• sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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    10 months ago

    Yup, but there’s no DRM to lock you out a few years down the road when the DRM servers go down, and you don’t need to login to their service to play your games.

    Yes, the license has restrictions and Steam has been a good actor so far, but you don’t have to look far to see how they could flip (see Sony revoking Discover video purchases, which they have since postponed). GOG wouldn’t be able to do that since they have no mechanism to remove things you have already downloaded, they can merely revoke future access to it.

    • wrath_of_grunge@kbin.social
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      10 months ago

      Same for much on Steam. They wouldn’t be able to go erase stuff off your hard drives.

      Many of the older games on Steam don’t have any DRM. Typically if they’re on GOG, they come the same way on Steam.

      That said, I like GOG. It’s one of the few services I buy games on. But this argument that Steam games are locked down by DRM is is silly. Most games that are released on both platforms are identical.

      • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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        10 months ago

        Yup, but you know you’re getting DRM-free with GOG, and there’s value to that.

        But many games still use Steam DRM even if they remove their other DRM, meaning you need the Steam client to be running for the game to run. And it’s relatively common for games available on GOG to have Steam DRM on Steam.

        That said, it’s not really something I worry about. Steam provides enough value to me personally that I’m okay with not every game being completely DRM-free. But if all things were otherwise equal, I’d opt for GOG.

          • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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            10 months ago

            Okay, but:

            • that can change at any time if Valve bothers to patch it
            • it’s technically piracy
            • it takes effort the average person isn’t going to do

            DRM-free avoids that, hence why GOG has value.

            • 520@kbin.social
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              10 months ago

              that can change at any time if Valve bothers to patch it

              Sure. And DRM free can become DRM laden with a patch too

              it’s technically piracy

              No it’s not. It doesn’t even legally count as copyright infringement. You are legally allowed to crack your own legit copy of software. The only thing possibly in the way is the EULA of the software (almost all of them have a possibly-illegal no reverse engineering clause)

              it takes effort the average person isn’t going to do

              The average person isn’t going to be backing up their games in the first place.

              • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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                10 months ago

                DRM free can become DRM laden with a patch

                Only if you download the update for that game.

                The patch to the Steam DLL could impact every game, and it still requires the user to patch the binary. Steam updating the binary to patch out the fix has a much bigger impact than a game adding DRM later.

                You are legally allowed to crack your own copy

                I’m pretty sure you’re not, though there’s potential for some gray area. Here’s 17 U.S. Code § 1201, (a) (1) (A):

                No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title.

                And yes, the average person does “back up” their games by having a copy of the installer in a Downloads directory or maybe a separate drive. They’re probably not going to use a NAS or cloud service, but that’s probably still more likely than applying a patch to a binary.

      • MudMan@kbin.social
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        10 months ago

        Not “many”. I think last I checked under 2% of Steam games are DRM-free.