Ok.

If those people can show you how to play the game on a differnt computer without the Steam client installed, they are in fact right ^^. It's a bit confusing that "Steam" is used for both the client and the shop which are two different things. The shop itself is as much DRM as our shop here is. But if a game cannot be run without checking the licence ...

I guess, my 10% number would be lower if I would still buy as much on Steam as I used to. New A+ games hardly ever come without DRM. The ones without are mostly small productions and older games (Fahrenheit, Duck Tales, Lucid, Alter Ego).

This is why I keep saying that Steam and services like Steam, should be forced by law to change the word "Purchase" to "Lease". They are counting on users to not read the subscriber agreement and think that they are purchasing content. when in reality they aren't. This single change would raise many eyebrows and people would be more willing to read the subscriber agreement, which may very well lead to a surge of DRM-Free store popularity.

On the other hand, GOG user agreement has some nice user-friendly sections, such as:
"17.3 It seems very unlikely, but if we have to stop providing access to GOG services and GOG content permanently (not because of any breach by you), we will try to give you at least sixty (60) days advance notice by posting a note on www.GOG.COM and sending an email to every registered users – during that time you should be able to download any GOG content you purchased."

Though I would personally still implore everyone to use GOGREPOC or any other community script to back up their library NOW, rather than wait for the unthinkable day, when the servers would inevitably be overwhelmed.
Unless that customer was sharing games left right and centre, and got caught doing so, It's highly unlikely that such a petty lawsuit against a single customer would take place. Even then there's no way to verify that all copies have been deleted and that there isn't a backup hard drive in some locker or buried in some yard somewhere. It's not like the police would check all of that person's hard drives every day for the rest of his life.

That is what I mean by light drm with Steam. Most indie games will still have the steam api.dll for checking licenses. I broke down a while ago and bought an indie game off Steam. Lol. The weird part is the game was DRM-free until the next patch. Add steam DRM. Also, I have over 400 games from Steam. After checking my Steam games, maybe 20 were DRM free.

This is why I stop 99% of my shopping on Steam. I probably should have stopped early, but all my friends are on Steam. Haha

GOG offers offline installers. I've downloaded them and have them all stored on backup drives. It's not hard to take care of your backups (and backup drives) as I have a copy of Veil of Darkness (released in 1993) that has existed only as backups for years.

When you purchase a subscription through Steam, you're supposed to install and run through the Steam launcher only. You're not supposed to just zip up your games and store them elsewhere. If you prefer Steam, great for you. Go buy your games on Steam.

Just knock it off with the GOG is no different from Steam arguments.


Steam already refers to purchases as subscriptions. This should conjure up mental images of any MMORPG, where you have to pay a monthly subscription fee to retain access on top of purchasing the software itself, or things like the Apple Arcade where you have to pay a monthly subscription fee to access all games within it. It wouldn't be unreasonable for Steam to introduce either at some point if they haven't already.

However I think that no matter what Steam does, the Steam apologists will still be trying to convince everyone that this is the only way to enjoy games.

This part is hilarious. First you quote me and then 'explain' a difference to me that I explained myself in the very next sentence you left out in your quote...

Then you point out something 'you're not supposed to do' on Steam (zip games if DRM-Free), as if that's any different as implying you have full ownership over an item on GOG when it is made very clear by them you buy a revokable license.

You don't have full ownership other than the fact that you have an item they *can not* simply revoke after you have downloaded it. That's the big difference. You don't have any right to keep it in every single situation, any more or less than you'd have the right to zip up your game on Steam and play it elsewhere. It's wouldn't be any less biased to claim these situations are somehow vastly different. If they choose to revoke it, for whatever reason you are able to keep the game. But that's not what you bought. That's not what the purchase was. The purchase, the license, is revokable. At that point all you have is the equivalent to a pirated copy of the game.

> When you purchase a subscription through Steam, you're supposed to install and run through the Steam launcher only.
Where does it say this btw? I mean, obviously that'd be the only way to get it initially. But where does it say you can't then back it up as a zip and play it on another computer? (Not saying it doesn't, I just haven't seen it (yet?))

"Non transferable ownership" Does not mean that I do not OWN them, just that I cannot re-sell them.

Yes, you do own the access rights, that is right in the sence that you don't keep paying for them. But they can be revoked at any time, also on GOG. And then you would be obliged to delete your game and backup installers .... yeah, right. In reality GOG would not even bother trying to enforce that.

In the EU the untransferable rights are not legal btw. digital access rights must also be transferable like the ones on tangible media. Meaning: Also software rights bought online must be transferable. The user agreement does not change that. Illegal passages in the EULA or similar agreements can be ignored. The customer already agrees to the common contract by buying the software. Everything that goes beyond that contract can be fought in court. Ths "I accept blah blah" checkbox has no legal significance.

For online services like Valve & Co. that basically means they have to implement a second hand market like the ones we used to know, but so far they have found loopholes around this regulation, they do everything to prevent that. In the end you as user don't own the access right but the account does. It's a lot of legal mumbo jumbo in these licence agreements, but effectively we don't own zip. The lawyers are working on that :)
Maybe in 30 years it will be different, maybe then I can legally gift my collection to my niece who then will hopefully be interested in retro gaming :D

As far as I remember legislation so far has largely meant places like Steam can't prevent resale of items, but I have not seen any legislation that actually requires them to facilitate it.

================

It's also beyond a horrible idea if that were to ever happen. I'm already not happy with all the GAAS (Games As A Service) we're seeing these days. If a second hand digital market were to actually happen you can pretty much kiss non-subscription games goodbye.

I'd love to hear a digital used sales model that makes any economical sense for the people originally selling the game. And don't say 'well it used to work fine back in the day'. A digital, worldwide secondhand market is a whole other beast. No delivery costs, no delay between ownership changes, no (less?) scam risk, full transparency when/if a copy of a game is available 'used', zero degradation of the used products.

Basically, as long as there is a single copy for sale, used, anywhere in the world, there'd be no (economical) reason to buy a copy off the developer themselves.

Now imagine all the millions upon millions of people with huge libraries of games they rarely ever play anymore suddenly being able to put them on a secondhand market, instantly killing any chance of further sales for games on the actual store for the foreseeable future.

On top of that. Even new games you buy, people will be rushing to sell those as soon as possible because they get worth less the longer you have them (because more copies become available used) so it's best to sell as quickly as possible. Better to sell as quickly as possible so you can buy yet another game. It'll basically work against keeping a library of games and push people to sell them.

Well, they are not allowed to prevent it. So they could not deny your request to support to transfer the ownership of a licences from one account to another. And that's why we are not really owners of these licences.
But if we were: Implementing a market like they already have for other digital items would be the most cost efficient solution instead of answering thousand of support tickets.

The second hand market is a pain in the ass for all producers. Digital media never showed decay (no matter if online or tangible), so producers tried to introduce artificial decay.
On consoles games are shipped with codes for DLCs. One buying the game second hand won't get that DLC.

The argument you bring up about the millions of users with the huge libraries only is a matter of had BECAUSE second hand was prevented so far.
The laws exist for quite some years by now, so I would not call this "suddenly". I would say: "Guys, you saw this coming for years. You couldn't bother to prepare for it?"

I don't ponder much about if it would make sense or not, I am quite sure that for Valve it would be a disaster. Their business model would go up in flames. But it does violate laws to prevent people from selling what they own, and something will change.

GOG and all the other similar stores would be a goner as well as Valve. There's just no point selling games in the classic form (so to say) if digital resales are enforced. GOG wouldn't be any better off because it is DRM-Free. There just wouldn't be enough profit/revenue made for games to be sold that way after an implementation like that. So they'd change models, very likely to subscriptions. You don't buy anything anymore, you just rent the right to play it for a while (1day/month/year). Or F2P with all microtransactions, or on a sub service like gamepass, or cloud.

I'd be very interested to hear how we as consumers are supposed to be better off in a situation like that. Heck, even if Valve shifted the defacto 'reseller' for games, taking a cut off facilitating it or something that's no better than the abomination gamestop ended up being at some point, siphoning off billions in profits in used sales cuts that could've gone to devs/publishers instead.

If a second hand digital games sale would be a reality, it would mean that the gaming industry would collapse. as second hand would be cheaper, and there is no deteroation of the games (and the market is global, not local as with physical second hand sales), less people will buy games on release rather waiting for the second hand sales. so you will get a lot less day one sales. the long tail (sales after inital release) will disapear completely. since developerss do not see a dime from sales of a second hand market, this means that developers will make a lot less monies and most likely will not survive = no more games being developed, developers just can't make a living out of it.

it will also mean implementation of much stricter DRM applied across the board. to regulate a second hand market, you need to comntrol the ownership to prevent scam (what would stop me from buying a DRM free game, installing it on my PC, selling the game, but don't uninstall it). the transfer of ownership in a digital market is not easy, and must have some DRM schemes to be able to do so realistically.

Basically, the only way forward for game developers in such a climate would be game-as-service, as then there is no transfer of onwership, there is nothing to resell, but the developers still have an income. This off course means killing off the entire indie scene, and only the large companies would be able to survive (as games-as-service need a much larger infrastructure). the games being developed would be the games that lends itself to such a model. I do not see any other posibility

Well, there is a reason why DRM exists. All the problems you mentioned are not new.

Most likely it will be games as a service, the traditional ownership is most likely will vanish in the few places where it's not already gone. But maybe they find another solution. We here are just wise guys with no real insight. The right and possibility to sell one's property must be upheld.

It wouldn't be the first crisis the gaming industry went through. But it would change significantly from what we know today.
Some will prevail, others will get overrun, but that is the case every day. It's just the circumstances that change.

I am glad you are so casual about it, but I like my hobby as playing games and would very much like for it to continue and have new games. so repercussions of this is that gaming stores will disapear (gOg, Itch, Fireflower, Steam etc), as there will no longer be sales of games. The focus will shift on the services provided by publishing houses.

Single player games will more or less disapear, they do not lend themselves easily to games-as-service models. the foucs will be on MMO like gaming structures which are constantly evolving. The small quirky, off-beat, original games (which I adore) will no longer be made.

The main point, though, is that the re-sell market will kill off the re-sell market. as no new games are being produced that can be sold, the whole thing will at some point implode, and even this disapear.

It is not just "the circumstances" that will change, but the whole market and the industry.

The end of XYZ was predicted so many times ... During my time as a gamer the industry was declared dead twice (well, more like one and a half times, what happened in UK 20 years ago was just local, but I got some very good deals out of it) and many genres and playstyles experiencing a renaissance right now wer thought to be dead as well. Of course not everything comes back, but the death notices in most cases are wrong. Heck, they make new Nintendo and Amiga games these days (play the Amiga AGA version of Turrican 2 btw, that one is awesome), I even saw some C64 and Atari projects.

I like my hobby as well, that's why just on GOG alone I own enough games for more than a lifetime. I would never have to buy a game again if I didn't want to.

That much is true.

There will always be a demand for entertainment. If one way won't work, there will be another. There is always money to be made, what changes are the ways to make it.