We also need laws that stop publishers gatekeeping products after they've been sold, like requiring I sign up for an account in order to play after no such requirement was initially there. Companies (this goes beyond gaming now) are so comfortable these days changing their licensing agreement for products AFTER you've purchased and agreed to the initial terms. It's unethical and its mind boggling that it's not illegal. If I refuse to accept new terms.. what.. can I get a refund? I think not.
Exactly. People quickly forgot about Capcom's recent (Jan 2024) attempt to retroactively install additional DRM to all their previous games. The fact that gamers let this stuff slide the moment companies back down, or offer freebies as an apology, just shows how these companies get away with stuff that should be illegal.
I agree, once an agreement is agreed to a user should not need to agree to a new one, effectively forcing people to read what are often very long very technical documents full of legal speak several times just to continue using what they pay for. Having accounts for these things only makes it more annoying. Yes, it's nice to have a bonus like saving progress across devices for a game, but when absolutely everything requires an account, which often come with their own constantly changing terms outside of the game's unique ones, it only doubles down on the issue.
"These games aren't ours" Look, when I buy a game on Steam, I consider it MORALLY mine. As such, I can download it any time I want, from a legitimate source or otherwise, and save it on a USB stick. The devs have been paid and that game is now mine, whether Steam likes it or no.
@@maalikserebryakov so nintendo is the better guy? i remember people streaming their games and nintendo CRACKED DOWN saying you dont own this game. you dont have the RIGHT to showcase our games. and emulators are ILLEGAL even if you bought the game. they will take your shit down.
@@maalikserebryakov When we pay for something, by definition we own it. If you buy a television, you own the television. You buy a movie, you own the movie. This is basic supply and demand. If we rent something, then that means we are paying to borrow it, like a subscription or a library book. If we took without paying, that is stealing and that is criminal. But if we buy to own, then legally (and morally) it is ours.
@@maalikserebryakov Bullshit. I cracked DRM in iTunes for movies and you could legally buy these programs because I had the RIGHT (by LAW) to have a "platform-independent" backup copy. This meant cracking DRM, no matter what Apple said in their ToS. Those (50+) movies were (and still is, as HD MP4 files!) "mine". I "own" it, and I make goddamn sure it stays so and not just a "license" in my iTunes library. Nothing criminal about it.
Some moron tried to defend it by saying ''you're buying a license not a physical piece of property'' *(ignore the fact that they were bundling steam onto physical disks like skyrim to force you to download steam and make an account to play the disk you bought)*
@@itsasecrettoeveryone7158 The only reason why they did that was so it would prevent you from ripping it and illegally distributing since you'd have to bypass the DRM
You took the words right out of my mouth!🤣🤣👍🏼👍🏼 I dont play PC at least not yet but yea so true! Sony just came out with a "Digital" playstation trying to eliminate the disc. Imho id rather pay for a hard copy bcus i like replaying my games from time to time and sum times i like to play the vanilla version of a game without all the upgrades that they put on these games nowa days.❤❤❤ Like Bethesda games i like playing with the bugs and glitches its alot of fun! I mean isnt that why games were made to be played an have fun with?!?! Hell i jus bought Skyrim for like the 3rd or 4th time since its release date in 2011 and its jus as fun now as it was back then!!❤❤❤
@@tacklebox8020 i used to buy the physical disc from stores for my pc too , however all that happens now is it installs a preloader to then download the game basically no point in paying more for a physical copy of the game which you then own outright only to still need to download the game
@@williamyoung9401 To be fair; there's nothing Valve could change there really. The license is between the copyright holder and you - Valve just processes it.
@@christopherzajonskowski7123 it is not an official license...that is the entire problem with this...they are using 'licensing' contract termonology when there is no contract that takes place....a PURCHASE or a RENTAL is what takes place and they just don't want to use that language because they know it'll F their 'sales'
A Statement from a True Gamer: I used to pirate all my games back in the day, but over time, I bought all of them. Believe it or not, 90% of my current Steam library started as pirated games. Only 10% were initially purchased directly through Steam. If this new law sticks around, I’m not ashamed to say that I’ll go back to piracy and stop buying games altogether. Piracy actually turned me into a paying customer! Now, it seems like the industry is pushing me back to piracy. If buying a game doesn’t mean I truly own it, then piracy isn’t really stealing it!
I haven't purchased a game (non-physical) since 2016, while i stopped for different reasons, the ownership and rights issues of digital goods is really starting to show cracks with Disney changing their content, content disappearing, Crunchyroll and Sony removing (or intending to) purchased content due to licenses, Steam removing music from GTA games, Amazon and sony deleting books/games from your physical kindle/Playstation. These are not right. All digital media should have a physical counterpart, the digital part as 'convenience' and the physical part your actual product you purchased.
You have always purchased a license to play a game. This is how it has always been. Even with physical copies it says in the fine print you purchased a license.
When I buy things from Steam, I put it on my wishlist and wait for it to become dirt cheap before buying. I am not going to buy games for full price that are not legally mine.
That’s what I’ll do. I hate HATE buying any digital games because I want to be able to touch my stuff physically. I was born in the 90’s so I will always prefer hard copies of my games. My friend is giving me his old gaming laptop and I’ll have access to all his games on steam and whatnot but if I decide to buy another game there I won’t be spending an arm and a leg for a game I won’t own. That’s asinine!
@@toegap202 digital is a scam. They lied to us, if they go digital, it will be cheaper for us. We knew it was a scam, but we did not do nothing. (I stopped buying their games, but that was obviously not enough.) Indie devs could bring back physical stuff, games like Dead Cells or Hades with the it hurts me to say, but old school supporter deals, like statues, books etc.
Well back in the day they used to push digital as being the future as it would be cheaper as they wouldnt have to pay all those costs for physical disc making and transport and shops taking a cut...yet the prices never went down lol. People just accepted the price was the same over time
Most of the games I buy on Steam I wait for a sale of 60% or more because I feel that way. If I'm not getting a physical copy that I own I'm not paying that much.
When you buy a physical copy it will say in the fine print on the back that you have purchased a license to use the game. This is how it works for all software.
@@hugo1593 that is only there so you can't make for example official stories or games with their characters. If you buy a loaf of bread, do you buy a license to use a bread? They can only do this, because people accepted it, the moment people sue then and win it is over
I already noticed this for long time, even the launcher is sucks and unoptimized compared to epic launcher. I always got visual glitches and its slow af (for my old ass laptop). The only good thing about steam is a discount and lots of game libraries
Why is no one mentioning this is not just a 'Steam' issue? Every single digital storefront that sells games as licenses *MUST* do this in the following months, to comply with the new law. That includes Origin, the Ubisoft store, and every single other one of them. Steam just went ahead and did it now to avoid dealing with headaches in the future, I don't know why everyone and their mother are framing this everywhere as if it's Steam being 'the only greedy bad guy'. GOG went ahead with a funny snarky comment, but even GOG *HAS* to comply and announce on their site that they also sell licenses, just go read GOG's EULA and you'll see they're clearly selling you licenses. Just because GOG's DRM is way more favourable to customers and allows you to download and safekeep your games at any time, doesn't mean they are not selling licenses. Steam has already said in the past in the unlikable yet possible event they'd have to close their storefront, the games would be available for ayone to download most probably in a similar way to what GOG has. The only difference is the DRM each platform has in place.
@@hawkname1234 It doesn't. What I am saying is that every company that has to apply to this, will have to follow through, not just a handful ones. Also, Valve's Headquarters are located in Bellevue, Washington. Your point?
@hawkname1234 Do you think that GDPR applies to companies to companies not located in the EU then? If not, why does every site we go to display these annoying cookie notices then? It's because these companies do business with EU citizens and thus have to follow EU law to do business there. Same deal with this California law. Any digital store front that sells goods to California citizens must comply, at bare minimum, for California residents. In practice becausedit takes work to determine the buyers location and display different store fronts. For a regulation like this, it's just cheaper to apply the new rules to everyone. Like it or not, everyone has to comply if they want to continue to sell in the US's largest state.
I grew up buying boxed games throughout the 80's and 90's, from C64 through A500 and eventually on to PC, so this entire situation is just insane. It's hard to not miss the joy of going to your local store and picking up a game, or ordering them through companies like NRG where you'd get a monthly mini-magazine to drool over the latest titles. There was the unboxing, going through all the goodies that came along with it while it either loaded or installed, and then enjoying the game whenever you wanted - internet connection or not. Buying a game used to be an entire experience, now it's just been reduced to a left click completely devoid of any soul whatsoever. Moreover, developers originally said that switching to digital downloads would mean cheaper prices because we're not "paying" for all the goodies; the box, the disk, shipping/logistics etc - but prices have gone up. Not only that, it turns out we aren't even buying our games outright on Steam et al. I feel sorry for people who have never known life without internet, because while it may sound corny, life was in fact better before it went mainstream. The internet has provided a lot of good to the world, but it has simultaneously destroyed so many facets of life that we used to enjoy you have to wonder whether it's gone too far. Never underestimate the propensity for big corpos to take something with amazing potential and then use it to eviscerate your life.
I remember those days. I also, in Washington State, remember paying a SALES TAX on them while Bill the Borg insisted it was just a license. If I paid a sales tax, it's a sale of a product, not a license for a product.
@@hugo1593 When did I argue anything different to buying a license? My whole point is that you used to get a finished game on physical media, in a box set with all sorts of goodies that went along with it. Code wheels, cloth maps, miniatures, huge manuals that not only covered how to play the game but often had a comprehensive back story. Software licensing has been a thing since software itself was a thing. No one disputes that, but the current model is akin to SaaS (albeit with a one time fee) vs a perpetual license that you operate locally. Think of older AutoCAD versions using flexnet with a license file for perpetual licenses, where you could use the software until the world stopped spinning. Once modern games etc are taken offline you quite often can't play them any more, whereas old boxed games will work ad infinitum. They don't rely on servers being available, nor do they have to contact any DRM server to ask whether you can play the game or not. Perhaps you missed the point of the OP?
Some Valve employees tried to get Gabe to make a statement during BLM, Gabe gave each employee $100K to donate to the charity they wanted to shut them up. There are already corporate slugs in the company.
@@IAmOneAnt plans can fail. If we're being real, there are some amazing sociopaths that can turn face the moment they get in control. And they love being on top.
The issue for me is not that we don't own this stuff, it's that we need CLEAR, CONCISE, PLAIN ENGLISH DESCRIPTIONS - ON THE PRODUCT PAGES - OUTLINING UNDER WHAT CIRCUMSTANCES WE WILL LOSE ACCESS TO THE PRODUCT. Not buried in a tech jargon eula, I want simple English that informs me a product can be removed from my account because the developer feels like it, or if I use a mod, or if it rains for 2 days straight, if I call someone a mean name in a private chat, or if a publisher no longer wishes to keep a server online when a game doesn't explicitly NEED it to function in a limited way. THIS is what matters, so we don't have another ubisoft crew debacle.
If this becomes a thing, every company would just say "you lose it whenever we say so or whenever our services no longer function", which covers every base. Anything less is risk that they're not. I mean, that's basically what they put in those EULAs too, y'know?
Honestly, it's really not tech jargon. It's pretty clearly stated in there. You just have to read it. And I cannot get behind any babysitting measure. The consumer has the obligation of doing their due diligence to know what they are buying. it's shouldn't be the company's obligation to put everything in huge red flashing letters... End of the day, if push comes to shove, it's the EULA that will have any legal value, not the store description. So it's the consumer's obligation to read it.
@@HotSkorpion there needs to be a law where if they change the Eula, they have to give you the choice of refunding back all your money if you don't agree with the new terms of service, or grandfather you in with some of the old terms of service agreements.
TLDR is YOU DON'T OWN ANYTHING They can revoke access to your account whenever they want if they feel like it and some people do get that like I did for making friends of steam moderator mad just had my steam account revoked for 2 days and I had to argue with steam moderator who ignored the context of the whole message to then determine the ban was justified because they ignored the whole message insane
I don't want to buy a license to play a game - I want to buy a game; If not physically then I want to own the game digitally. I don't want to own a license to play the game; I want to own the game. 6:04 THERE IT SAYS: Purchase of digital product. I purchased the digital product. It grants a license for it on steam, yes, additionally to the purchase of the digital product I get a license for it on steam. But whatever the full terms and condistions say: I purchased the game digitally!
I like the fact that California actually refers to games as digital "GOODS" and not "services". This legal precedent could be very important to future gamers!
@@nullpoint3346 California does a lot of good actually. It just gets over shadowed by all their nonsense. Take for example privacy. California has some of the most strict privacy laws in the WORLD.
I agree with GOG's approach 100%. I'm not buying Steam games so much anymore until there's a guarantee that we will have access to games that we purchased even if we lose access to our own Steam account.
yap i've rebuid my steam already partially on gog with massive discounts, funnily enough i still got a lot of these games still refundable, gonna be a big cashback i guess.
Didn’t think GOG would be mentioned. Glad it is. I love steam. I do. But if GOG has the same game on steam I usually buy on GOG. The security GOG provides can not be understated. I own everything I buy. It doesn’t force me to launch any other launchers. DRM free. And it’s the perfect platform for the preservation of classic games.
"I own everything I buy." No you don't. GoG only sells licenses no different than any other digital store. You can access games you purchase that get removed from the store, but the same is true for all those games on Steam. GoG games don't feature intrusive DRM or external launchers, sure, but not because the devs heed their demands. Publishers don't NEED the small GoG sales numbers, so they just won't put it on the platform if they don't want to go through the trouble of complying. I like GoG as much as the next guy but don't glaze them as if they're some sort of heroes when they're barely different from Steam beyond having stricter standards and less games because for it.
Steam wins me on convenience and friends seeing what I have in library. But I am also a games preserver in principle, so I am also consciously aware that I'm acting against my own interests a bit with unnecessary Steam buys, lol
@@John_1-1_in_Japanese You are flat out wrong. Any game you buy from GoG you can download an offline installer and never need to log in to GoG to play it.
So uh, if I buy a game on GOG, do my achievements tie to my Steam profile? Do I get multiplayer access to Steam users, across every multiplayer game that both platforms support? Does the GOG platform give me access to 99.99%+ of every PC game ever published? These are _insurmountable_ concerns.
The problem I experienced is that all the Ubisoft games I owned on Steam came with a pop-up notification upon reinstallation, requiring me to agree that I did not own the game through Steam in order to proceed with the installation. The issue is that I had no option to decline this updated agreement without losing access to my purchased game. Declining the terms didn't result in a refund or any compensation; instead, Ubisoft effectively held my purchased license "hostage" until I accepted the new, more "clarified" agreement.
It is a good change in law, though. If the page says "buy, purchase" - it stands to reason that you are BUYING the product. You don't say that you buy a service, do you? You don't buy a haircut, or a repair in garage, or service of a plumber. You don't buy movies in a rental shop. But you suddenly buy games. No game service I have EVER seen, be it steam, or really anywhere else for that matter states that you are buying access which may be revoked, that you are buying a license. It is always "purchase Mass Effect", "buy Resident Evil" not "buy license for X/Y/Z". The license agreements are always hidden withing the non-legally-binding EULAs, which are specifically designed to discourage reading them - and often contain all sorts of absolute nonsense - the infamous iTunes license comes to mind - prohibiting you from... using the program to make weapons of mass destruction - I'm not even kidding.
What do we do with the grey areas where a physical product and a service are bundled by the way. Can a mobile phone that comes with a service contract no longer be called a purchase anymore? The world has been more complicated than that simplistic concept of a purchase since a long time before digital game distribution became a thing. Various items of telephony or satellite/cable TV equipment had been sold with an attached service agreement to be able to use some or all of it. This has been grey for a long time, less useful than splitting hairs over words would be to have a summary of the terms of sale shown explicitly actually list out the termination clauses and other relevant limitations. Doesn't need full legalise just the plain English we reserve the right to revoke access for X, Y, and Z. Basically it should be like when you walk into a store to buy a contract phone where the employees are legally required to go over the particulars of the included service contract and make sure the customer understands the scope of what they are agreeing to.
@@MichaelGGarry While your are technically correct, every-time you exchange money for something, you buy it. In my experience it isn't really common, to say that you bought a service and instead say that you paid for it. That would apply to haircuts, repairs, etc. But not Tickets, because the Ticket is not a service(just as a license). I don't live in a English speaking country though, so my experience is influenced by only experiencing English through media(TH-cam/Movies/Games)
You purchase a cinema ticket. With the ticket you don't own shit. Same for every other admission ticket. They can destroy it to mark it as used or keep it and exchange it for a wristband or stamp.
A few years ago, the internet in my area completely shit the bed. I don't remember the details, but basically, it was down. The first night of no internet, i went onto my PC to unwind and play some games, thinking I could just play my already installed games. I booted Steam, selected the option Offline Mode, and then sat there dumbfounded as it basically told me that to play offline, I needed to go online, so I had the right to play offline. What in the actual fuck is the point in an offline mode, if I can't even use it when something like a random outage hits. I have no idea if it is still this way now, but it was on that night I became aware about how little ownership of "my" games I really had.
@@catalyst772 I wish, but no. I don't honestly understand how it works, but when this happened I hadn't been online that day (obviously), so I guess Steam wanted some kind of online check in, which is all well and good until you get a totally random internet outage and haven't been online on your PC at all that day.
I have often stated that the issue with software purchases isn't a matter of physical vs digital, it's DRM vs no-DRM. If you buy a game with DRM, even on a physical media, you might lose access to that game over time. But if you buy a DRM free game, you can download it and play it for as long as you have hardware to do so. Multiplayer complicates things, and if you don't have the option for local hosting you might lose multiplayer access over time, but even then unless the game is multiplayer only you can still play the game.
Correct. That is exactly the conversation that needs to happen. But most people still get stuck in the delusion that physical means ownership and the real issue gets completely diluted. This measure changes nothing apart from catering to a bunch of whiners that can't be arsed to read the contracts of what they buy.
@@HotSkorpion people also don't know how the license works, because they think "license = expiration date" but the license lasts as long as you have the license, even if on digital no company can delete your files because that's a violation to the license, Ubisoft tied The Crew's functions with the DRM but technically you still own the license, but can't use the game due to DRM. Also I'm tired of "if buying isn't owning, piracy isn't stealing thing" not only it has been said to the point where I decide to ignore the entire argument, it only shows the general misinformation the public has because they don't read the fucking documentation, that explicitly says license and explicitly says that you are only able to use the product and not reproduce it and redistribute it. Piracy isn't stealing, it's copyright infringement.
the comments anywhere regarding about this topic are largely uneducated and full of misinformation, yes, its sad. i've looked into news articles comments and they are the same. games on steam has always been licensing, but nobody ever read them. it is only until now these people find out and they're complaining.
not allowing local hosting/private servers is entirely greed driven, they want control of everything so they can try to scam you into further payments..
@@rodh1404 ah yes… the famous no longer supported DRMs which brick your CD or DVD on modern Windows… so you have to install old Windows versions on old Hardware … to get anywhere… while in general it is doable, having multiple machines to play something is not really logical for most of the users… so yeah… even physical doesnt mean perpetual… just as long as supported or … as long as the activation server works… mind you; if it is no longer supported or the developer / distributor gave up on the game (no servers to activate) then i’d argue that cracking the game should be LEGAL. if there is no intention from EA for example to support any current game in the future (just an example) then they either should release a patch to make it open and free, or stop acting like a b**ch if someone actually cares about the game and makes it available for others. anyway…
I joined Steam once, for Stardew Valley. I will never, ever, join Steam again because I hate renting anything. I hate being told how and when, and how long I'm allowed to use something I've paid for. When I started playing games, they came on physical media which stayed in my possession until /I/ decided I would never play them again. Consumers these days are paying a very high price for what amounts to a 'rental'.
Once again, just a reminder - no developer/publisher selling on Steam is forced to use the DRM. You can sell your game on Steam with no launcher requirement - you could even provide two executables if you wanted, with one being the Steam exe for achievement integration etc. Everybody acting like it's Steam vs GOG. It's not - it's developers and publishers CHOOSING to use the DRM with no alternative provided.
It's developers choosing to have their work pirated by being dicks about drm .. I 100% will not tolerate denuvo on my computer, but i'll still play your game.
@@jase276 Evidently customers don't really care either. They like to talk big, like to whine a lot, but they'll still throw money around like confetti.
@@jase276 And your point is...? Steam cares about developers as much as consumers, if developers wanted to put out onto GoG, they would've by now given how easy it is and it speaks for itself.
also, you can build your game, set it doesn't need steam to run, but if it runs, that you get the achievements). example: i think all paradox developed (not published games), at least Stellaris
If Valve really has such a killswitch, wouldn't it be logical to activate it for games that have already been delisted? Why would Battlefield 2 need DRM protection if EA cares so little about it they don't even acknowledge its existence? *Edit since there seems to be some confusion:* Battlefield 2 does NOT have DRM. If you bought it on Origin (when that was a thing) you got a DRM-free copy of the game, Steam is the only place where BF2 had DRM protection and it was not requested by EA to implement.
I don't think Steam has legal rights to switch off DRM like that. If there is a DRM killswitch then there's also some significant language buried in the contracts between developers and Steam that details when and how it can be used. Having said that, I do wonder what the purpose of said killswitch would be. If Steam dies then it's not like people have the HDD space to install all their games or save an offline installer, and with Steam dead there wouldn't be an online source for installers either. What it ends up meaning is that a tremendous amount of money paid by customers that permanently disappear at the press of a button.
@@Monochromatic_Spider the drm killswitch was only ever designed to remove steams own launcher drm. That way any game that doesn't have 3rd party drm can be played without contacting steam servers. 3rd party drm would still have to verify itself online.
Delisted doesn't mean you can't download it if you owned it. When Disney removed the Deadpool game from stores, I was still able to download it from Steam since I owned it. There is only VERY rare instances of Steam proactively removing games from people's libraries. Those have been in the case of actual scams.
@@BloodwyrmWildheart wait, are you banned from Steam, which means you can't even log in anymore or are you just banned from the Forums and Community sections? "Certain opinions simply aren't allowed on there." Well duh, Valve is on Sweet Baby Inc.'s Client List. Of course they won't allow politically incorrect opinions.
@@BloodwyrmWildheart I doubt you were banned for "opinions" if that means you can't access your games anymore. If you mean "Community banned", then that is not related to the comment you replied or the video at all
@@BloodwyrmWildheart You are only community banned or banned on the forums if it's opinions that is listed as reasons. To actually get your account locked to the point where you can't use it involves a fraud. Your games are unaffected by any forum bans or community bans btw.
7:43 Yes. One point: both Steam and GOG sell game licenses, which gives the buyer the right to use the games for which they bought the licenses. But on Steam, apparently the game license is not meant to grant perpetual (or “unrestricted”) ownership of the usage rights. While on GOG, that seems to be the case. In other words, it makes sense to speak of “perpetual licenses” versus “restricted” or “terminable licenses”, rather than saying that it is “buying just the license” in one case and “buying the game” in another case. ( - I know, people feel about it that way, but as users / consumers are learning about their actual rights, it makes sense to give them a good way to talk about this.) Users of software generally only buy licenses that grant them usage rights, not other rights to the software, such as the right to the receive the source code and assets, or the right to change the software or to redistribute or sell it. - That is what various variants of Open Source are about.
I feel like Steam’s license thing is at least DECENT since their terms are pretty fair; basically don’t do super illegal shit and the license is good for life (from what I remember). Still easily one of the best game distribution platforms, second to GOG, and I feel like this was largely Valve wanting to be honest on their own terms before they’re legally required to be such. But I still agree with that “buying not owning, piracy not stealing” thing. We absolutely need physical ports of our games more often, some way to download the games offline to our hard drives directly, or at least make the digital ports heavily discounted (half of the retail price, tops). It’s just that Valve fair from the start with this whole thing. Certainly better than Sony and EA.
not really. Recently got a 3 month community ban over a corrupt dev not liking me because I had some minor bans back in 2018. If thats "fair" then I dont know what to say. So essentially one slip or another corrupt mod and BAM im banned for life
@@deathtrooper2048 Repeat: I still advocate for physical copies. I’m not trying to defend the digital-only factor of Steam: my point is that their terms are pretty good if you MUST use it.
you realise that microsoft and apple have been using this "licencing" of software to normalise it for years, and everyone is only just waking up to it because it games. What about your licenced operating system. This is where the problem originated and will persist from.
@@BloodwyrmWildheart its very devious. they bid their time for decades, normalizing it and getting people to believe they owned things. so now that they openly enforce it they get people saying "it was just a license all along lmao"
Yeah but the issue with it is people haven't had a problem with this because it's not common for you to have your software license revoked from a company unless you've committed some sort of fraud or theft on the company and gotten caught. It is an issue and bad practice, it's just that it hasn't worried people. It's worrying people in the gaming scene now, because companies like sony have been mass removing titles from their store, no warning. You can't play this title any longer. It hasn't been an issue with steam as of yet because they don't remove things from their store unless they're violating some international law of some kind. eg. Rimworld in australia. But it is something you must worry about anyway, because eventually somebody in the company could pull the plug on a ton of games once higher ups die or leave.
@@datriaxsondor590 the thing is 'owning' have a big implication on copyright. By owning, you have the rights to make copy and do whatever you want with it, including reselling the copy. Same limitations applies to CD and vinyls, you are not allowed to broadcast it on radio or other forms for example. The only way to buy a game and then owning it is buying a GPL/ MIT licensed game which is kinda moot cos the one buying it might just give away their copy for free just because.
Legit seems odd to me that we just assume after years and years that we do own them when infact it's by design that they hide that fact from us that we don't i feel a lawsuit coming about implied ownership through advertisement.
I hope Valve has some kind of plan for preserving our Steam libraries. I kinda hate this era of not owning anything and most things becoming lost media at some point.
"This era"? PC gaming has always been like this, especially when physical discs have become defunct. With Steam you have never owned anything, people need to stop acting brand new. All it takes is one greedy CEO after Gabe is gone
Isn't this mostly up to the developers to update/preserve games to be able to be ran an newer operating systems etc? Like it's not the grocery stores responsibility to keep breeding and maintaining chickens in order to make eggs they can sell.
Even physical media has its access revoked naturally. In 100 years - devices that read CD's will be artefacts, all the hard media preserved will decay, be lost or destroyed. Only what the future wants to remember will remain. Our steam libraries will not be something our children will want to preserve, they'll die with us. When we get to 70 years old we probably won't be logging in to play that much if at all, and all of that will die with us. Your life is finite, and so is this media.
Valve likely has their own version of steamless/smart steam emulator that they will release if valve servers ever have to shut down. But even if they don't, those tools exist. And yommso you own all the games you have downloaded. You should buy a backup HDD to archive yourself copies of your games.
The big thing being unreported here is that this isn’t just aimed at Steam; Sony and Amazon are in the sights. I’m pretty sure most digital stores are taking this one. There’s also the fact that this sort of issue applies to most digital stores, as does the legality problems brought up. Again Sony, Apple, probably Microsoft as well are subject to the overarching problem of how people deal with digital “ownership”.
its simple really, only bandcamp and gog seems to have no issue here. bandcamp, you can dowload your music. gog is the same. gog, even if you use the launcher, the game once installed can run without it.
Same thing with Amazon Prime. If you're not "purchasing" a movie when you select "purchase", that wording will have to be changed. It's extremely misleading because if Amazon loses the licensing to that movie you "purchased" (which happens quite often), it'll just disappear from your library.
also nietndo is the final boss and the usa new 2020 milluim copyright act amaments the usa goverment and fcc have preapred the ultame your giong to let everyone ememlutate your no longer sold game wither oyu like it or not. bacly its just says sell it in its orgnal state up to end of life or your giong to lose the albtry to leagly use drm on it BY LAW BEASCE ITA ALREADY LAW also we have been doing the whle stop killing games framwork behind the seanes bescue th3e usa govrment is sick of drm crap braking all of the goverments stuff even the usa milltrary for so long so we allready made a ammentent in 2020 that bacly says you don't sell it then NO DRM FOR YOU SELL IT OR NO DRM PREACTON ANYMORE. the mement you stop provading teh neans to satasfy demand due to your copny no onlger sellits bescue you don't wnt ot any more is not enothg you will sell it or you will lose drm legal proactions for usa copyright acts and laws. sell it or lose the bacly to enferce the lacance. bascly keep selling it and keep it actly depeopts or if you stop sorpting it then you can't use drm on it in a post market seting. bacly everytheng thats post market can be leagly euematied and downladed from teh intetnet arcive for free. this is waht the new usa millauim copyright act 2020 amentent states. very thing not sold and is post amrket is no longer consierd copyright comrsnal liacsne or drmcopyright memeuim act enforcaelbe and is no longer riascy deu to you have to bee seling it actvly witha up to date licanse agrement or they can downlaod it wihout it being priracy. you can't patrate soemthing if its not readly comernsaly accesble and sold then you can downald it and emeluate it all you want. the fbi is just sick and retied of compnys just slaping drm that braks everything for no reas reason to teh pont the usa mileuim copyrioght act had to make a amenment that sates you don't sell it anymore then too bad no more drm in post amrket non comreansly ablabie end of servace of the goods.
Even boxed copies of games historically were typically packaged with the same legal jargon. Idk if owning an installer means much actually. I do agree it's nice to see a politician that wants to bring attention to it.
I remember times when owning installer mean owning the game. You didnt need anything else, you didnt even need internet connection. You installed the installer and it worked. I still have some of these, recenty tried to install them for fun, most of them still worked after more than 20 years. Those which didnt work, it was because technical incompatibility with modern hardware, not because of ownership/licencing issues.
@@kryton7687 I'm pretty sure in an absolute sense that this was never true. Your _always_ owned a license to use software, you never actually owned the software. For the majority when physical media was the main distribution method this affected almost no one, BUT it still applied: If software came with 20% of it locked off because it was buggy/incomplete, the license you purchased did _not_ give you the right to that 20% locked off section. The Neo Geo port of _Metal Slug 5_ has an entire stage and boss disabled for some reason. There is no legal way to access that content. Even if you bought the Metal Slug V cart, what you actually purchased was the license to play _Metal Slug 5_ in the manner that SNK (the _actual_ owner of the game) deemed appropriate. As someone higher up stated, if you actually owned the game, you'd own the right to modify and redistribute it as you saw fit. Of course, pre-digital there wasn't any real way to enforce the fact that you don't actually own software. But it has always been thus. Digital distribution has made this conceit explicit, but it is not new.
@@kryton7687there wasn’t a time like that, though in practice you “owned” the game you were still getting licenses to play the games. If they for some reason revoked the license you technically would be playing it illegally. Though they couldn’t enforce it all that well. For the record I find it stupid, just pointing out the part they kept quiet for years.
@@AbcDefg-zt8xy Not exactly. Sure they save on shipping and distribution, but they have to maintain a server that hosts the game downloads and probably another for the licensing, and that running 24/7/365 isn’t cheap.
This is the part that has been bothering me. By selling it digitally it saves the company money from having to pay to manufacture the physical copies AND grants more rights at the expense of the consumer while also charging the exact same price. It's even worse on publishers own store fronts where they don't need to pay Steam or Walmart a large fee to 'stock' the games on.
What sucks though is a lot of times steam is the only option. Epic is horrible for not allowing offline play for offline games GOG doesn't have a lot of games (Metaphor) is one example and that just leaves steam. Not a lot you can do other than be tricky/smart to make sure steam can't take your games.
I'm not running an exe from an untrusted source in my environment. And I'm not building a whole separate network with restricted access to the internet and other devices just to do so. Besides it being cheaper to use GOG or buy older games on Steam even twice it is also illegal in most places.
nah, with the way they have been bundling backdoors into cracks, yall just putting a time bomb on your pcs. if you are too cheap to afford 80-90% off games in keysites or even steam itself, you should get a job, fr.
@@HookahOtaku key sites can still be immideately revoked. in fact many keys were revoked by the company so buying on a keysite is the same as buying off steam just worse because at any time for no reason the game is gonna be revoked. as for bundling backdoors into cracks, who specifically? given how many people are into pirating now you can spend some time to look who who cracked the game, the source of the file, the hash key, and you can reduce the chance of getting back door installed. Also lets not forget the fact DRM is a backdoor of its own because it runs kernal and connects to a server to be constantly updated. APEX legends had/has a backdoor into your PC and its not the only game with a RCE exploit/backdoor.
This is why physical copies of games are so much more better. You actually own the game that you’ve paid for I think now knowing this it will probably put me off buying any more games from steam if I don’t own that game what is the point of paying all that ridiculous amount of money for it Also on a sidenote rant why are we paying full price for a digital copy of a game? You could understand with a physical game because you have to produce it the materials et cetera why are we playing something that is digital and paying full price for it? If anything else it should be less because there’s no production going into it as much as a physical copy.
2:02 What kind of ban makes you "Loose everything" on steam? Complete "Account Suspension" that is issued when the account was stolen/or sold? Steam has different access controls, most of the time Steam only suspends player-to-player interactions. Like Community Ban, Profile Ban, Harassment Ban, VAC Ban, Trade Ban.
I've always known this, and its the biggest reason I will never pay full-price for games on STEAM. If I'm not getting full rights, I'm not giving full-price.
But can you EXPLAIN what those rights ARE? Most can't, and GOG is WORSE. The problem is that your license is tied to the account. GOG is the same, but provides no offline license. So GOG is distributing unlicensed software. This is the real reason why developers are skittish of gog, because they operate solely under the good faith premise. None of the games are registered offline to your account. Anyone can run the installer. If you lose the account, every single game is completely unlicensed. There's no crypto receipt, nothing. Steam at least requires you to run the offline mode through your account. No major productivity software will do business with GOG. It's all games that don't care about legality. As for the TRUE REASON why you don't get an offline license, that's because you're legally allowed to resell it, and none of these guys want legal resale to exist. They all want zero resale, even at the expense of piracy. You can sue a pirate, you can do nothing about resale.
@@JohnDoe-ip3oq Well, hate to break it to you, but some big developers have put faith in GOG, Baldur's Gate 3 and all of the Elder Scrolls games are on GOG, and everyone knows how Bethesda loves money. Ultimately GOG is just a place where people who want to pay for games can do so while fully owning the game (kinda), if someone was going to pirate a game, they would do it anyway, even if GOG didn't exist. (AKA, cracked steam versions) EDIT: changed some mispelling
@@meep7605 The only people who own games are the developer who has source code and publishing rights. GOG is essentially selling ROM files of games with no offline receipt. Some companies may agree, but you better believe Nintendo doesn't. That's why so many devs don't use GOG. They offer no offline proof you paid.
@@SherrifOfNottingham Nope, I own the physical media and everything on them. What are you going to do, break into my house and steal the discs from me? Dream on, bud. P.S.: EULAs aren't legally-binding.
This is EXACTLY how the AUTOMOBILE INDUSTRY got ridd off of their Competition. At the Turn of the Century we had 23 Car Companies. The Top 3 asked Government for Regulations killing the rest of the COMPETITION, with better cars, I might add!
I'm proud to be a pirate. I have been a software, music, tv and movie pirate since 2001 and I don't plan on stopping anytime soon. I even used to redistribute what I downloaded when I was in school and college. I was selling the US version of Manhunt 2 at my school here in the UK, even though the UK got a censored version and the US version was officially outlawed here. Used to make bank selling music albums and movies too. I don't redistribute anymore, but I still illegally download repacked games and watch TV and movies through an illegal IPTV app. I also convert TH-cam videos of songs to MP3 and download them to listen to them on my MP3 player.
I mean, if they're arguing that the games are on lease and not owned, they shouldn't have charged the same price as owning the game. I mean traditional game cost is understandable, they need to cover the cd/dvd price, the box design and manufacture,the logistics to ship the games and also the marketing. In digital format, they only need to prepare the server to download the game from and maybe some money for advertisement.
They get away with doing so because we consumers treat that lease as de facto ownership (when in fact it's not). That's the problem really. Problem is also that it's more difficult now to get buy-and-own copies that are launcher independent. People supporting subs keep saying "you'll still have the option to buy", but now those options are starting to disappear.
We never owned sh!t on steam. Savor it while it lasts, the moment Gabe passes away Steam will go upside down. Whether still private or not, nobody can replace another person and I highly doubt his son can do 1/100 of what Gabe did.
This disclaimer is not adequate to fit this law, in my opinion. 'Buy' still implies ownership. They really aught to say you are paying to 'borrow' the game. Or paying for a revokable permission to play a game. Steam's entire business model relies on the fact that the average consumer thinks they own what they paid for. With any other product, when you 'buy' it, you own it. If you buy a couch, the furniture company can't break into your house and take it while you're not looking. But steam and other companies are apparently allowed to just change the meaning of words whenever they want. This law is a good start, but it's not enough. Ideally it should be illegal to have such an anti-consumer terms of purchase... but that's never going to happen. The lobbying and bribery will make sure of that.
01:10 An off-line installer is meaningless if what it installs refuses to work without phoning home and checking if the company feels like letting you use what you bought. I bet the lawyer that wrote that felt pretty happy with the sneaky misleading phrasing they came up with...
@@erascarecrow2541 Again, they worded it very carefully, the installer might be perfectly harmless, but the app it installs may itself have built-in DRM. The installer can install the binaries, then you try to run the installed binaries and they behave in an unfriendly manner, and the carefully crafted disclaimer says nothing about the behavior of software the installer installs.
Why are people sooooooooooooooo shocked by this. This has been the way on steam FOREVER lol If people did not understand this it just shows how little ability of the populus has for even basic critical thinking in the modern world :) My objection is when you get a game on steam and then you also need to sign up for another launcher also to run it, that means I now have two points of failure for that game instead of one.
All of this is easy to resolve. 1. You buy a game you own it. It can be tied to that account but that account can be transfered through legal means like an estate. 2. ALL Single player modes are not managed under DRM/Anti-Cheat. It's single player people like to mod the things they should own. 3. Multiplayer is divided into two categories OPEN and Managed. Open is like LAN hosting/ Peer to Peer or external hosted servers. It is on those running/hosting the games to manage cheating and rules and bans. Managed would be software hosted solutions like for competitive gameplay. These would be on managed servers and would have EULAs enforcing w/e dumb rules peole think actually help. This could require an account and the account would be revokable. the company could monitize account creation in efforts to disuade cheating. The company MUST disclose all terms upon account creation. Like specifics on what data is being harvested from your machine and how they intend to use it. PS is right on 99% of things he is 100% wrong on this issue.
I fail to see the reason what people are fighting about. This new law changes nothing at all. I have a large steam library, but i dont have mindset of "i own them". I have the ability or license to play them and that's good enough for me. And it's not only steam that needs to comply to the new law other platforms are also required to do so. And i dont get why people are suddenly shilling GOG are you guys getting paid? Is this an ad campaign? If so, where do i sign up.
24 years ago there used to be protections in place for electronic goods concerning permanent ownership considering it was an actual physical asset or object that a person owned that desperately needs to be modernized in favor of permanent consumer ownership. If NOT then publishers and developers have no right to charge HUNDREDS of dollars for a digital product that has no worth or monetary value whatsoever as they are NOT PHYSICAL OBJECTS OR PHYSICAL MONETARY ASSETS THAT A CONSUMER OWNS IN WHICH MONETARY VALUE CAN BE PUT TO. P E R I O D!
Steam says what's been the truth for decades. You've NEVER owned your games. You purchases a license to run them. Some folks might be old enough to remember version upgrades like back when Adobe sold Creative Suite. You own CS1 and CS2 comes out. No you paid $499 for CS1 but Adobe will sell you an upgrade license for $199. When you do that, you can no longer legally give someone your CS1 key and you run your shiny new CS2. It works with other media as well. You never "owned" the music on your Vinyl, Cassettes, or CDs either. Same goes for works of art. You can own the physical "Guernica" by Picasso but that's all you own.
It's been at least 100 years of this and so many people don't realize it in the gaming argument. our N64 cartridges were a license, your cds were a license, movies in theatres? Yeah, that's just a license, they need to send back the film as part of the agreement. People seem to be confusing ownership and transferable licenses, You'll NEVER get ownership of a game because legally that implies the ability to modify, copy, and sell/distribute.
It's the comments section lawyers that are confused, here. All the "confused" people are talking about de facto ownership, which you are confusing for de jure ownership.
@@Bobo-ox7fj People also seem to somehow be mixing up DRM and licensing as if they're even remotely similar. As well as the people confusing licensing and cd keys. People are literally just getting angry without understanding what they're angry about. If licensing is what they have an issue with, they're about 100 years too late on that boat. If DRM is the issue, Idk why steam is catching the flak, that's entirely on the publishers.... TLDR ; The blind leading the blind is what the comments are like currently.
@@sakaraist Bs. They can use all the legal jargon they want, but old physical media you definitely "owned" in the sense that you could do whatever tf you wanted with it and the best they could do was drive down to your house, bust your door down, and bust your cheeks. You could play the games whenever you want, listen to the CDs and cassettes whenever you want, play the DVDs whenever you want. Lend them to whoever you want, edit them however you want, resell, etc. If, somehow, they found out illegally ripping it and distributing they could fine/sue you but you'd have to be shouting it from outside their HQ. The bluray era is when they could remotely revoke your DVD/movie and render your copy useless. And the PS4/Xbone era is when physical gaming died as half of the game wasn't even on the disc and they could issue a patch rendering the copy useless. That's why the industry has been trying to push digital and streaming so quick and hard.
@@jase276 Just because companies had less power in dealing with these issues doesn't make these just legal "jargons". You owned the licence to use and a piece of plastic. And your argument about doing tf you want can be said for anything be it crime, things that are legal but socially unacceptable and you don't get caught, you would have zero consequences for literally anything.
No user ever "owns" ANY software. You buy a license to use the software, not just on internet based copies, but also physical copies. In the user agreements it clearly states, in every one, that the agreement doesn't grant any right to own or alter the software. If anyone actually wants to own the software, then they need to create it from scratch.
Why even bother anymore. I set sail to the high seas long ago. Not willing to keep on funding greedy and corrupt corporations. Gaming industry can crash for all I care, there are so many great games from years back for a lifetime.
I think this gets blown out of proportion though. In a way you might as well say you do own them, because as long as steam exsists, you will always have those games. Even delisted games that loose the licence lets you redownload the game if you purchased it at that time it existed. So really, to me, i feel i own the games. People seem to think the games they actually own wont be playable anymore. It might be the case for online server related games, but if you purchased a single player game and the licence runout and it got delisted, you can still play the game. So whats all the fuss about ???
As long as Steam exists. That's the problem right there. Steam appears timeless right now, but it's not like timeless companies haven't up and vanished before. Data and physical media does get damaged, but you're within fair use to rip, enjoy and store what you bought differently from the medium you purchased it in. Keep in mind also that the criticism is about the mode of purchase, not the company you bought for. Maybe steam does last forever. Doesn't mean NewGameStudioLauncherStore does, and if/when they go under the library they're associated with goes with them. See Funimation/Crunchyroll merger as example.
Regulations are not always there to improve competition, they are also supposed to improve consumer protection. And regulation of some account access to an online service have nothing to do with ownership of an application.
When You Buy A Game On Steam It Is Considered By The Law As A PURCHASE FROM A RETAILER... That Is Required By Federal Trade Laws. That Is Also Part Of LICENSING LAWS. There Is No Such Thing As A Subscription For Individual Purchase Of Any Game, As You Are Granted A License By The Studio Who Produced The Game, "Which Most Game Studios Have You Verify During The Install". If Steam Attempts To Interfere In My Game License As A Purchase Facilitator, It Is A Federal Crime. Steam TOS Has No Authority Over Game Studio Licensing You Receive At The Time Of Install And Verification.
@@NicholasBrakespear easy thing to think about, lets say you want to pick appart a PC and see what makes it tick including the chips open them up etc, you end up not being able to use that hardware again so you have to buy it again. now software is different its a copy so no matter how many times you reverse engineer or pick it appart all you need is the backup of the files and continue using it, not the same ownership now is it?
software is easier to copy and then resell those copies cheaper online than it would be for physical products. much harder to 'copy' a table when for software its pretty much 4 button presses and a few seconds/minutes
Because this is what gamers have tolerated. It's sad, but these anti-consumer practices happen because of the large casual audience that doesn't give a fuck about these things
You own the copy, but not the right to use it. Because you cannot own the software itself due to Copyright you pay the dev/publisher for an authorisation to use it as they intend it to be used. If you break that, they can revoke that authorisation. It's always been that way. Enforcing it just became easier with digital and some publishers downright abuse it. But there have been cases in the past (extreme ones, of course) where the authorities did go into someone's house and took whatever copies of a software from them, followed by fines and legal action. This is precisely what gives them the right to enforce legal actions to Piracy. Piracy is nothing other than breaking copyright law and the terms of usage, and it is only possible to enforce precisely because you DON'T own the game. If you truly owned what you bought then it wouldn't be piracy in the first place would it?
Valve isnt going to compensate with other services, YOULL OWNNOTHING AND BE HAPPY, these days its all about changing industry standards, against the will of the consumer
I like that sellers are forced to be truthful in what is being sold. What i would have preferred is a popup thats says "this game is an online service. You buy a license and can play until game company decides to stop providing the server which can happen whenever the want to. Like next tuesday." And to be honest, gog ain't honest either. You don't own gog games. You own a license. Just like steam.
I "own" 1000's of dollars worth of games i purchased on steam over a very long time. If i lost access to my account or it was deleted or banned, i may as well just sell my PC and move into an Amish community.
The next change needed is to stop allowing a company to change the terms of a license you've purchased after you purchase it without offering you a refund. Since what you 'buy' is that license, with the terms of the license at that time you purchased it.
I legit hate steam for this practice, it is very anti consumer and it set a horrible precedent that lead to the games as a service nightmare we have today. If they cut the BS, tied multiplayer to the account for the sake of bannings and such, but the games themselves should remain available even if they get banned, just no more multiplayer access with that key tied to the account. This buying isn't owning thing is going to come back and hit them just like the way that their service beat out brick and morter store fronts, this is just going to reach a boiling point and the legal hammer is going to come down on someone and no one is going to be happy with the outcome.
I find it morally dubious that a company can add new conditions that can act retrospectively. If the condition wasn't in the agreement when originally transacted then it shouldn't be legally enforceable!
I would play on GOG but their store lacks soooooo many games of all genres and budgets. They also lack many community features like artwork, screenshot, workshops, profile showcases... I hope by the time Steam dies, a new company (not epic) decides to do what GOG promised: Add our Steam games to our library in the new storefront. Hopefully a task of simple steps (unlike GOG's) and that include all our games. It sounds far fetch I know but consider Steam may die in 30 or more years, so technologies and policies may change a lot.
valve certainly could provide DRM free games but they wont because of corporate greed. anyone defending their practices is basically just a corpo bootlicker
...You have never owned your games. I know it hurts to be told this, but you have never owned your games at all. I have a disk for Majesty 2, it'd dead, it does nothing. It came with a CD key that had an expiration date. I have Majesty 2 on Steam... I have now had a functioning copy of Majesty 2 on Steam for longer than my disk lasted.
Prefer Gog by far. Ive not bought a game on Steam for a couple of years or more. Meanwhile I carry on adding to my Gog collection regularly. Sure they dont get the latest games immediately, but those games are rip offs anyhow and there are zillions of good old games.
i own about 200 games on steam give or take... ive been using the platform since i was 14 years old. im 43 now. i hit the steam sales from time to time. no matter what happens whether steam allows me to download it or not i paid for my game im going to use it whether someone likes it or not. i paid for it. it is mine. if that means pirating it later, then morally the platform and dev already took my money therefore there is a digital record of receipt of purchase of game and nobody can say shit when i break the law to play MY game.
When I very first got steam and bought like 5 games, I had no idea I wasn't downloading an installer that I could use to play the game at any time in the future. I'd never really been part of the gaming scene and didn't know physical media was going away. This was back in 2010/11or something when I was in graduate school and suddenly had good internet and a good laptop for the first time ever. I'm much more interested in GOG's business plan than what Valve is doing with Steam. But knowing they're partnered with Amazon does NOT give me warm fuzzies.
True, most of newer games that enforce denuvo and other DRM are nowhere to be seen, thankfully I don't care about newer games as much as I used to. There was a time when I was excited for new games because of improved graphics, but lately just stick to old stuff like Stronghold Crusader, HoMM3, Commandos, Beyond Good & Evil, NOLF and similar.
Din't Steam always said we owned our games? Like how we would be able to download them if they ever go bankrupt? Was this misinformation spread by it's fans or another case of corporate gaslighting? If it's the later we could really make them get into trouble for false advertising.
@@HeelerDog-u1c That's the problem. Steam's DRM tendrils have a stranglehold on the industry. There are many games out there that you literally can't even legally own thanks to Steam... which makes 'alternative methods' a necessity.
@@BloodwyrmWildheart What exactly is Steam doing? It doesn't provide DRM by default, that's left up to the publisher. If a publisher doesn't want to be on GoG, no one can force them to (unless they're interested in an exclusivity deal of sorts like EGS has done in the past).
As a gamer long before Steam existed, I've always had this exact problem with Valve but the market chose convenience over control and helped evolve the market into a bad direction. The real fear will come once Gabe is gone, a kill switch is meaningless if we don't know who holds it.
It is time the Consumers has their Digital Rights Ownership acknowledged and recognized by Law. If we purchase a Digital product whether it is a game, movie, Software or e-Book that product is ours as long as we do not violate the Copyright. At the Same time Corporations must be held in check and be made to allow the Consumer to be able to download and achieve any of these products that they have Legally Purchased.
Nice video. I'd also like to add that stripping ownership from online-only games even for cheating should be a no-no. The worst thing developer should be able to do is to ban people from official servers, and let the community servers handle the cheater themselves however they see fit.
Games have tried this, it just leads to community servers needing admins on 24/7 or being chocked full of hackers 24/7. it doesn't exactly help the community at all.
That's an additional reason all games should have an offline option. So that people can be banned from the community but not loose the game they paid for. Even those disgusting people paid for their product - they deserve to be banned, but nobody should have a product they paid for taken away from them without a refund.
@@HookahOtaku Well, he doesn't have the right to cheat online on other people, so he should absolutely be banned, right? But that doesn't mean even disgusting cheaters don't have rights. He bought the game, it's morally his (if not his legally - legal doesn't always necessarily equal right, sadly), so he still should have a right to play it, just not with other people. And who cares if he cheats on his own? In fact he has an absolute right to cheat on a game that he plays on his own that he paid for. The only person he's cheating then is himself. In fact, there are many mods out there for that! 🤣 But we need to remember that some people deserve things taken away from them when it damages other people, but we don't need to take everything away needlessly. He still owns the game and should have access to that game - just not the community that he cheats on.
1:30 only in the US, just tried it. It would've surprised me, as this move would be against EU law :x Luckily it's (still) not legal that companies take a product away from you at their whim, even if you payed for it and agreed to it.
What a lot of this is all boiling down to terminology. Gabe and Steam need to very carefully read Merriam-Webster's Dictionary's definition of what the word "buy" means: "to acquire possession, ownership, or rights to the use or services of by payment especially of money". To "license" means: "a grant by the holder of a copyright or patent to another of any of the rights embodied in the copyright or patent short of an assignment of all rights". If you want to license something to me for a fee, then license it to me. If you want to SELL something to me, then sell it to me, but I am NOT paying a "buying" price for a mere license. License fees should reflect this by being significantly cheaper. After all, as shown many times in our economy, renting is cheaper than out-right buying.
i have been using steam since its first started, and have never had an issue with their terms and conditions. I have read the agreements and still continue to buy games.
What so many people miss is it’s all about consumer trust. Steam has earned a LOT of consumer trust. I’m normally very antagonistic against companies and assume malice. Valve is one of the few companies that I’m willing to put that aside because I want other companies to follow suit. I will be okay buying a license from steam because my steam account still has access to and can download copies of a game that was taken down 10 years ago. The fact steam still stores it and offers me the ability to download a game they have not sold in a decade because sold the license to me shows they will as much as they possibly can, keep my access to games.
Cause these people are losers who got nothing better to do than to cry online about shit. I have been with all online stores since late 90s and Steam/GoG are the only ones still for US vs the other corpos AKA big publishers. Now because people get banned for breaking the rules and cry about not being able to access their account, youbroke the rules, you suffer consequences. The only people here with real issues with Steam is people doing shady shit, running their mouths on steam community forums till they are banned, or cheating. There is no Malice coming from Steam, but there sure is a lot of bad actors trolling Steam trying to sue them for petty shit and now Steam has to do what it needs to do to not get destroyed by courts and let the other big publishers win.
Better to have rights and not need them, than to need rights and not have them. When you don't take a stand for yourself when you have a chance to, you may one day find yourself wanting to take a stand and not having the opportunity to.
THIS SHOULD ALLOW THE COURTS TO PUSH CHARGES FOR BUSINESS ETHICS... WHICH IF THE COURT FEELS SUFFICE TO, COULD REMOVE THE CEO FROM THE COMPANY AND FORCE THE COMPANY TO GIVE EVERY ONE THE FILES TO REMOVE THE NEED FOR THE STEAM LAUNCHER...
To those thinking GoG is any better, it is but not much. What if you need to redownload your GoG game on a new computer and GoG goes out of business? Is this any different than Steam? If you have the install file will this work on future OS's? How many of us still have Rollercoster Tycoon, Command and Conquer or the legendary AOL discs? Ever tried installing those on a new OS? If by some miracle they do run good luck with stability, resolution and other missing updates. I think GoG is being is being misleading here. There is no such thing as owning a video game and it never has in a practical sense.
> I think GoG is being is being misleading here. Exactly this. And it's ironic - because technically GoG didn't do itself any favour with that misleading tweet. On the other hand; the amount of people getting fooled by it shows that it actually worked.
this is why I hate websites that force you to buy the games that don't have a hard copy,we only get to own hard copy games,and anything released on websites (like steam) are like yeah you don't own these games you play thousands to millions of hours on =.= garbage rule,give us psychical copies of the games then assholes if you going to act all bitchy towards gamers
If buying isnt owning, then piracy isnt theft.
@@CuriousOne75 exactly what i was thinking.
😂😂😂😂
Makes sense to me.
True too much law is a bad stuff
@@CuriousOne75 ooh, good one!
We also need laws that stop publishers gatekeeping products after they've been sold, like requiring I sign up for an account in order to play after no such requirement was initially there. Companies (this goes beyond gaming now) are so comfortable these days changing their licensing agreement for products AFTER you've purchased and agreed to the initial terms. It's unethical and its mind boggling that it's not illegal. If I refuse to accept new terms.. what.. can I get a refund? I think not.
This is the real problem that is not being addressed.
Exactly. People quickly forgot about Capcom's recent (Jan 2024) attempt to retroactively install additional DRM to all their previous games. The fact that gamers let this stuff slide the moment companies back down, or offer freebies as an apology, just shows how these companies get away with stuff that should be illegal.
I agree, once an agreement is agreed to a user should not need to agree to a new one, effectively forcing people to read what are often very long very technical documents full of legal speak several times just to continue using what they pay for.
Having accounts for these things only makes it more annoying. Yes, it's nice to have a bonus like saving progress across devices for a game, but when absolutely everything requires an account, which often come with their own constantly changing terms outside of the game's unique ones, it only doubles down on the issue.
Yes we have a term for that, its called DRM. GOG's selling point is that all the games they sell have no DRM's.
Give it up already...
"These games aren't ours"
Look, when I buy a game on Steam, I consider it MORALLY mine. As such, I can download it any time I want, from a legitimate source or otherwise, and save it on a USB stick. The devs have been paid and that game is now mine, whether Steam likes it or no.
So you think you’re bigger than the Law?
Curb your ego, criminal.
@@maalikserebryakov calling a random a criminal for downloading something they paid for is wild
@@maalikserebryakov so nintendo is the better guy? i remember people streaming their games and nintendo CRACKED DOWN saying you dont own this game. you dont have the RIGHT to showcase our games. and emulators are ILLEGAL even if you bought the game. they will take your shit down.
@@maalikserebryakov When we pay for something, by definition we own it. If you buy a television, you own the television. You buy a movie, you own the movie. This is basic supply and demand. If we rent something, then that means we are paying to borrow it, like a subscription or a library book. If we took without paying, that is stealing and that is criminal. But if we buy to own, then legally (and morally) it is ours.
@@maalikserebryakov Bullshit. I cracked DRM in iTunes for movies and you could legally buy these programs because I had the RIGHT (by LAW) to have a "platform-independent" backup copy. This meant cracking DRM, no matter what Apple said in their ToS. Those (50+) movies were (and still is, as HD MP4 files!) "mine". I "own" it, and I make goddamn sure it stays so and not just a "license" in my iTunes library. Nothing criminal about it.
If purchase isn't ownership then piracy isn't theft.
Some moron tried to defend it by saying ''you're buying a license not a physical piece of property'' *(ignore the fact that they were bundling steam onto physical disks like skyrim to force you to download steam and make an account to play the disk you bought)*
Still a false comment
I don't pirate software .. I install performance patches.
@@itsasecrettoeveryone7158 The only reason why they did that was so it would prevent you from ripping it and illegally distributing since you'd have to bypass the DRM
Ooh I like that one. 🤣
If you buy a game, digital or not, you should still own it. This is literally like what WEF said about 'you will own nothing and you will be happy.'
yes and clowns like this will talk as if it is just the way it is.
You took the words right out of my mouth!🤣🤣👍🏼👍🏼
I dont play PC at least not yet but yea so true!
Sony just came out with a "Digital" playstation trying to eliminate the disc.
Imho id rather pay for a hard copy bcus i like replaying my games from time to time and sum times i like to play the vanilla version of a game without all the upgrades that they put on these games nowa days.❤❤❤
Like Bethesda games i like playing with the bugs and glitches its alot of fun!
I mean isnt that why games were made to be played an have fun with?!?!
Hell i jus bought Skyrim for like the 3rd or 4th time since its release date in 2011 and its jus as fun now as it was back then!!❤❤❤
@@tacklebox8020 i used to buy the physical disc from stores for my pc too , however all that happens now is it installs a preloader to then download the game basically no point in paying more for a physical copy of the game which you then own outright only to still need to download the game
Old title: the law just changed, now steam has to warn you
With nothing changing on Valve's end. In Gabe We Trust... 😓
@@williamyoung9401 To be fair; there's nothing Valve could change there really. The license is between the copyright holder and you - Valve just processes it.
Thanks, random comment. Appreciate it.
@@christopherzajonskowski7123it lest makes it clear to users buying vs license I'm all for it
Instead of buying as a license on steam
@@christopherzajonskowski7123 it is not an official license...that is the entire problem with this...they are using 'licensing' contract termonology when there is no contract that takes place....a PURCHASE or a RENTAL is what takes place and they just don't want to use that language because they know it'll F their 'sales'
A Statement from a True Gamer:
I used to pirate all my games back in the day, but over time, I bought all of them. Believe it or not, 90% of my current Steam library started as pirated games. Only 10% were initially purchased directly through Steam.
If this new law sticks around, I’m not ashamed to say that I’ll go back to piracy and stop buying games altogether. Piracy actually turned me into a paying customer! Now, it seems like the industry is pushing me back to piracy. If buying a game doesn’t mean I truly own it, then piracy isn’t really stealing it!
the 10% is included free games...
You should watch videos before commenting on them.
@@SK-ny5ei it is about not owning games... Steam dont want to change it, so? I dont talk about Steam...
I haven't purchased a game (non-physical) since 2016, while i stopped for different reasons, the ownership and rights issues of digital goods is really starting to show cracks with Disney changing their content, content disappearing, Crunchyroll and Sony removing (or intending to) purchased content due to licenses, Steam removing music from GTA games, Amazon and sony deleting books/games from your physical kindle/Playstation. These are not right.
All digital media should have a physical counterpart, the digital part as 'convenience' and the physical part your actual product you purchased.
You have always purchased a license to play a game. This is how it has always been. Even with physical copies it says in the fine print you purchased a license.
When I buy things from Steam, I put it on my wishlist and wait for it to become dirt cheap before buying. I am not going to buy games for full price that are not legally mine.
Or unfinished and feature incomplete games for that matter. .. the only triple A games I buy are GoTY editions.
That’s what I’ll do. I hate HATE buying any digital games because I want to be able to touch my stuff physically. I was born in the 90’s so I will always prefer hard copies of my games.
My friend is giving me his old gaming laptop and I’ll have access to all his games on steam and whatnot but if I decide to buy another game there I won’t be spending an arm and a leg for a game I won’t own. That’s asinine!
If we dont actually own the game, shouldnt we atleast get a discount? We pay the same price if we were to buy the physical copy.
@@toegap202 digital is a scam. They lied to us, if they go digital, it will be cheaper for us.
We knew it was a scam, but we did not do nothing. (I stopped buying their games, but that was obviously not enough.)
Indie devs could bring back physical stuff, games like Dead Cells or Hades with the it hurts me to say, but old school supporter deals, like statues, books etc.
Well back in the day they used to push digital as being the future as it would be cheaper as they wouldnt have to pay all those costs for physical disc making and transport and shops taking a cut...yet the prices never went down lol. People just accepted the price was the same over time
Most of the games I buy on Steam I wait for a sale of 60% or more because I feel that way. If I'm not getting a physical copy that I own I'm not paying that much.
When you buy a physical copy it will say in the fine print on the back that you have purchased a license to use the game. This is how it works for all software.
@@hugo1593 that is only there so you can't make for example official stories or games with their characters.
If you buy a loaf of bread, do you buy a license to use a bread?
They can only do this, because people accepted it, the moment people sue then and win it is over
TL;DR nothing has changed, steam just tells you outright about the way it has always worked.
Yep, it's always been shit. People are just now realizing it. Pretty sad it took this long.
I already noticed this for long time, even the launcher is sucks and unoptimized compared to epic launcher. I always got visual glitches and its slow af (for my old ass laptop). The only good thing about steam is a discount and lots of game libraries
@@兽Arufisu There's actually no way you just said that the Epic Games Store is more optimized than Steam.
@@兽Arufisu What a blatant lie. Steam is so much better than Epic Launcher, in every way.
@@兽Arufisusome games you can play without needing to start steam.
Why is no one mentioning this is not just a 'Steam' issue? Every single digital storefront that sells games as licenses *MUST* do this in the following months, to comply with the new law. That includes Origin, the Ubisoft store, and every single other one of them.
Steam just went ahead and did it now to avoid dealing with headaches in the future, I don't know why everyone and their mother are framing this everywhere as if it's Steam being 'the only greedy bad guy'. GOG went ahead with a funny snarky comment, but even GOG *HAS* to comply and announce on their site that they also sell licenses, just go read GOG's EULA and you'll see they're clearly selling you licenses.
Just because GOG's DRM is way more favourable to customers and allows you to download and safekeep your games at any time, doesn't mean they are not selling licenses. Steam has already said in the past in the unlikable yet possible event they'd have to close their storefront, the games would be available for ayone to download most probably in a similar way to what GOG has. The only difference is the DRM each platform has in place.
Because this is a click bait issue, and 95% of gamers are unaware that there are game stores other than Steam.
Do you think California law applies to companies outside of California?
@@hawkname1234
It doesn't. What I am saying is that every company that has to apply to this, will have to follow through, not just a handful ones.
Also, Valve's Headquarters are located in Bellevue, Washington.
Your point?
@@SK-ny5ei i didnt know about steam untill after i i knew about and had used gamejolt and some other old ones
@hawkname1234 Do you think that GDPR applies to companies to companies not located in the EU then? If not, why does every site we go to display these annoying cookie notices then?
It's because these companies do business with EU citizens and thus have to follow EU law to do business there.
Same deal with this California law.
Any digital store front that sells goods to California citizens must comply, at bare minimum, for California residents.
In practice becausedit takes work to determine the buyers location and display different store fronts. For a regulation like this, it's just cheaper to apply the new rules to everyone.
Like it or not, everyone has to comply if they want to continue to sell in the US's largest state.
I grew up buying boxed games throughout the 80's and 90's, from C64 through A500 and eventually on to PC, so this entire situation is just insane. It's hard to not miss the joy of going to your local store and picking up a game, or ordering them through companies like NRG where you'd get a monthly mini-magazine to drool over the latest titles. There was the unboxing, going through all the goodies that came along with it while it either loaded or installed, and then enjoying the game whenever you wanted - internet connection or not. Buying a game used to be an entire experience, now it's just been reduced to a left click completely devoid of any soul whatsoever.
Moreover, developers originally said that switching to digital downloads would mean cheaper prices because we're not "paying" for all the goodies; the box, the disk, shipping/logistics etc - but prices have gone up. Not only that, it turns out we aren't even buying our games outright on Steam et al. I feel sorry for people who have never known life without internet, because while it may sound corny, life was in fact better before it went mainstream. The internet has provided a lot of good to the world, but it has simultaneously destroyed so many facets of life that we used to enjoy you have to wonder whether it's gone too far. Never underestimate the propensity for big corpos to take something with amazing potential and then use it to eviscerate your life.
Yep, I remember those days. A digital download just doesn't feel the same as something physical and tangible that you can hold in your hand.
I remember those days. I also, in Washington State, remember paying a SALES TAX on them while Bill the Borg insisted it was just a license. If I paid a sales tax, it's a sale of a product, not a license for a product.
You have never purchased a game, it has always been a license. Go check the boxes or manuals if you still have them.
@@hugo1593 When did I argue anything different to buying a license? My whole point is that you used to get a finished game on physical media, in a box set with all sorts of goodies that went along with it. Code wheels, cloth maps, miniatures, huge manuals that not only covered how to play the game but often had a comprehensive back story.
Software licensing has been a thing since software itself was a thing. No one disputes that, but the current model is akin to SaaS (albeit with a one time fee) vs a perpetual license that you operate locally. Think of older AutoCAD versions using flexnet with a license file for perpetual licenses, where you could use the software until the world stopped spinning.
Once modern games etc are taken offline you quite often can't play them any more, whereas old boxed games will work ad infinitum. They don't rely on servers being available, nor do they have to contact any DRM server to ask whether you can play the game or not.
Perhaps you missed the point of the OP?
@@hugo1593 They can't really end the license though, can they?
The thing about steam is what about when Gabe leaves or dies and is replaced with some corporate goblin?
Gabe has a contingency plan. Look it up.
Some Valve employees tried to get Gabe to make a statement during BLM, Gabe gave each employee $100K to donate to the charity they wanted to shut them up. There are already corporate slugs in the company.
@@IAmOneAnt what do I search exactly? You talking about his son?
@@akj3344 It's called a will, steam is private don't forget that.
@@IAmOneAnt plans can fail. If we're being real, there are some amazing sociopaths that can turn face the moment they get in control. And they love being on top.
The issue for me is not that we don't own this stuff, it's that we need CLEAR, CONCISE, PLAIN ENGLISH DESCRIPTIONS - ON THE PRODUCT PAGES - OUTLINING UNDER WHAT CIRCUMSTANCES WE WILL LOSE ACCESS TO THE PRODUCT. Not buried in a tech jargon eula, I want simple English that informs me a product can be removed from my account because the developer feels like it, or if I use a mod, or if it rains for 2 days straight, if I call someone a mean name in a private chat, or if a publisher no longer wishes to keep a server online when a game doesn't explicitly NEED it to function in a limited way. THIS is what matters, so we don't have another ubisoft crew debacle.
If this becomes a thing, every company would just say "you lose it whenever we say so or whenever our services no longer function", which covers every base. Anything less is risk that they're not. I mean, that's basically what they put in those EULAs too, y'know?
Honestly, it's really not tech jargon. It's pretty clearly stated in there. You just have to read it. And I cannot get behind any babysitting measure. The consumer has the obligation of doing their due diligence to know what they are buying. it's shouldn't be the company's obligation to put everything in huge red flashing letters... End of the day, if push comes to shove, it's the EULA that will have any legal value, not the store description. So it's the consumer's obligation to read it.
@@HotSkorpion there needs to be a law where if they change the Eula, they have to give you the choice of refunding back all your money if you don't agree with the new terms of service, or grandfather you in with some of the old terms of service agreements.
TLDR is YOU DON'T OWN ANYTHING
They can revoke access to your account whenever they want if they feel like it and some people do get that like I did for making friends of steam moderator mad just had my steam account revoked for 2 days and I had to argue with steam moderator who ignored the context of the whole message to then determine the ban was justified because they ignored the whole message insane
You will never "own" any software. Grow up.
Reminder if you're EU citizen, sign the STOP DESTROYING VIDEOGAMES initiative!
Thank you for letting me know. Signed.
If you're not an EU citizen DO NOT SIGN, It gives them a reason to throw the initiative out
@@goalgold Yess!!!
@@ethanbuttazzi2602 no
@@ethanbuttazzi2602 its the same. I used the official petition name so people googling get as the first result the .eu entry
I don't want to buy a license to play a game - I want to buy a game; If not physically then I want to own the game digitally. I don't want to own a license to play the game; I want to own the game. 6:04 THERE IT SAYS: Purchase of digital product. I purchased the digital product. It grants a license for it on steam, yes, additionally to the purchase of the digital product I get a license for it on steam. But whatever the full terms and condistions say: I purchased the game digitally!
I like the fact that California actually refers to games as digital "GOODS" and not "services". This legal precedent could be very important to future gamers!
Holy shit, California did something good without being forced? Or do we just not see the snipers?
@@nullpoint3346 Newsom's donors must've gotten into The Crew during covid and realized they don't own it once Ubisoft yoinked the server
@@nullpoint3346 California does a lot of good actually. It just gets over shadowed by all their nonsense. Take for example privacy. California has some of the most strict privacy laws in the WORLD.
@@factsoverfeelings1776 Of course Cali has good privacy laws, if they didn't then everyone with authority there would get murdered.
This is not "legal precedent." That's not what those words mean.
I agree with GOG's approach 100%. I'm not buying Steam games so much anymore until there's a guarantee that we will have access to games that we purchased even if we lose access to our own Steam account.
That guarantee never existed. You have been duped.
@@atomixfang That’s how it is buying any online software.. We need an equivalent of disks. We need to OWN at least some of our games!
yap i've rebuid my steam already partially on gog with massive discounts, funnily enough i still got a lot of these games still refundable, gonna be a big cashback i guess.
@@atomixfang "until there's a guarantee." They're saying they want that guarantee. Either with offline installers or some other solution.
We DID have one gabe has a kill switch hes said
Didn’t think GOG would be mentioned. Glad it is. I love steam. I do. But if GOG has the same game on steam I usually buy on GOG. The security GOG provides can not be understated. I own everything I buy. It doesn’t force me to launch any other launchers. DRM free. And it’s the perfect platform for the preservation of classic games.
"I own everything I buy." No you don't. GoG only sells licenses no different than any other digital store. You can access games you purchase that get removed from the store, but the same is true for all those games on Steam. GoG games don't feature intrusive DRM or external launchers, sure, but not because the devs heed their demands. Publishers don't NEED the small GoG sales numbers, so they just won't put it on the platform if they don't want to go through the trouble of complying. I like GoG as much as the next guy but don't glaze them as if they're some sort of heroes when they're barely different from Steam beyond having stricter standards and less games because for it.
Steam wins me on convenience and friends seeing what I have in library. But I am also a games preserver in principle, so I am also consciously aware that I'm acting against my own interests a bit with unnecessary Steam buys, lol
@@John_1-1_in_Japanese You are flat out wrong. Any game you buy from GoG you can download an offline installer and never need to log in to GoG to play it.
doubt
So uh, if I buy a game on GOG, do my achievements tie to my Steam profile? Do I get multiplayer access to Steam users, across every multiplayer game that both platforms support? Does the GOG platform give me access to 99.99%+ of every PC game ever published? These are _insurmountable_ concerns.
The problem I experienced is that all the Ubisoft games I owned on Steam came with a pop-up notification upon reinstallation, requiring me to agree that I did not own the game through Steam in order to proceed with the installation. The issue is that I had no option to decline this updated agreement without losing access to my purchased game. Declining the terms didn't result in a refund or any compensation; instead, Ubisoft effectively held my purchased license "hostage" until I accepted the new, more "clarified" agreement.
It is a good change in law, though.
If the page says "buy, purchase" - it stands to reason that you are BUYING the product. You don't say that you buy a service, do you?
You don't buy a haircut, or a repair in garage, or service of a plumber. You don't buy movies in a rental shop.
But you suddenly buy games.
No game service I have EVER seen, be it steam, or really anywhere else for that matter states that you are buying access which may be revoked, that you are buying a license.
It is always "purchase Mass Effect", "buy Resident Evil" not "buy license for X/Y/Z".
The license agreements are always hidden withing the non-legally-binding EULAs, which are specifically designed to discourage reading them - and often contain all sorts of absolute nonsense - the infamous iTunes license comes to mind - prohibiting you from... using the program to make weapons of mass destruction - I'm not even kidding.
buy license
I buy a haircut, I buy a cinema ticket…..what language do you use?
What do we do with the grey areas where a physical product and a service are bundled by the way. Can a mobile phone that comes with a service contract no longer be called a purchase anymore? The world has been more complicated than that simplistic concept of a purchase since a long time before digital game distribution became a thing. Various items of telephony or satellite/cable TV equipment had been sold with an attached service agreement to be able to use some or all of it. This has been grey for a long time, less useful than splitting hairs over words would be to have a summary of the terms of sale shown explicitly actually list out the termination clauses and other relevant limitations. Doesn't need full legalise just the plain English we reserve the right to revoke access for X, Y, and Z. Basically it should be like when you walk into a store to buy a contract phone where the employees are legally required to go over the particulars of the included service contract and make sure the customer understands the scope of what they are agreeing to.
@@MichaelGGarry While your are technically correct, every-time you exchange money for something, you buy it.
In my experience it isn't really common, to say that you bought a service and instead say that you paid for it.
That would apply to haircuts, repairs, etc.
But not Tickets, because the Ticket is not a service(just as a license).
I don't live in a English speaking country though, so my experience is influenced by only experiencing English through media(TH-cam/Movies/Games)
You purchase a cinema ticket. With the ticket you don't own shit. Same for every other admission ticket. They can destroy it to mark it as used or keep it and exchange it for a wristband or stamp.
A few years ago, the internet in my area completely shit the bed. I don't remember the details, but basically, it was down. The first night of no internet, i went onto my PC to unwind and play some games, thinking I could just play my already installed games. I booted Steam, selected the option Offline Mode, and then sat there dumbfounded as it basically told me that to play offline, I needed to go online, so I had the right to play offline. What in the actual fuck is the point in an offline mode, if I can't even use it when something like a random outage hits. I have no idea if it is still this way now, but it was on that night I became aware about how little ownership of "my" games I really had.
Some publishers require you to be online as DRM.
You're talking out of your ass, you can go offline without internet or with internet
If they cant provide a basic service you paid for, then this is a very good reason to have fitgirl provide it for you.
@@catalyst772 I wish, but no. I don't honestly understand how it works, but when this happened I hadn't been online that day (obviously), so I guess Steam wanted some kind of online check in, which is all well and good until you get a totally random internet outage and haven't been online on your PC at all that day.
3 months into Steam i came across the same problem, making me move to GoG. Now i see GoG is the same beast with a slightly better DRM stance.
I have often stated that the issue with software purchases isn't a matter of physical vs digital, it's DRM vs no-DRM. If you buy a game with DRM, even on a physical media, you might lose access to that game over time. But if you buy a DRM free game, you can download it and play it for as long as you have hardware to do so. Multiplayer complicates things, and if you don't have the option for local hosting you might lose multiplayer access over time, but even then unless the game is multiplayer only you can still play the game.
Correct. That is exactly the conversation that needs to happen. But most people still get stuck in the delusion that physical means ownership and the real issue gets completely diluted. This measure changes nothing apart from catering to a bunch of whiners that can't be arsed to read the contracts of what they buy.
@@HotSkorpion people also don't know how the license works, because they think "license = expiration date" but the license lasts as long as you have the license, even if on digital no company can delete your files because that's a violation to the license, Ubisoft tied The Crew's functions with the DRM but technically you still own the license, but can't use the game due to DRM.
Also I'm tired of "if buying isn't owning, piracy isn't stealing thing" not only it has been said to the point where I decide to ignore the entire argument, it only shows the general misinformation the public has because they don't read the fucking documentation, that explicitly says license and explicitly says that you are only able to use the product and not reproduce it and redistribute it.
Piracy isn't stealing, it's copyright infringement.
the comments anywhere regarding about this topic are largely uneducated and full of misinformation, yes, its sad. i've looked into news articles comments and they are the same.
games on steam has always been licensing, but nobody ever read them. it is only until now these people find out and they're complaining.
not allowing local hosting/private servers is entirely greed driven, they want control of everything so they can try to scam you into further payments..
@@rodh1404 ah yes… the famous no longer supported DRMs which brick your CD or DVD on modern Windows… so you have to install old Windows versions on old Hardware … to get anywhere… while in general it is doable, having multiple machines to play something is not really logical for most of the users…
so yeah… even physical doesnt mean perpetual… just as long as supported
or … as long as the activation server works…
mind you; if it is no longer supported or the developer / distributor gave up on the game (no servers to activate) then i’d argue that cracking the game should be LEGAL. if there is no intention from EA for example to support any current game in the future (just an example) then they either should
release a patch to make it open and free, or stop acting like a b**ch if someone actually cares about the game and makes it available for others.
anyway…
I joined Steam once, for Stardew Valley. I will never, ever, join Steam again because I hate renting anything. I hate being told how and when, and how long I'm allowed to use something I've paid for. When I started playing games, they came on physical media which stayed in my possession until /I/ decided I would never play them again. Consumers these days are paying a very high price for what amounts to a 'rental'.
Once again, just a reminder - no developer/publisher selling on Steam is forced to use the DRM. You can sell your game on Steam with no launcher requirement - you could even provide two executables if you wanted, with one being the Steam exe for achievement integration etc.
Everybody acting like it's Steam vs GOG. It's not - it's developers and publishers CHOOSING to use the DRM with no alternative provided.
It's developers choosing to have their work pirated by being dicks about drm .. I 100% will not tolerate denuvo on my computer, but i'll still play your game.
It is Steam Vs GOG because GOG is the only one adamant about keeping DRM out. Steam doesn't care because money.
@@jase276 Evidently customers don't really care either. They like to talk big, like to whine a lot, but they'll still throw money around like confetti.
@@jase276 And your point is...? Steam cares about developers as much as consumers, if developers wanted to put out onto GoG, they would've by now given how easy it is and it speaks for itself.
also, you can build your game, set it doesn't need steam to run, but if it runs, that you get the achievements). example: i think all paradox developed (not published games), at least Stellaris
If Valve really has such a killswitch, wouldn't it be logical to activate it for games that have already been delisted?
Why would Battlefield 2 need DRM protection if EA cares so little about it they don't even acknowledge its existence?
*Edit since there seems to be some confusion:* Battlefield 2 does NOT have DRM. If you bought it on Origin (when that was a thing) you got a DRM-free copy of the game, Steam is the only place where BF2 had DRM protection and it was not requested by EA to implement.
EA might get pissy and angry if Valve does that.
I don't think Steam has legal rights to switch off DRM like that. If there is a DRM killswitch then there's also some significant language buried in the contracts between developers and Steam that details when and how it can be used.
Having said that, I do wonder what the purpose of said killswitch would be. If Steam dies then it's not like people have the HDD space to install all their games or save an offline installer, and with Steam dead there wouldn't be an online source for installers either.
What it ends up meaning is that a tremendous amount of money paid by customers that permanently disappear at the press of a button.
@@Monochromatic_Spider the drm killswitch was only ever designed to remove steams own launcher drm. That way any game that doesn't have 3rd party drm can be played without contacting steam servers. 3rd party drm would still have to verify itself online.
Delisted doesn't mean you can't download it if you owned it. When Disney removed the Deadpool game from stores, I was still able to download it from Steam since I owned it. There is only VERY rare instances of Steam proactively removing games from people's libraries. Those have been in the case of actual scams.
@@Xyler94 bro same recently with horizon zero dawn
"If you get banned from Steam-" Yar har, maties! We're sailing the open seas!
I've already been banned from Steam several times. Certain opinions simply aren't allowed on there.
@@BloodwyrmWildheart
wait, are you banned from Steam, which means you can't even log in anymore or are you just banned from the Forums and Community sections?
"Certain opinions simply aren't allowed on there."
Well duh, Valve is on Sweet Baby Inc.'s Client List. Of course they won't allow politically incorrect opinions.
@@BloodwyrmWildheart I doubt you were banned for "opinions" if that means you can't access your games anymore.
If you mean "Community banned", then that is not related to the comment you replied or the video at all
@@BloodwyrmWildheart VAC ban?
@@BloodwyrmWildheart You are only community banned or banned on the forums if it's opinions that is listed as reasons. To actually get your account locked to the point where you can't use it involves a fraud.
Your games are unaffected by any forum bans or community bans btw.
7:43 Yes. One point: both Steam and GOG sell game licenses, which gives the buyer the right to use the games for which they bought the licenses. But on Steam, apparently the game license is not meant to grant perpetual (or “unrestricted”) ownership of the usage rights. While on GOG, that seems to be the case.
In other words, it makes sense to speak of “perpetual licenses” versus “restricted” or “terminable licenses”, rather than saying that it is “buying just the license” in one case and “buying the game” in another case. ( - I know, people feel about it that way, but as users / consumers are learning about their actual rights, it makes sense to give them a good way to talk about this.)
Users of software generally only buy licenses that grant them usage rights, not other rights to the software, such as the right to the receive the source code and assets, or the right to change the software or to redistribute or sell it. - That is what various variants of Open Source are about.
I feel like Steam’s license thing is at least DECENT since their terms are pretty fair; basically don’t do super illegal shit and the license is good for life (from what I remember). Still easily one of the best game distribution platforms, second to GOG, and I feel like this was largely Valve wanting to be honest on their own terms before they’re legally required to be such.
But I still agree with that “buying not owning, piracy not stealing” thing. We absolutely need physical ports of our games more often, some way to download the games offline to our hard drives directly, or at least make the digital ports heavily discounted (half of the retail price, tops). It’s just that Valve fair from the start with this whole thing. Certainly better than Sony and EA.
not really. Recently got a 3 month community ban over a corrupt dev not liking me because I had some minor bans back in 2018. If thats "fair" then I dont know what to say. So essentially one slip or another corrupt mod and BAM im banned for life
@@Sassy_Witch I said fair, not amazing.
Also sorry to hear that.
Steam did everything to kill physical games on PC, never forget they started DRM.
@@deathtrooper2048 Repeat: I still advocate for physical copies. I’m not trying to defend the digital-only factor of Steam: my point is that their terms are pretty good if you MUST use it.
Ya, I don't have issues with steam either, but when Gabe dies or retires, I fear the new guy will f things up.
you realise that microsoft and apple have been using this "licencing" of software to normalise it for years, and everyone is only just waking up to it because it games. What about your licenced operating system. This is where the problem originated and will persist from.
You aren't disagreeing with or disproving the sentiment that it's a malicious practice.
@@BloodwyrmWildheart its very devious. they bid their time for decades, normalizing it and getting people to believe they owned things.
so now that they openly enforce it they get people saying "it was just a license all along lmao"
Yep. And they ought to get hammered for it too, alongside Adobe and every other software company pulling this stuff.
Yeah but the issue with it is people haven't had a problem with this because it's not common for you to have your software license revoked from a company unless you've committed some sort of fraud or theft on the company and gotten caught. It is an issue and bad practice, it's just that it hasn't worried people. It's worrying people in the gaming scene now, because companies like sony have been mass removing titles from their store, no warning. You can't play this title any longer. It hasn't been an issue with steam as of yet because they don't remove things from their store unless they're violating some international law of some kind. eg. Rimworld in australia. But it is something you must worry about anyway, because eventually somebody in the company could pull the plug on a ton of games once higher ups die or leave.
Nothing has changed about Steam. All that has changed, is that people know the truth now, instead of falling for cheap semantics.
*plays UNATCO Theme*
My vision is augmented.
@@datriaxsondor590 the thing is 'owning' have a big implication on copyright.
By owning, you have the rights to make copy and do whatever you want with it, including reselling the copy.
Same limitations applies to CD and vinyls, you are not allowed to broadcast it on radio or other forms for example.
The only way to buy a game and then owning it is buying a GPL/ MIT licensed game which is kinda moot cos the one buying it might just give away their copy for free just because.
well if people read licence they will know it whole time, thats same with mmorpg
Legit seems odd to me that we just assume after years and years that we do own them when infact it's by design that they hide that fact from us that we don't i feel a lawsuit coming about implied ownership through advertisement.
I hope Valve has some kind of plan for preserving our Steam libraries. I kinda hate this era of not owning anything and most things becoming lost media at some point.
they already do. if I wanted to i can redownload the OG Rome Total War 1
"This era"? PC gaming has always been like this, especially when physical discs have become defunct. With Steam you have never owned anything, people need to stop acting brand new. All it takes is one greedy CEO after Gabe is gone
Isn't this mostly up to the developers to update/preserve games to be able to be ran an newer operating systems etc?
Like it's not the grocery stores responsibility to keep breeding and maintaining chickens in order to make eggs they can sell.
Even physical media has its access revoked naturally. In 100 years - devices that read CD's will be artefacts, all the hard media preserved will decay, be lost or destroyed. Only what the future wants to remember will remain. Our steam libraries will not be something our children will want to preserve, they'll die with us. When we get to 70 years old we probably won't be logging in to play that much if at all, and all of that will die with us.
Your life is finite, and so is this media.
Valve likely has their own version of steamless/smart steam emulator that they will release if valve servers ever have to shut down.
But even if they don't, those tools exist. And yommso you own all the games you have downloaded. You should buy a backup HDD to archive yourself copies of your games.
The big thing being unreported here is that this isn’t just aimed at Steam; Sony and Amazon are in the sights. I’m pretty sure most digital stores are taking this one.
There’s also the fact that this sort of issue applies to most digital stores, as does the legality problems brought up. Again Sony, Apple, probably Microsoft as well are subject to the overarching problem of how people deal with digital “ownership”.
its simple really, only bandcamp and gog seems to have no issue here. bandcamp, you can dowload your music. gog is the same. gog, even if you use the launcher, the game once installed can run without it.
Same thing with Amazon Prime. If you're not "purchasing" a movie when you select "purchase", that wording will have to be changed. It's extremely misleading because if Amazon loses the licensing to that movie you "purchased" (which happens quite often), it'll just disappear from your library.
also nietndo is the final boss and the usa new 2020 milluim copyright act amaments the usa goverment and fcc have preapred the ultame your giong to let everyone ememlutate your no longer sold game wither oyu like it or not. bacly its just says sell it in its orgnal state up to end of life or your giong to lose the albtry to leagly use drm on it BY LAW BEASCE ITA ALREADY LAW also we have been doing the whle stop killing games framwork behind the seanes bescue th3e usa govrment is sick of drm crap braking all of the goverments stuff even the usa milltrary for so long so we allready made a ammentent in 2020 that bacly says you don't sell it then NO DRM FOR YOU SELL IT OR NO DRM PREACTON ANYMORE. the mement you stop provading teh neans to satasfy demand due to your copny no onlger sellits bescue you don't wnt ot any more is not enothg you will sell it or you will lose drm legal proactions for usa copyright acts and laws. sell it or lose the bacly to enferce the lacance. bascly keep selling it and keep it actly depeopts or if you stop sorpting it then you can't use drm on it in a post market seting. bacly everytheng thats post market can be leagly euematied and downladed from teh intetnet arcive for free. this is waht the new usa millauim copyright act 2020 amentent states. very thing not sold and is post amrket is no longer consierd copyright comrsnal liacsne or drmcopyright memeuim act enforcaelbe and is no longer riascy deu to you have to bee seling it actvly witha up to date licanse agrement or they can downlaod it wihout it being priracy. you can't patrate soemthing if its not readly comernsaly accesble and sold then you can downald it and emeluate it all you want. the fbi is just sick and retied of compnys just slaping drm that braks everything for no reas reason to teh pont the usa mileuim copyrioght act had to make a amenment that sates you don't sell it anymore then too bad no more drm in post amrket non comreansly ablabie end of servace of the goods.
@@Drew458 just like spotitify, i-music and others
Even boxed copies of games historically were typically packaged with the same legal jargon. Idk if owning an installer means much actually. I do agree it's nice to see a politician that wants to bring attention to it.
Exactly, You owned the box and the disc but not the media on the disc.
I remember times when owning installer mean owning the game. You didnt need anything else, you didnt even need internet connection. You installed the installer and it worked. I still have some of these, recenty tried to install them for fun, most of them still worked after more than 20 years. Those which didnt work, it was because technical incompatibility with modern hardware, not because of ownership/licencing issues.
@@kryton7687Or if it is exclusively multiplayer, its servers were shut down.
@@kryton7687 I'm pretty sure in an absolute sense that this was never true. Your _always_ owned a license to use software, you never actually owned the software.
For the majority when physical media was the main distribution method this affected almost no one, BUT it still applied: If software came with 20% of it locked off because it was buggy/incomplete, the license you purchased did _not_ give you the right to that 20% locked off section. The Neo Geo port of _Metal Slug 5_ has an entire stage and boss disabled for some reason. There is no legal way to access that content. Even if you bought the Metal Slug V cart, what you actually purchased was the license to play _Metal Slug 5_ in the manner that SNK (the _actual_ owner of the game) deemed appropriate.
As someone higher up stated, if you actually owned the game, you'd own the right to modify and redistribute it as you saw fit.
Of course, pre-digital there wasn't any real way to enforce the fact that you don't actually own software. But it has always been thus. Digital distribution has made this conceit explicit, but it is not new.
@@kryton7687there wasn’t a time like that, though in practice you “owned” the game you were still getting licenses to play the games. If they for some reason revoked the license you technically would be playing it illegally. Though they couldn’t enforce it all that well. For the record I find it stupid, just pointing out the part they kept quiet for years.
If we dont own our games. Then steam better f***ing lower their prices to be in line with f***ing rental fees.
Why is the license to play as expensive as owning the game while being the inferior product
Because the company licensing it still has to pay whatever costs come with licensing the game to you.
@@NostraSamus which costs exactly $0
@@AbcDefg-zt8xy Not exactly. Sure they save on shipping and distribution, but they have to maintain a server that hosts the game downloads and probably another for the licensing, and that running 24/7/365 isn’t cheap.
This is the part that has been bothering me. By selling it digitally it saves the company money from having to pay to manufacture the physical copies AND grants more rights at the expense of the consumer while also charging the exact same price.
It's even worse on publishers own store fronts where they don't need to pay Steam or Walmart a large fee to 'stock' the games on.
@@NostraSamus I think shipping/distribution and hosting server should outweigh each other but ok 😄
What sucks though is a lot of times steam is the only option. Epic is horrible for not allowing offline play for offline games GOG doesn't have a lot of games (Metaphor) is one example and that just leaves steam. Not a lot you can do other than be tricky/smart to make sure steam can't take your games.
Piracy is gonna be on a whole new level I can feel it.
I'm not running an exe from an untrusted source in my environment. And I'm not building a whole separate network with restricted access to the internet and other devices just to do so. Besides it being cheaper to use GOG or buy older games on Steam even twice it is also illegal in most places.
nah, with the way they have been bundling backdoors into cracks, yall just putting a time bomb on your pcs. if you are too cheap to afford 80-90% off games in keysites or even steam itself, you should get a job, fr.
@@HookahOtaku key sites can still be immideately revoked. in fact many keys were revoked by the company so buying on a keysite is the same as buying off steam just worse because at any time for no reason the game is gonna be revoked. as for bundling backdoors into cracks, who specifically? given how many people are into pirating now you can spend some time to look who who cracked the game, the source of the file, the hash key, and you can reduce the chance of getting back door installed. Also lets not forget the fact DRM is a backdoor of its own because it runs kernal and connects to a server to be constantly updated. APEX legends had/has a backdoor into your PC and its not the only game with a RCE exploit/backdoor.
@@HookahOtaku Uh huh sure thing detective.
@@HookahOtaku breaking news your cpu, gpu, motherboard chipset, operating system and router are all riddled with backdoors.
This is why physical copies of games are so much more better. You actually own the game that you’ve paid for I think now knowing this it will probably put me off buying any more games from steam if I don’t own that game what is the point of paying all that ridiculous amount of money for it Also on a sidenote rant why are we paying full price for a digital copy of a game? You could understand with a physical game because you have to produce it the materials et cetera why are we playing something that is digital and paying full price for it? If anything else it should be less because there’s no production going into it as much as a physical copy.
2:02 What kind of ban makes you "Loose everything" on steam? Complete "Account Suspension" that is issued when the account was stolen/or sold? Steam has different access controls, most of the time Steam only suspends player-to-player interactions. Like Community Ban, Profile Ban, Harassment Ban, VAC Ban, Trade Ban.
Presumably any ban where you can't login to steam
Well if you pay for something then that's yours if you get banned or company closes down then you should receive a copy through the post
I've always known this, and its the biggest reason I will never pay full-price for games on STEAM. If I'm not getting full rights, I'm not giving full-price.
But can you EXPLAIN what those rights ARE? Most can't, and GOG is WORSE. The problem is that your license is tied to the account. GOG is the same, but provides no offline license. So GOG is distributing unlicensed software. This is the real reason why developers are skittish of gog, because they operate solely under the good faith premise. None of the games are registered offline to your account. Anyone can run the installer. If you lose the account, every single game is completely unlicensed. There's no crypto receipt, nothing. Steam at least requires you to run the offline mode through your account. No major productivity software will do business with GOG. It's all games that don't care about legality. As for the TRUE REASON why you don't get an offline license, that's because you're legally allowed to resell it, and none of these guys want legal resale to exist. They all want zero resale, even at the expense of piracy. You can sue a pirate, you can do nothing about resale.
You've ALWAYS gotten a license and not the actual game, even when you have physical media, you don't own the game... you own a license.
@@JohnDoe-ip3oq Well, hate to break it to you, but some big developers have put faith in GOG, Baldur's Gate 3 and all of the Elder Scrolls games are on GOG, and everyone knows how Bethesda loves money. Ultimately GOG is just a place where people who want to pay for games can do so while fully owning the game (kinda), if someone was going to pirate a game, they would do it anyway, even if GOG didn't exist. (AKA, cracked steam versions)
EDIT: changed some mispelling
@@meep7605 The only people who own games are the developer who has source code and publishing rights. GOG is essentially selling ROM files of games with no offline receipt. Some companies may agree, but you better believe Nintendo doesn't. That's why so many devs don't use GOG. They offer no offline proof you paid.
@@SherrifOfNottingham Nope, I own the physical media and everything on them. What are you going to do, break into my house and steal the discs from me? Dream on, bud.
P.S.: EULAs aren't legally-binding.
This is EXACTLY how the AUTOMOBILE INDUSTRY got ridd off of their Competition.
At the Turn of the Century we had 23 Car Companies. The Top 3 asked Government for Regulations killing the rest of the COMPETITION, with better cars, I might add!
I miss the era of CDs/DVDs. And the beautiful game art on their boxes. You could have a library of them, like books. Good times.
greed and inhumanely have no bounds
I'm proud to be a pirate. I have been a software, music, tv and movie pirate since 2001 and I don't plan on stopping anytime soon. I even used to redistribute what I downloaded when I was in school and college. I was selling the US version of Manhunt 2 at my school here in the UK, even though the UK got a censored version and the US version was officially outlawed here. Used to make bank selling music albums and movies too. I don't redistribute anymore, but I still illegally download repacked games and watch TV and movies through an illegal IPTV app. I also convert TH-cam videos of songs to MP3 and download them to listen to them on my MP3 player.
I mean, if they're arguing that the games are on lease and not owned, they shouldn't have charged the same price as owning the game. I mean traditional game cost is understandable, they need to cover the cd/dvd price, the box design and manufacture,the logistics to ship the games and also the marketing. In digital format, they only need to prepare the server to download the game from and maybe some money for advertisement.
They get away with doing so because we consumers treat that lease as de facto ownership (when in fact it's not). That's the problem really.
Problem is also that it's more difficult now to get buy-and-own copies that are launcher independent. People supporting subs keep saying "you'll still have the option to buy", but now those options are starting to disappear.
We never owned sh!t on steam. Savor it while it lasts, the moment Gabe passes away Steam will go upside down. Whether still private or not, nobody can replace another person and I highly doubt his son can do 1/100 of what Gabe did.
Steam : Buy this game from us
Installs game
Steam: Also you need this 3rd party launcher and further TOS
This disclaimer is not adequate to fit this law, in my opinion. 'Buy' still implies ownership. They really aught to say you are paying to 'borrow' the game. Or paying for a revokable permission to play a game. Steam's entire business model relies on the fact that the average consumer thinks they own what they paid for. With any other product, when you 'buy' it, you own it. If you buy a couch, the furniture company can't break into your house and take it while you're not looking. But steam and other companies are apparently allowed to just change the meaning of words whenever they want. This law is a good start, but it's not enough. Ideally it should be illegal to have such an anti-consumer terms of purchase... but that's never going to happen. The lobbying and bribery will make sure of that.
01:10 An off-line installer is meaningless if what it installs refuses to work without phoning home and checking if the company feels like letting you use what you bought. I bet the lawyer that wrote that felt pretty happy with the sneaky misleading phrasing they came up with...
Phoning home would be annoying. But i don't think GoG installers do. GoG installers are obscure 7zip files with installation scripts appended.
@@erascarecrow2541 Again, they worded it very carefully, the installer might be perfectly harmless, but the app it installs may itself have built-in DRM. The installer can install the binaries, then you try to run the installed binaries and they behave in an unfriendly manner, and the carefully crafted disclaimer says nothing about the behavior of software the installer installs.
as much as I hate CDPR for the shit they've done recently, GOG is good cause you can just download the game installers.
Why are people sooooooooooooooo shocked by this. This has been the way on steam FOREVER lol
If people did not understand this it just shows how little ability of the populus has for even basic critical thinking in the modern world :)
My objection is when you get a game on steam and then you also need to sign up for another launcher also to run it, that means I now have two points of failure for that game instead of one.
Yep, Steam's been garbage since its inception.
Always with mostly ea and ubislop games. The worst thing is it taken very large amount of ram that makes my game turn unplayable on my old laptop
All of this is easy to resolve.
1. You buy a game you own it. It can be tied to that account but that account can be transfered through legal means like an estate.
2. ALL Single player modes are not managed under DRM/Anti-Cheat. It's single player people like to mod the things they should own.
3. Multiplayer is divided into two categories OPEN and Managed. Open is like LAN hosting/ Peer to Peer or external hosted servers. It is on those running/hosting the games to manage cheating and rules and bans. Managed would be software hosted solutions like for competitive gameplay. These would be on managed servers and would have EULAs enforcing w/e dumb rules peole think actually help. This could require an account and the account would be revokable. the company could monitize account creation in efforts to disuade cheating. The company MUST disclose all terms upon account creation. Like specifics on what data is being harvested from your machine and how they intend to use it.
PS is right on 99% of things he is 100% wrong on this issue.
I fail to see the reason what people are fighting about. This new law changes nothing at all. I have a large steam library, but i dont have mindset of "i own them". I have the ability or license to play them and that's good enough for me. And it's not only steam that needs to comply to the new law other platforms are also required to do so.
And i dont get why people are suddenly shilling GOG are you guys getting paid? Is this an ad campaign? If so, where do i sign up.
24 years ago there used to be protections in place for electronic goods concerning permanent ownership considering it was an actual physical asset or object that a person owned that desperately needs to be modernized in favor of permanent consumer ownership. If NOT then publishers and developers have no right to charge HUNDREDS of dollars for a digital product that has no worth or monetary value whatsoever as they are NOT PHYSICAL OBJECTS OR PHYSICAL MONETARY ASSETS THAT A CONSUMER OWNS IN WHICH MONETARY VALUE CAN BE PUT TO. P E R I O D!
Steam says what's been the truth for decades. You've NEVER owned your games. You purchases a license to run them. Some folks might be old enough to remember version upgrades like back when Adobe sold Creative Suite. You own CS1 and CS2 comes out. No you paid $499 for CS1 but Adobe will sell you an upgrade license for $199. When you do that, you can no longer legally give someone your CS1 key and you run your shiny new CS2. It works with other media as well. You never "owned" the music on your Vinyl, Cassettes, or CDs either. Same goes for works of art. You can own the physical "Guernica" by Picasso but that's all you own.
It's been at least 100 years of this and so many people don't realize it in the gaming argument. our N64 cartridges were a license, your cds were a license, movies in theatres? Yeah, that's just a license, they need to send back the film as part of the agreement. People seem to be confusing ownership and transferable licenses, You'll NEVER get ownership of a game because legally that implies the ability to modify, copy, and sell/distribute.
It's the comments section lawyers that are confused, here. All the "confused" people are talking about de facto ownership, which you are confusing for de jure ownership.
@@Bobo-ox7fj People also seem to somehow be mixing up DRM and licensing as if they're even remotely similar. As well as the people confusing licensing and cd keys. People are literally just getting angry without understanding what they're angry about. If licensing is what they have an issue with, they're about 100 years too late on that boat. If DRM is the issue, Idk why steam is catching the flak, that's entirely on the publishers....
TLDR ; The blind leading the blind is what the comments are like currently.
@@sakaraist Bs. They can use all the legal jargon they want, but old physical media you definitely "owned" in the sense that you could do whatever tf you wanted with it and the best they could do was drive down to your house, bust your door down, and bust your cheeks. You could play the games whenever you want, listen to the CDs and cassettes whenever you want, play the DVDs whenever you want. Lend them to whoever you want, edit them however you want, resell, etc. If, somehow, they found out illegally ripping it and distributing they could fine/sue you but you'd have to be shouting it from outside their HQ.
The bluray era is when they could remotely revoke your DVD/movie and render your copy useless. And the PS4/Xbone era is when physical gaming died as half of the game wasn't even on the disc and they could issue a patch rendering the copy useless. That's why the industry has been trying to push digital and streaming so quick and hard.
@@jase276 Just because companies had less power in dealing with these issues doesn't make these just legal "jargons". You owned the licence to use and a piece of plastic. And your argument about doing tf you want can be said for anything be it crime, things that are legal but socially unacceptable and you don't get caught, you would have zero consequences for literally anything.
No user ever "owns" ANY software. You buy a license to use the software, not just on internet based copies, but also physical copies. In the user agreements it clearly states, in every one, that the agreement doesn't grant any right to own or alter the software. If anyone actually wants to own the software, then they need to create it from scratch.
Why even bother anymore. I set sail to the high seas long ago. Not willing to keep on funding greedy and corrupt corporations. Gaming industry can crash for all I care, there are so many great games from years back for a lifetime.
I think this gets blown out of proportion though. In a way you might as well say you do own them, because as long as steam exsists, you will always have those games. Even delisted games that loose the licence lets you redownload the game if you purchased it at that time it existed. So really, to me, i feel i own the games. People seem to think the games they actually own wont be playable anymore. It might be the case for online server related games, but if you purchased a single player game and the licence runout and it got delisted, you can still play the game. So whats all the fuss about ???
also weird to me that people forget physical media can be damaged... all it takes is one bad accident and your whole collection is gone forever
As long as Steam exists. That's the problem right there. Steam appears timeless right now, but it's not like timeless companies haven't up and vanished before.
Data and physical media does get damaged, but you're within fair use to rip, enjoy and store what you bought differently from the medium you purchased it in.
Keep in mind also that the criticism is about the mode of purchase, not the company you bought for. Maybe steam does last forever. Doesn't mean NewGameStudioLauncherStore does, and if/when they go under the library they're associated with goes with them. See Funimation/Crunchyroll merger as example.
Regulations are not always there to improve competition, they are also supposed to improve consumer protection.
And regulation of some account access to an online service have nothing to do with ownership of an application.
When You Buy A Game On Steam It Is Considered By The Law As A PURCHASE FROM A RETAILER... That Is Required By Federal Trade Laws. That Is Also Part Of LICENSING LAWS. There Is No Such Thing As A Subscription For Individual Purchase Of Any Game, As You Are Granted A License By The Studio Who Produced The Game, "Which Most Game Studios Have You Verify During The Install". If Steam Attempts To Interfere In My Game License As A Purchase Facilitator, It Is A Federal Crime. Steam TOS Has No Authority Over Game Studio Licensing You Receive At The Time Of Install And Verification.
Can someone explain to me why the fuck we don’t own our games that we paid real money for
Try to define "own" where software is concerned, and that'll help get you started.
@@NicholasBrakespear easy thing to think about, lets say you want to pick appart a PC and see what makes it tick including the chips open them up etc, you end up not being able to use that hardware again so you have to buy it again. now software is different its a copy so no matter how many times you reverse engineer or pick it appart all you need is the backup of the files and continue using it, not the same ownership now is it?
software is easier to copy and then resell those copies cheaper online than it would be for physical products. much harder to 'copy' a table when for software its pretty much 4 button presses and a few seconds/minutes
Because this is what gamers have tolerated. It's sad, but these anti-consumer practices happen because of the large casual audience that doesn't give a fuck about these things
You own the copy, but not the right to use it. Because you cannot own the software itself due to Copyright you pay the dev/publisher for an authorisation to use it as they intend it to be used. If you break that, they can revoke that authorisation. It's always been that way. Enforcing it just became easier with digital and some publishers downright abuse it. But there have been cases in the past (extreme ones, of course) where the authorities did go into someone's house and took whatever copies of a software from them, followed by fines and legal action. This is precisely what gives them the right to enforce legal actions to Piracy. Piracy is nothing other than breaking copyright law and the terms of usage, and it is only possible to enforce precisely because you DON'T own the game. If you truly owned what you bought then it wouldn't be piracy in the first place would it?
Valve isnt going to compensate with other services, YOULL OWNNOTHING AND BE HAPPY, these days its all about changing industry standards, against the will of the consumer
They are OURS. I will be pirating all my games from now on.
I like that sellers are forced to be truthful in what is being sold. What i would have preferred is a popup thats says "this game is an online service. You buy a license and can play until game company decides to stop providing the server which can happen whenever the want to. Like next tuesday."
And to be honest, gog ain't honest either. You don't own gog games. You own a license. Just like steam.
I've been screaming about this since STEAM and similar platforms came into existence.
I "own" 1000's of dollars worth of games i purchased on steam over a very long time. If i lost access to my account or it was deleted or banned, i may as well just sell my PC and move into an Amish community.
Wasn't aware, when something is called buy or purchase and not a recurring payment but a onetime payment I expect it to be my property.
The next change needed is to stop allowing a company to change the terms of a license you've purchased after you purchase it without offering you a refund. Since what you 'buy' is that license, with the terms of the license at that time you purchased it.
I legit hate steam for this practice, it is very anti consumer and it set a horrible precedent that lead to the games as a service nightmare we have today.
If they cut the BS, tied multiplayer to the account for the sake of bannings and such, but the games themselves should remain available even if they get banned, just no more multiplayer access with that key tied to the account.
This buying isn't owning thing is going to come back and hit them just like the way that their service beat out brick and morter store fronts, this is just going to reach a boiling point and the legal hammer is going to come down on someone and no one is going to be happy with the outcome.
I purchased all my codes outside steam for just such a contingency , we'll see how that holds up in court...never trusted that **** to begin with
I find it morally dubious that a company can add new conditions that can act retrospectively. If the condition wasn't in the agreement when originally transacted then it shouldn't be legally enforceable!
I would play on GOG but their store lacks soooooo many games of all genres and budgets. They also lack many community features like artwork, screenshot, workshops, profile showcases... I hope by the time Steam dies, a new company (not epic) decides to do what GOG promised: Add our Steam games to our library in the new storefront. Hopefully a task of simple steps (unlike GOG's) and that include all our games. It sounds far fetch I know but consider Steam may die in 30 or more years, so technologies and policies may change a lot.
valve certainly could provide DRM free games but they wont because of corporate greed. anyone defending their practices is basically just a corpo bootlicker
That would describe a huge percentage of PC gamers sadly...
...You have never owned your games.
I know it hurts to be told this, but you have never owned your games at all.
I have a disk for Majesty 2, it'd dead, it does nothing. It came with a CD key that had an expiration date.
I have Majesty 2 on Steam... I have now had a functioning copy of Majesty 2 on Steam for longer than my disk lasted.
I still have my INCREDIBLE MACHINE floppy disk. It still runs. It is in my posession and I can play it whenever I want. I'd call that owning.
Funny, I can still play ALL my physical games that go as far as PS1 era 🤔
Prefer Gog by far. Ive not bought a game on Steam for a couple of years or more. Meanwhile I carry on adding to my Gog collection regularly. Sure they dont get the latest games immediately, but those games are rip offs anyhow and there are zillions of good old games.
I feel so good that I just got rid of my steam deck to get GOG games and PC parts 😂
i own about 200 games on steam give or take... ive been using the platform since i was 14 years old. im 43 now. i hit the steam sales from time to time. no matter what happens whether steam allows me to download it or not i paid for my game im going to use it whether someone likes it or not. i paid for it. it is mine. if that means pirating it later, then morally the platform and dev already took my money therefore there is a digital record of receipt of purchase of game and nobody can say shit when i break the law to play MY game.
Definitely gonna be buying from GOG until anything changes with Steam. Vote with your wallets for the practices you want to see more of.
When I very first got steam and bought like 5 games, I had no idea I wasn't downloading an installer that I could use to play the game at any time in the future. I'd never really been part of the gaming scene and didn't know physical media was going away. This was back in 2010/11or something when I was in graduate school and suddenly had good internet and a good laptop for the first time ever. I'm much more interested in GOG's business plan than what Valve is doing with Steam. But knowing they're partnered with Amazon does NOT give me warm fuzzies.
Thing with GOG, it does not offer all of the same games. I do love it for buying older games.
True, most of newer games that enforce denuvo and other DRM are nowhere to be seen, thankfully I don't care about newer games as much as I used to. There was a time when I was excited for new games because of improved graphics, but lately just stick to old stuff like Stronghold Crusader, HoMM3, Commandos, Beyond Good & Evil, NOLF and similar.
That is because the publishers are not down with you owning the game. Those that do not list.
@@testtest8399 ShC is absolutely the best. it's such a shame they never released the source code or built a modding API so we could have much more fun
@@testtest8399 same here. One of my first games that I bought was SpyCraft and Syndicate. Those were my games back in the day.
And prolly all those games on GOG have no DRM on Steam too. Just sayin...
Din't Steam always said we owned our games? Like how we would be able to download them if they ever go bankrupt? Was this misinformation spread by it's fans or another case of corporate gaslighting? If it's the later we could really make them get into trouble for false advertising.
I didn't even knew GOG did that! That's awesome! Never bought games outside of Steam. Sounds like it's time to have a look.
I looked. A lot of older games, which are still good, but a lot of the games I liked playing or want to play is not on there.
@@HeelerDog-u1c That's the problem. Steam's DRM tendrils have a stranglehold on the industry.
There are many games out there that you literally can't even legally own thanks to Steam... which makes 'alternative methods' a necessity.
@@BloodwyrmWildheart What exactly is Steam doing? It doesn't provide DRM by default, that's left up to the publisher. If a publisher doesn't want to be on GoG, no one can force them to (unless they're interested in an exclusivity deal of sorts like EGS has done in the past).
@@BloodwyrmWildheart Steam did nothing other than give a platform, it forces no DRM. Complain to the game publishers for putting pesky DRMs.
As a gamer long before Steam existed, I've always had this exact problem with Valve but the market chose convenience over control and helped evolve the market into a bad direction. The real fear will come once Gabe is gone, a kill switch is meaningless if we don't know who holds it.
Assuming they even have a kill switch. We only Valve's word for it. And I sincerely doubt they can unilaterally do this for AAA games for example.
You conveniently ignore that all of the damage Valve has done was under Gabe's supervision. He's also a nose. Shocker, eh?
@@lycanwarrior2137 they dont have it. and even if they do they cannot implement it for anything outside their own DRM
so technically Steam and other platforms like that should change "Purchase" button with "Rent" or "Lease"??
It is time the Consumers has their Digital Rights Ownership acknowledged and recognized by Law. If we purchase a Digital product whether it is a game, movie, Software or e-Book that product is ours as long as we do not violate the Copyright. At the Same time Corporations must be held in check and be made to allow the Consumer to be able to download and achieve any of these products that they have Legally Purchased.
I am moving to GOG I will not be using Steam in the future
Nice video. I'd also like to add that stripping ownership from online-only games even for cheating should be a no-no. The worst thing developer should be able to do is to ban people from official servers, and let the community servers handle the cheater themselves however they see fit.
Games have tried this, it just leads to community servers needing admins on 24/7 or being chocked full of hackers 24/7. it doesn't exactly help the community at all.
That's an additional reason all games should have an offline option. So that people can be banned from the community but not loose the game they paid for. Even those disgusting people paid for their product - they deserve to be banned, but nobody should have a product they paid for taken away from them without a refund.
lmao, this guy cheats and wants to continue cheating with the pretense of muh rights.
@@HookahOtaku Well, he doesn't have the right to cheat online on other people, so he should absolutely be banned, right? But that doesn't mean even disgusting cheaters don't have rights. He bought the game, it's morally his (if not his legally - legal doesn't always necessarily equal right, sadly), so he still should have a right to play it, just not with other people. And who cares if he cheats on his own? In fact he has an absolute right to cheat on a game that he plays on his own that he paid for. The only person he's cheating then is himself. In fact, there are many mods out there for that! 🤣
But we need to remember that some people deserve things taken away from them when it damages other people, but we don't need to take everything away needlessly. He still owns the game and should have access to that game - just not the community that he cheats on.
@@fransmith3255 they said ONLINE u cant cheat by yourself on an online only game
1:30 only in the US, just tried it. It would've surprised me, as this move would be against EU law :x Luckily it's (still) not legal that companies take a product away from you at their whim, even if you payed for it and agreed to it.
What a lot of this is all boiling down to terminology. Gabe and Steam need to very carefully read Merriam-Webster's Dictionary's definition of what the word "buy" means: "to acquire possession, ownership, or rights to the use or services of by payment especially of money". To "license" means: "a grant by the holder of a copyright or patent to another of any of the rights embodied in the copyright or patent short of an assignment of all rights". If you want to license something to me for a fee, then license it to me. If you want to SELL something to me, then sell it to me, but I am NOT paying a "buying" price for a mere license. License fees should reflect this by being significantly cheaper. After all, as shown many times in our economy, renting is cheaper than out-right buying.
Almost forget... an unfair contract is unenforceable under UK law...
A purchase of a digital product grants a license for the product on Steam ...
Then it is NOT a purchase of a digital product.
i have been using steam since its first started, and have never had an issue with their terms and conditions. I have read the agreements and still continue to buy games.
What so many people miss is it’s all about consumer trust.
Steam has earned a LOT of consumer trust. I’m normally very antagonistic against companies and assume malice. Valve is one of the few companies that I’m willing to put that aside because I want other companies to follow suit.
I will be okay buying a license from steam because my steam account still has access to and can download copies of a game that was taken down 10 years ago.
The fact steam still stores it and offers me the ability to download a game they have not sold in a decade because sold the license to me shows they will as much as they possibly can, keep my access to games.
Cause these people are losers who got nothing better to do than to cry online about shit. I have been with all online stores since late 90s and Steam/GoG are the only ones still for US vs the other corpos AKA big publishers. Now because people get banned for breaking the rules and cry about not being able to access their account, youbroke the rules, you suffer consequences. The only people here with real issues with Steam is people doing shady shit, running their mouths on steam community forums till they are banned, or cheating. There is no Malice coming from Steam, but there sure is a lot of bad actors trolling Steam trying to sue them for petty shit and now Steam has to do what it needs to do to not get destroyed by courts and let the other big publishers win.
Better to have rights and not need them, than to need rights and not have them. When you don't take a stand for yourself when you have a chance to, you may one day find yourself wanting to take a stand and not having the opportunity to.
Congratulations, you're part of the problem.
@@BitTheByte You are right, i always give valve the benefit of the doubt. Other games companies that we all know, i dont.
THIS SHOULD ALLOW THE COURTS TO PUSH CHARGES FOR BUSINESS ETHICS... WHICH IF THE COURT FEELS SUFFICE TO, COULD REMOVE THE CEO FROM THE COMPANY AND FORCE THE COMPANY TO GIVE EVERY ONE THE FILES TO REMOVE THE NEED FOR THE STEAM LAUNCHER...
If purchase isn't ownership, copying isn't theft. Period, end of sentence, full stop.
To those thinking GoG is any better, it is but not much.
What if you need to redownload your GoG game on a new computer and GoG goes out of business? Is this any different than Steam?
If you have the install file will this work on future OS's? How many of us still have Rollercoster Tycoon, Command and Conquer or the legendary AOL discs? Ever tried installing those on a new OS? If by some miracle they do run good luck with stability, resolution and other missing updates.
I think GoG is being is being misleading here. There is no such thing as owning a video game and it never has in a practical sense.
> I think GoG is being is being misleading here.
Exactly this.
And it's ironic - because technically GoG didn't do itself any favour with that misleading tweet. On the other hand; the amount of people getting fooled by it shows that it actually worked.
so what happens when steam closes office??
You’ve never owned your games ever. Like even on that NES cart. They just didn’t have the means to do anything about it.
Exactly, it's literally ALWAYS been like this for media, Atari cartridges and vinyl albums had the exact same terms. It's a license.
Close enough. Short of Nintendo sending ninjas because I nodded a rom, I'll take "it's too expensive to catch me, a peasant" as ownership
this is why I hate websites that force you to buy the games that don't have a hard copy,we only get to own hard copy games,and anything released on websites (like steam) are like yeah you don't own these games you play thousands to millions of hours on =.= garbage rule,give us psychical copies of the games then assholes if you going to act all bitchy towards gamers