should be taking backups for anything you keep longer.
Don't conflate a mastered CD with an aluminum data layer with a recordable CD-R or CD-RW, which use organic dyes that have a significantly shorter lifespan.
A properly manufactured CD can last 200+ years if it's stored in a dry environment free of UV exposure and high levels of moisture.
Even a quality CD-R can't really be expected to retain all of its data integrity for much more than 10 years.
Hey, at least they're clearing the air a little bit
Isn't this only because it's soon to be legally required in California? I don't think they're doing this out of the goodness of their hearts.
"EA, play the license".
We all know here that you don't own anything on Steam or any other client with DRM. Duh...
B this shit should be illegal, I buy a product, game, license whatever you call it, it is mine. This farce of consumer protection... "do you understand the words coming out of my mouth!?....License!!'. Yeah we do, let us own our purchased games.
