- cross-posted to:
- games@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- games@lemmy.world
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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.
Even if GoG’s launcher was on Linux (which BTW last I checked was THE most requested feature) I would still buy on Steam because it’s not only that Valve is releasing for Linux, they’re also investing money to finance Proton development, so they’re actively spending money to make Linux gaming experience better for everyone, which is why they’ll get my money over any other company, especially one that doesn’t even support the OS at all.
I don’t buy based on where the company chooses to invest its money, I buy based on who has the best overall experience. With GOG, I know I’m getting DRM-free games, and that has value. It’s not enough value to jump through hoops over, but it’s enough that, at the same price, I’ll prefer it.
GOG doesn’t have every game due to that policy, and it’ll probably never have as good of an experience on my Steam Deck, so I’ll still buy from Steam, but GOG would be my first place to go.
But since GOG doesn’t even support Linux with their client, I don’t buy from them. I will only buy if they provide good support, and they don’t.
With GOG, I know I’m getting DRM-free games, and that has value.
People keep repeating this, but some games on GoG have DRM: https://www.gog.com/wishlist/site/label_the_games_that_have_drm
That’s not exactly true. Usually that only applies to MP when connecting to the hosted servers, not not when running locally or on self-hosted servers. That said, that should definitely be listed on the store page.
Mostly, but GoG also sells games that have DRM for SP, here’s a thread about it https://www.gog.com/forum/general/drm_on_gog_list_of_singleplayer_games_with_drm/page1
That’s lame. Fortunately most of those are merely cosmetics or rewards for doing something online, but that should still be called out on the store page.
You don’t even need to download their client with GOG to download and play their games …
Sure, but a client makes getting updates a lot easier.
Not only does Steam support Linux, they’re growing it.
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.
Ddgewddtrfft
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.
Yes you can. Just because you don’t make a backup of one over the other doesn’t mean it isn’t possible. lol
I don’t think people get what I’m saying.
On Steam you can back up game files only in the tiny fraction of games that ship with no DRM. Cases where you have to break DRM to make a backup are not “making a backup”. If that’s your standard you may as well just download a cracked copy later.
On GOG you specifically get an option to download a stand-alone installer for every game in the service.
Not the same.
Many steam games already have no DRM and ones that use Steam Launcher presence can be launched using a Steam Launcher emulator.
Ones you have to worry about are Denuvio games that aren’t cracked (you can keep track of them here).
You know what? You guys keep making the same argument, I guess I’ll just have to keep giving the same answer.
How many is many? PC Gaming Wiki lists 1000 DRM free games in Steam’s library. That is 2.6% of the service, by their count.
And all you get from those is the ability to rip loose game files, which is not the same as having an installer or a portable installation. GOG will let you download a backup installer of every game on the service. Not the same thing.
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How could I possibly have it backwards? I manually backed up my installers. I don’t even know what you think “having it backwards” means. You think I’m misremembering downloading the installer files and backing them up? You think I did that on Steam and somehow forgot?
No, I don’t have it backwards, that’s how it works. There are terabytes of data on my backup drives to account for it.
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“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.
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It kinda sounds like you dont either, tho
“I’m right and you’re wrong”. Colloquially, of course.
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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.
Why are you shilling for GoG? This whole comment thread is so funny to me. Like a hour ago I saw comment on another post that said GoG is turning to shit. If I find it I will copy it here.
Here it is:
Pushing a shitty launcher, selling abandoned games, selling incomplete games, putting DRMs on multiplayer, selling a lot of low quality games, not expanding their overworked team despite the profits they make, etc. It got much worse with the success of the Witcher3 and has kept on going down.
I think there’s even a browser extension that is used to mark shitty games on gog, that have missing features or DRMs. Funny for a platform that has the motto of selling hand-picked, DRM-free games.
Not misinformation. GOG requires games to be DRM free to sell there
Misinformation: GoG allows DRM games in their store: https://www.gog.com/forum/general/drm_on_gog_list_of_singleplayer_games_with_drm/page1
Also to address another common misinformation, the one about steam being rent and Gog being buy, this is from GoG terms and licences:
You have the personal right to use GOG content and services. This right can be suspended or stopped by us in some situations.
Long story short, they’re also selling you a licence, same thing steam gets shitted for.
Steam provides first party DRM (being crackable doesn’t make it not DRM)
True
and it actively encourages developers publishing on Steam to double down with more GaaS features and secondary DRM in their instructions to developers.
False. Valve does not encourage or force you to use their DRM, in fact you don’t need to use Steam’s API to publish a game on steam, it just makes your life a lot easier than having to manually write the code to do the things that Steam already does for you, so most lazy Devs just rely on that. Some Devs don’t, and those games are sold on Steam as well, which is why you can simply copy them and play on other machines, even multiplayer, I know this because I’ve done that with several games to show them to my friends and push them to buy them.
Why do people feel the need to shill for billionaires? I don’t get it.
You’re shilling for Gog, you’re attacking steam because you don’t know that they sell DRM-free games, saying GoG is better without knowing that GoG sells DRMd games, so they’re the same.
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.
What’s wrong with Heroic launcher? Being a linux user you should be used by now to workarounds and alternative solutions to various problems, so why is that tool (that is pretty good and can even be used on steam deck) a deal breaker? That small inconvenience pales in comparison to benefits of DRM-free games and not supporting a monopoly IMHO.
My experience with Heroic has been… okay. I think the big issue is that a lot of tools are built with Steam in mind and not Heroic, which unintentionally adds friction.
I’m using epic on Steam deck.
I have to tweak something every now and then but I just won a Star Wars Resurgence giveaway here on Lemmy and with a tiny bit of work it runs perfectly.
I’ve been using Linux since Redhat 5.2 so I’m definitely used to workarounds and alternative solutions haha.
It just… doesn’t work as well as Steam. For example:
- cloud saves between devices - sometimes I’ll decide to play on my Steam Deck, and later on my PC
- controller configuration
- game selection - GOG/publisher issue, not Heroic
It works fine, but given that it’s worse than Steam and GOG doesn’t support it, I don’t really see how it makes my life much better. Yeah, DRM-free is nice, but many (most?) if my games on Steam are also DRM-free, they’re just not labeled or packaged as such, so I can often just copy the game directory somewhere and run w/o Steam running.
So GOG needs to give me a better reason to use their service. I’m not going to jump through hoops just because “DRM-free” is advertised instead of hidden. For me, that means one of the following:
- Galaxy client on Linux
- official backing of Heroic launcher (financial and listing on their website)
- commitment to an open API (these unofficial docs exist, but it can change at any time)
Pick one and I’ll feel more confident in using their products.
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.
Entitled? There’s certainly some of that among Linux users, and there’s definitely a lot of that among Windows users as well (not sure on percentages of each). However, it doesn’t fit me at all.
I used Linux before Steam released their client for it, so I just limited myself to the games that did work (Minecraft, Dwarf Fortress, and later Factorio; some Starcraft and League of Legends in WINE). When Steam came, I suddenly had a lot more options, and then later they released Proton and I had way more choices.
If Steam never came to Linux, I’d still be playing the few games that work properly. I use my computer primarily for other stuff, and games are just something I do for fun. If games aren’t there, I do other stuff for fun.
So if a platform makes it easy to play games, I’ll give them money. If they don’t, I’ll avoid them. It’s really as simple as that. I don’t feel entitled to GOG or EGS porting their clients to Linux, but I’m not going to use their service until they do.
Windows being a monopoly isn’t a good thing either.
In fact, I’d say it’s almost worse than steam having a monopoly on video games, because windows is an operating system.
You sound like you dont understand what linux, or windows for that matter, even is. As if you just hear the name a lot online, and think its like a form of digital diet.
Dude, I’ve been building computers since Windows 3.0 and I’ve run all types of OS. If I choose to buy a Mac tomorrow morning who am I to bitch that company X doesn’t support OSX? Well it’s the same if you install Linux and in the vast majority of cases the arguments against game launchers that aren’t Steam that come from Linux users are either outdated stuff (no shopping cart, no friends list…) or pure entitlement like they were owed support for their OS. Well no, you knowingly make the choice to install an OS that is historically known not to have much support from gaming companies, that’s on you and it doesn’t justify being mad at them. As I said, I can’t be mad at Valve if I can’t play my Steam games on my laptop if I bought at Chromebook, well that’s exactly the discourse of most Linux users that are mad at Epic or GOG.
The only one who comes across as mad here is you. Saying “if you don’t support the system I use I am not going to give you money” is not mad, it is just common sense.
There’s a difference between saying “I won’t give you money” and “Your product is a piece of shit”
You sound insanely intitled, so its very funny having you throw that around
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.
We’ve been really lucky that Steam hasn’t been enshittified yet but it’s just a matter of time, so I am happy that alternatives like GOG exist, and yes = even alternatives like Epic. Doesn’t matter if my library is spread around if I can just launch anything from playnite anyway.
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.
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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.
The free games system isnt anti consumer. And the exclusives are an industry standard, that steam also is involved in.
You have a laundry list of actual hostile practices, why did you pick the two that arent?
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If you think me giving you things you want that cost you money elsewhere for free is anti-you, you shouldnt be having this conversation. Full stop. Video games arent meth.
No, steam isn’t “also involved” in paying publishers to take their games off of other platforms.
Steam “exclusives” exist because every other platform is too dogshit to bother making a business relationship with.
Exclusives are not paying publishers to remove games from platforms. Those are two completely different things.
If you do not understand that simple fact, you probably shouldnt be wading into this discussion.
Yes, they are. That’s what exclusive means.
Only being on one platform because no other platform makes business sense is not an exclusive. An exclusive means an exclusivity contract.
But even if you lie and pretend your version is an “exclusive”, it absolutely is not “steam playing the exclusive game”, because that unconditionally would require steam actively incentivizing staying off of other platforms.
Don’t bother, this guy is just a troll. Look at all his other responses lmao.
You let me know when you parse this out
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.
Not sure anyone in this thread knows what the word “monopoly” means. Steam has competition, it all just comparatively sucks.
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 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.
Just an FYI, Steam allows all Devs to do that as long as their pricing is on-par with steam, AFAIK Steam is the only store to do this, which is yet another reason I keep buying from them.
True.
My point was that I didn’t get a Steam key right away and just played with the download they provided from their website. I’ve done the same with GOG games, and it works fine. The main problem is with library management, but that wasn’t an issue when my selection was limited. Now I have >500 games on Steam, so remembering what games I even have is an issue that Steam solves. Also, finding new games was an issue because I had to go to individual sites, and Steam solved that with their store (could filter by only Linux games).
Ideally, we could go back to buying games directly from devs and only using a client to make managing that easier. That way you’d stay with a service because it’s better, not because that’s where all your games are. Currently, I’m with Steam for both reasons, but maybe Steam will make poor choices in the future and I’ll only stay because I feel stuck with my library.
I would happily use epic if it wasn’t for the exclusive garbage they pull. They are a garbage platform.
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.
OK, your choice is different than mine. You see how good to have a choice?
I’m just pointing out that being mad about exclusivity when it can actually be what keeps devs afloat is a pretty bad argument.
Do you have a job or do you beg for money and spend it on lottery tickets?
I do get your point, I’d rather have an exclusive game than no game at all, but that isn’t what’s happening with Epic exclusives a lot of the time. Most of the time they just buy exclusive rights to games that were going to come to PC anyway, sometimes right before release date.
It’s still the devs that agree to it in exchange for guaranteed income instead of releasing at large and hoping for success, Epic is just playing the game… Heck, in my mind it’s the devs that should take the flak in this situation!
They’ve also confirmed they wouldn’t do it for games where the devs promised to release on other launchers after the backlash with one of the games they bought exclusivity rights to.
I do not understand this point. If market can not support the game, then there should be no such game. There are many publishers and venture capitalists that invest into game making and only like one of them (Epic) requires exclusivity on PC space.
That would work if all quality games were successful (it isn’t the case at all) and if devs didn’t need to eat or pay rent (it isn’t the case either).
Exclusives aren’t exclusive (lulz) to Epic either, you see them on other launchers even for very successful games (you can only get Minecraft from Microsoft for example and it’s not a game that was originally developed by them). Sure some people invest in developers in exchange for a share of the profit made, these people are in the investment business, not in the publishing business.
It’s funny how people agree to give their employer exclusive use of whatever they produce for them in exchange for money, but if a developer does the equivalent then the same people are angry at the “employer”…
I say good for the devs if it guarantees that their studio will stay open and they’re able to produce more games instead of spending years on a project only for it to lead them to bankruptcy when it releases to little interest from the public.
All other “exclusives” are simply companies selling games by themselves. Your example of Mojang (creator of Minecraft) only confirms that since Microsoft purchased Mojang. There is no exclusivity of Microsoft with … Microsoft.
Again, I do not understand your argument about devs paying rent, etc. Majority of games are not exclusives on Epic (or any other store, except if they sell it themselves). Thus, there must be a way to do so without being exclusives. And if you are talking about support in terms of investments and advancements - publishers do that. They did it forever for PC games, nothing was broken to fix it by exclusivity.
publishers do thatYes, and the game’s publisher has an exclusivity deal in place and the devs can’t turn around and decide to give their game to another publisher.
Exclusivity deals has been part of art history (and employment in general) forever. There’s nothing new about what Epic is doing. You see it for music composers, visual artists, poets, even writers! But somehow PC game devs are in a different category and are supposed to just hope for the best and release on platforms that doesn’t give them a guaranteed compensation for their work… Well I say good for them if both systems exist now!
nothing was broken to fix it by exclusivityIf it was the case, devs wouldn’t sign those deals. They’re not new and there’s nothing to be happy about that the biggest distributor on the market doesn’t have to give any income guarantees to the people that put in the hours to create the product that they sell.
How hard is it to understand that it’s guaranteed income and that is important to some people? There’s a whole lot of things that the majority of people do that a minority isn’t comfortable with, that argument is extremely weak.
Go check /r/gamedev and you’ll find tons of discussions of people that thought they were releasing something that would financially compensate for all the time they spent on it and for having to leave their job to work full time on their project only to see it fail miserably because no one paid attention to it no matter the quality while they saw another product of similar quality get picked up by a steamer and it just exploded in popularity.
You never answered the question, do you have a job or expect to make it by winning the lottery?
Steam controller support is so far ahead of everybody else I find myself launching other games/launchers through Steam just to get it.
Tried to get my controller to register in Jedi Fallen Order and the solution was not to add the game but the EA launcher itself as non-steam game.
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.
So GOG doesn’t exist?
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.
A home NAS should also have redundancy. At the price you’re quoting Backblaze would become more expensive than my current NAS setup in about what? 8 months?
Cloud storage is not worth the money.
Your home NAS being at your home means you don’t have redundancy for many things that can happen to your home PC (electric issues, fire or water damage, theft,…).
Yup, at minimum you’d need another NAS off site (say, at a friend’s house) so you always have a copy. I have my NAS in a mirror to ensure I can recover if a drive fails, so that would mean 4x the cost of whatever storage size you need if you want to ensure your data stays safe.
Just some quick math, a WD Red Plus 10TB drive costs $190. So that’s $19/TB, and they have a 3-year warranty (used to be 5), so let’s assume they last 3-5 years. I need four drives minimum (two sets of mirrors), though if I have a lot of data and drives, that’ll go down (e.g. if I can use RAID 5 or RAID 6, I need less parity):
19 * 4 / 3 = $25/year 19 * 4 / 5 = $15/yearSo $15-25/year, or $1.5-2/month, which comes with a few caveats:
- can’t easily expand storage (e.g. can’t just add 1TB), so need to overbuy; I have 8TB storage, but use less than half of that, so probably double the above cost
- ignores PC costs, which can be hundreds every few years ($5-10/month) to replace aging components (esp PSU and RAM),; ideally get ECC RAM to reduce risk of bit rot
- ignores electricity - assuming 100W, running 24/7, and $0.12/KWh, that’s ~$9/month
There is a crossover point at which self-hosting is cheaper, but if you only need 1-4TB of storage, something like Backblaze is probably cheaper. But as you get bigger, the NAS looks more attractive.
Alright, so you’re telling me I should invest year 2 of a Backblaze sub in having a second NAS set up off-site?
That still pays off pretty quickly.
Alright, look, in all honesty, what you want is to mix and match. I’m not gonna sit here and break down my entire data storage strategy, but you do want multiple solutions in parallel. The point of NAS is that you get mass storage you fully control, so it’s most cost effective for things that are huge and that you want on hand. Like, say, backing up your physical media or your digital purchases. That’s pretty close to good enough, since you probably retain access to your disks or your subscriptions and the NAS acts as a backup anyway.
Sure, despite my UPS protection and data redundancies my NAS could be nuked froom orbit and all of the stuff in it could die. And Google Drive could at some point decide to just poof six months of user data into the ether. What you really want is two separate backup solutions. Just don’t go nuts and acknowledge that your source media is also a copy of your media. This is an expensive rabbit hole. I still wouldn’t pay thousands of dollars a year for somebody else to run my mass storage. It’s more cost effective to keep the huge stuff in a NAS and perhaps a backup in a DAS box somewhere. Unless you’re curating a museum or doing life and death research that’s probably more than enough security for your media files.
Digital degrades faster than physical, and if youre trying to preserve things you do not want to be leaving it in a digital rental storage.
Especially files that you license, not technically actually own, like almost all digital games.
Citation needed.
Degradation can be handled by using filesystems (ZFS, BTRFS) and hardware (ECC RAM) to catch and fix degradation. Any cloud storage system worth paying for will do that for you. I trust something like Backblaze far more than DVD for data storage.
Digital media has a shelf life of 5 years before damage, even sooner if the hard drive sits unrun. CDs have 50, and thats just the rewritables.
If you are trusting a for-profit company to maintain your preservation attempts, youre as dumb as those poor bastards stuck with discontinued and unsupported eye and ear implants who suddenly lost vision and hearing when the company stopped maintaining the software.
Especially if you are trying to preserve any data you legally do not own. They arent your friend, youre barely their customer, and they will dump you and your data the second it might make them more money or cause them less legal trouble.
Digital media has a shelf life of 5 years before damage
Again, citation needed.
This really depends on how the data is stored. If it’s on a crappy USB drive, 5 years is generous. If it’s on a ZFS or BTRFS drive in RAID with ECC RAM and hardware is replaced as it fails, it’ll last potentially indefinitely.
And 50 years is really generous. I’ve lost, broken, or damaged most of the game disks I’ve ever owned, and I’m far younger than 50yo. Yeah, if you don’t touch it and leave it in a box for 50 years, it’ll probably survive (assuming you don’t have a fire or something), but I’m guessing that’s not going to be the case.
data you do not legally own
If it’s pirated, you can probably just re-pirate it in 50 years. If you just lost the license due to a company going under, you’re unlikely to be sued.
Regardless, it’s easy to encrypt your data so scans don’t pick it up. Just store the keys (and instructions so you remember) in a few other places. Many services offer a free bottom tier, and keys are unlikely to be more than a few kilobytes.
I know you can google “X media option degredation.” You do not need me to link you to a search engine. If youre advocating methods of preservation, you should already know this information.
But if you think paying a company for cloud storage is “potentially indefinite,” I dont think you should be giving preservation advice.
Especially with a sentence like “you can probably just re-pirate it in 50 years.” Thats so completely nonsensical.
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.
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…
EA would pull their own games from Steam before they would ditch their own launcher…
But, counterpoint: EA would pull their own games from Steam before they would ditch their own launcher.
Yup, sounds like a win win to me.
I bought an Index bc I thought it was truly promising. It certainly delivered with games like Alex and Boneworks. I’m sad that there is so much proprietary bs and I don’t get some really good titles.
Still better than Meta vr headset
Indeed but I’d love to play Asgard’s Wrath 2 ever.
Valve’s VR efforts have cooled—the all-in-one Meta Quest 3 is the headset to get right now
Fuck Meta, Valve Index is still better
Been collecting games since 2007 - I love my untouched library.
Amass ! AMASS !!
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.
edit: i do not think less of people for using steam! i just like the idea of having friends who share my personal philosophies. im aware that im abnormal, lol.
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!
Whwthetnetfn
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.
You don’t own games generally. It’s always a license for software use. You may own the game, if you buy the company and the license is fully under its control.
Software is not a product. And there is no guarantee you will be able to run it forever, even if you made a copy of your entire setup. It’s especially the case with Windows, because it’s bound to a specific hardware that will break one day. Microsoft also cares less and less about gamers (see what they do with their operating system for consumers) and they have a way out with XBox. My bet is that Windows is not making money for Microsoft anymore and it will degrade more and more. Gabe knows it and has a strategy against it. If you’re a gamer and want have games on PC, use Linux and support the good cause.
Way ahead of you. Been a Linux user for half my life :)
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.
they’d get way more of my money.
Which they’d better invest into improving the Linux technology stack, just like Valve does.
That’s not a requirement, my only requirement is that playing their games on Linux is a good experience.
I’d probably keep buying many games through Steam because:
- GOG doesn’t have everything I want to play
- GOG probably wouldn’t work as nicely on my Steam Deck
But if GOG worked well on my desktop, I’d prefer buying games from them when they have it and the experience is smooth.
haha lutris is more than satisfactory for me
What is it about people here thet worship this company. I can remember several years ago people screaming about how much they hate them.
I use Linux, they’re pretty much the only ones that support Linux, so they get my support. It’s pretty simple.
I used Linux before Steam on Linux was a thing, so I went from pretty much no games available to lots of selection to almost partity with Windows, all because of Steam.
I’m not sure about others, but that’s my reasoning.
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.
I don’t like that steam is a de facto monopoly but it’s up to their competitors to make a better product. Steam has features that benefit users, like steam input and remote play together, that other launchers are light years away from. Steam also doesn’t require drm, it’s just offered to devs to use at their discretion. Lastly, steam let’s developers generate as many keys as they want and sell them off platform. The only requirement is that pricing has to have parity.
For a monopoly, they are shockingly consumer friendly.
Exactly. And Steam invests in Linux as a first class platform. I have used Linux since well before Steam had a client, and they won me over by actually porting their client, and they continue to earn it by making more and more games available to me.
No other platform seems to care, so I don’t care about them. I’m pretty easy to please, just make your platform available, and integrate some way (that already exists) for me to try to play Windows games through the client. That’s it, and I’m not firm on the Windows games thing (e.g. I’d buy Linux games from GOG if they just port their client or officially mention support for Heroic, that’s it).
I agree. I would love to have an alternative, but there just isn’t one, and I don’t think it’s Valve’s fault.
Valve also hasn’t really done what other monopolistic companies have done, which is use their advantages to expand into other areas and crush the smaller players there.
They have hardon for Gabe.
