this post was submitted on 27 May 2024
345 points (98.1% liked)

Gaming

19919 readers
275 users here now

Sub for any gaming related content!

Rules:

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 42 points 5 months ago (2 children)

This is what steam is: a lesser form of ownership in exchange for the perks of the platform. I've come to prefer physical media first, DRM free second, and steam third. It's just not as good of a value proposition to me compared to outright ownership (of the license to use the software, I know we don't own "the game").

[–] [email protected] 35 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Physical media today isn’t really much better though, increasingly frequently all a disk gets you is a license to activate a digital copy anyways, with a “must be online for first play” requirement.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 5 months ago (1 children)

That's exactly how I ended up with a steam account. Bought a Civ V cd and the game isn't on the cd, just an installer for steam and a key.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago (1 children)

It's sadly true. I have been lucky so far, but I know one day I'll accidentally give money to a developer who does this

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I'm curious what recent games you've been able to purchase physical copies of that ran without updating or validating using the internet. I didn't know any publishers still did that, at least not on PC.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

I admittedly don't buy many games lately, especially not from the big budget crowd. BG3 seems to run fine without internet, as do Sea of Stars and Noita.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 5 months ago (2 children)

(of the license to use the software, I know we don’t own “the game”).

No, you don't own the copyright, but you do own your individual copy. Don't fall for the "licensed, not sold" self-serving propaganda.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago

I added the caveat simply because I didn't want to get into it

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

And Ubisoft can go fuck themselves with a cactus