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.

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[–] XEAL@lemm.ee 10 points 2 years ago (25 children)

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.

[–] doktorseven@lemmy.world 7 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (4 children)

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.

[–] XEAL@lemm.ee 2 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Now I'm wondering if any team has released a game both on GOG and Steam and still enabled DRM on the Steam release...

[–] seaturtle@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

For a while, Recettear and Chantelise were sold on GOG, but I don't think the Steam versions ever stopped using Steam DRM. But the GOG versions appeared a good long while after the Steam releases.

Also some older Ys games had DRM when they first appeared on Steam, but I don't remember whether the DRM was patched out by the time they were sold elsewhere (on GOG and formerly on GamersGate). I do know that pretty much all the games developed by Falcom are available DRM-free these days, and I know those that are published by XSEED are the same versions on GOG and Steam. Whether this is the case for the games published by other publishers (NISA, Aksys, and Mastiff) I'm not sure yet. A likely candidate worth checking in this regard is Gurumin. It's on GOG, and it's old, and it was published by someone other than XSEED (specifically, Mastiff); I vaguely remember Gurumin on Steam being unable to start without Steam.

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