This is in reference to a post titled Amazon Prime Video is able to remove a video from your library after purchase.. The title is kind of self-explanatory and piracy was brought up in the comments. Someone mentioned GOG and Steam granting users indefinite licenses to users regardless of whether or not the game is still being sold.
While I could see that with GOG something tells me that’s probably not the case with Steam but I can’t find a specific quote to back it up. I can’t seem to find an instance of them removing a game from someone’s library even when a game was banned in a country like in the case of Disco Elysium and Rimworld being banned in Australia.
I couldn’t see Valve removing games from people’s libraries without a good reason due to the amount of backlash that would cause but maybe under specific circumstances they would.
On a similar note I was curious if anything in the terms and conditions talks about Steam emulators. There’s a section it that says:
“… host or provide matchmaking services for the Content and Services or emulate or redirect the communication protocols used by Valve in any network feature of the Content and Services, through protocol emulation, tunneling, modifying or adding components to the Content and Services …”
But I am not sure if I am misunderstanding what it’s trying to get across.
I looked through a majority of the Steam Subscriber Agreement but it can be a bit hard to decipher. There could also be comments from Valve staff elsewhere like on Twitter or Reddit that may at least shown their thoughts on the matter.
This might be a bit boring for a lot of people but I am curious about the DRM behind Steam. I feel like people have placed a lot of trust and money into Valve and Steam so I am curious about potential worst case scenarios.
Same here with the original Metro: Last Light.
However, Valve has grabbed us by the balls by forcing use to use Steam to run purchased games. They could go out of business or whatever and people would the entire Steam games library.
I try to buy games via GOG instead if they have a similar offer for the same game.
I think Gabe said long ago that whenever steam died, you’d somehow be given all the games you owned still
I don’t think Gabe actually said anything. It seems like a user, over ten years ago, asked a support staff about it. The Support Tech said
Someone on a Steam forum post said Gabe said
but as far as I am aware that was just a post from a random user. It could be that they contacted Gabe himself through his email. It was 2009 and from what I recall he would frequently respond to users back then but there’s not much to back it up currently.
Gabe seems to actually respond to emails, so maybe send one asking about this
And if you believe that you’ll believe anything.
They’ve maintained a very pro-consumer stance so far; so yes, I do believe them for the time being.
If they ever go public, panic.
I certainly would. Going public is always the precursor to enshittification.
Reddit wasn’t evil once too and we all know how that turned out. Or Google if you need a bigger name.
Not all games require Steam. Steam DRM exists for companies and individuals to use if they want, but it is in no way mandatory. Look for lists online of non-DRMed Steam games that can be ran completely without Steam.
Blame the maker of the game, not Valve.
Now I’m wondering if any team has released a game both on GOG and Steam and still enabled DRM on the Steam release…
Totally. A not-so-current mention would be Fallout 3. For the longest time the Steam release used Games For Windows Live which wasn’t really working for years but the GOG version was DRM free.
I can’t think of a recent release where this has happened but I imagine it was either because it was typical for the team behind a game to have a specific kind of DRM or because the GOG release was lightly later than the Steam release.
Here is a list of DRM free Steam games for those interested
https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/List_of_DRM-free_games_on_Steam
You can play the majority of steam games without Steam.
Do you mean utilizing tools like Steam emulators? Because there’s only a few hundred DRM-free games on Steam that I am aware of. I think it’s far from a majority.
DRM free games dont need steam emus, they have no DRM just copy and paste the files and your good to go. Almost all other games that only use Steam’s DRM can be cracked by replacing the dll and in some cases patching the exe. There are tools that to all the heavy lifting for you.
It’s not DRM free at that point though. That’s like making your own decoder wheel to crack an early 2000s game. You are still circumventing something designed to prevent you from redistributing the game.
You just aren’t dealing with things like Denovo is all.
All you have to do for the most part is make a shortcut from the exe.
And yeah, a few hundred games.
Steam servers would have to blow up the same day it went out of business, I feel like Gabe’s dying breath would be spent hitting a killswitch for DRM before the service shut down. Maybe hyperbole and naive of me but I doubt the truth is far off.
We can only trust that Valve acts in good faith if the time ever comes…