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this post was submitted on 22 Sep 2023
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One of the few companies I've purchased digital good from - and they haven't enshittified themselves yet
If anything ever happens to Gabe such that he can't run the company, that's the day I'm immediately downloading and backing up my entire steam library to a hard drive.
Wouldn't those games be locked up through steams DRM?
Some games from Steam can still be used without Steam's DRM. It's a little difficult to pull it off, but it can be done
A lot of games don't require Steam's DRM, you quit Steam and launch through the Steam directory and it still works. I haven't tried it, but I'm pretty sure I can copy that game to a computer with no internet access and no Steam client and it'll work. I haven't done that though, I've only done it when I forgot my kids were playing on my account on another computer and wanted to play a game.
A lot of games don't work this way, but a lot do. Try it for yourself.
You'd need something like the Goldberg Steam Emulator, since a lot of games rely on services and APIs that Steam provides
Looks like it's for MP? I almost never play MP, so maybe that's why I haven't run into it.
Thanks for the correction. :)
I believe it holds true for some single player games as well. I seem to remember Half-Life 2 not wanting to launch without Steam present, same for some other Source games. That really might not be the case though, I'm curious to do more testing... Either way, I watch enough Linux gaming on ARM SBCs (check out MicroLinux and LeePSPComputer on YouTube), can I see them using Goldberg from time to time to get games running with no Steam
Even then. If steam actually locks out out of your games, then I bet hacked will quickly put more effort to sidestep the drm and make that more easily accessible.
Drm on Steam is optional. It's up to the dev whether to include any or not.
However, if the game uses any steam features, like achievements, voice chat, leaderboards, etc., then those won't work without steam.
I used to tell myself this and gog even used this as marketing with the "French Monk" incident.
But over the years? I don't see the point. If I am going to replay Stranglehold again but don't want to wait for a re-release/re-buy it, it is just as easy to pirate it. Since I am going to need the crack to get past the lack of steam (which is totally not drm...) and probably a few patches anyway.
AFAIK steam has optional drm. If the devs dont use it you can play the games without steam. I think it says on the store page if it's drm-free
People have been trained to say that because that is how people decided to accept it when other DRM models were horrifically invasive (and didn't look dissimilar on paper...)
Steam IS digital rights management. You authenticate with Valve, they confirm your account has access to the digitam media (the game), and provide a download if you do. After that, you can do whatever you want with it. That is almost exactly the Stardock "goo" model.
Steam ALSO has an extra layer of drm on top that developers can optionally use that will prevent you from launching the game outside of steam.
You can treat it like buying a CD (the first download) and being able to get another CD anytime for free from the store by verifying your identity and the extra DRM being the online check for the authenticity of the CD?
It's because they're a privately owned company.
The pressure for enshitification mostly comes from shareholders. Without them, the company can actually think about their long term future and decide exactly when and when not to increase profit.
I tend to avoid proprietary things whenever possible these days, but I found most things by small, privately owned companies are pretty good towards their users.
I would be so proud to be the dude who first said “enshitification” right now.
It’s probably my favorite new word I’ve ever heard in my life and seeing it widely used brings a smile to my face.
I’ve got a cousin who is probably claiming he invented it at this very moment.
It has been used so much recently that there is even a wikitionar entry for it - with a link to its original creation!
https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/enshittification
Oh hey, it actually was my cousin. Cory is always claiming he coined every cool word or phrase so haha, funny he actually did for a change. He actually claimed he popularized “epic” and “uber” in the 2000s. I mean, I know people pay attention to him but in all honesty he’s always kind of tooted his own horn wherever possible.
I’m sorry. I made all of that up. I guess my actual cousin and I aren’t that different, only he’d never say he made it up. He’d say it was a fact until he takes his last breath haha.
Hope everything is going well for you bud.
Well they did try to sell paid mods and push pay-to-play in the steam marketplace with Artifact, but luckily they ran it back. Steam is super good now but don't get too comfortable.
Yeah, I've been burnt before and know it's only a matter of time. Enjoying it while I can.
I mean, I don't have a problem with mod authors earning money for what they do instead of having to offer it for free. Especially the mods that bring the base game to a whole new level.
What's the argument that paid mods shouldn't be a thing?
It was pretty disastrous. As soon as money was at play tons of people re-uploaded other's free mods and tried to sell them. They even tried copying their steam profiles to seem legit. There was another can of worms where paid mods would use assets from other games or made by other people. Aside from all the attempted theft, there was also tons of spam and fake/unconfirmed mods lying about what they are or trying to upload the same thing multiple times under different names to appear more in search... Etc...
Moderation didn't keep up and the whole thing collapsed on itself. Mods shouldn't be paid IMO, it just encourages terrible things rather than people making content for fun.
Using someone else’s IP for making money is generally a little questionable.
But in the paid mods situation Bethesda was for the mod makers making money from the mod they made. It wasn't questionable then
The main issues that arose was there was no way to verify if x mod was by y uploader and quite a few mods made use of other mods like SKSE.
entitled children wanted free labor, that's about it.
I remember the outrage at the time but just because it's paid doesn't mean it's bad.