Support NeoGAF

[Tsaki]

In a response to a new California law targeting digital licensing, Steam has had to be more transparent about its licensing practices.

"A purchase of a digital product grants a license for the product on Steam."

Good Old Games, a game distribution platform and online store that came about as a direct response to the industry trend of licensing games, issued a rather sarcastic, subtly scathing response to the new Steam disclosure with a humorous post to X.

"A purchase of a digital product on GOG grants you its Offline Installers, which cannot be taken away from you."

The most obvious concern and criticism of the modern game distribution and sales model stems from longevity, specifically what happens to your games when Steam or the game's online repositories are taken offline for whatever reason — an issue that has come to the forefront just this year, with The Crew not only disappearing from Ubisoft's online store, but also being removed from gamers' libraries.


notebookcheck article, GOG tweet

 

[GrayChild]

GOG continues to be the best (legal) way of preserving videogames. News at 11.

 

[Kuranghi]

Noice, PS5 Pro is a further step towards annoying digital future

Fuck these trash prices, games should be £60 max, stop making giant games you bunch of idiots, precis ffs.

Even Nintendo biggest games don't outstay their welcomes, 60 hours max for Odyssey crawling through it doing everything

 

[rodrigolfp]

GoG bless America.

 

[BennyBlanco]

GOG rules

 

[HogIsland]

GoG is a boutique outlet for boutique interests. Even in the best case scenario, they're not a plausible archive for "videogame preservation". There is only one practical, proven solution, and it's massive copyright infringement.

 

[StereoVsn]

I love GoG and have hundreds of games there. However new games I usually get on Steam since patching on GoG normally is way behind.

I will rebuy games I like on GoG though. Oh and if it has Denuvo on Steam and it’s on GoG, I will most likely get it there as well.

 

[IFireflyl]

 

[NoLootBoxDev]

 

[Mr Hyde]

Based GOG

 

[Davevil]

launcher war

 

[Kacho]

GOG is great but not really viable due to the lack of releases unfortunately

 

[Danny Dudekisser]

I like it. Obviously, selection being what it is, one can't just use GOG (especially if you're a PC-only gamer), but I will absolutely buy a game I want from there over Steam or EGS anytime I can.

I just like owning shit.

 

[Evil Calvin]

It doesn't make sense....Steam is not a streaming service, so we should definitely not lose our games when (not IF) the service eventually goes down. Maybe since they never had this message before, maybe they will be required to let us 'own' them...or at least be able to play the games offline.

 

[Magister]

Fishing for new business opportunities after the changes due to law will send some people into OCD mode.

I fully support my Polish bros. They know their shit. Most Eastern Europeans went through the great pirate era, so they know how ownership should work. If you own a copy, no one should be able to take it away.

 

[jshackles]

Obviously, selection being what it is, one can't just use GOG (especially if you're a PC-only gamer)

There are probably enough games on GOG at this point (and newer ones coming out all the time) that you could likely play only GOG games for the rest of your life, and not run out of things to play. Sure, you'll miss 95% of what's releasing, and you won't be able to follow the latest games and trends, but I don't think you'd run out of things to play.

 

[Lucifers Beard]

I really should purchase on GOG going forward. Just a bit of a faff to get them running on Steam Deck properly.

 

[Buggy Loop]

https://support.gog.com/hc/fr/articles/16034990432541-GOG-Accord-Utilisateur-effectif-à-partir-du-17-février-2024?product=gog

2.1 We give you and other GOG users the personal right (known legally as a 'license') to use GOG services and to download, access and/or stream (depending on the content) and use GOG content. This license is for your personal use. We can stop or suspend this license in some situations, which are explained later on.

They're in no place to lecture anyone

 

[moniker]

And yet GOG is also selling licenses, and Valve hasn't taken away anyone's games.

 

[AutumnLeaves]

I'm going to buy games on GOG from now on.

 

[Danny Dudekisser]

https://support.gog.com/hc/fr/articles/16034990432541-GOG-Accord-Utilisateur-effectif-à-partir-du-17-février-2024?product=gog

2.1 We give you and other GOG users the personal right (known legally as a 'license') to use GOG services and to download, access and/or stream (depending on the content) and use GOG content. This license is for your personal use. We can stop or suspend this license in some situations, which are explained later on.

They're in no place to lecture anyone

Well, except that they give you a version of the game that you can back up and install anywhere you want without any limitations, so...

 

[Miles708]

GOG is the only online marketplace that makes sense.
The rest of PC gaming is just elaborate fraud.

 

[yansolo]

Noice, PS5 Pro is a further step towards annoying digital future

Fuck these trash prices, games should be £60 max, stop making giant games you bunch of idiots, precis ffs.

Even Nintendo biggest games don't outstay their welcomes, 60 hours max for Odyssey crawling through it doing everything

you'll be shocked at the prices of games down in australia, i hate all this digital only nonsense, cant buy cheaper pre owned games and cant trade games with your friends anymore

i applaud gog for actually letting you download the games you paid for, it should be compulsory for all storefronts to let you do this.

 

[near]

It's a shame GOGs library of games still sucks ass.

 

[chakadave]

Noice, PS5 Pro is a further step towards annoying digital future

Fuck these trash prices, games should be £60 max, stop making giant games you bunch of idiots, precis ffs.

Even Nintendo biggest games don't outstay their welcomes, 60 hours max for Odyssey crawling through it doing everything

Price controls aren’t good and don’t solve the problem of currency exchanges.

you'll be shocked at the prices of games down in australia, i hate all this digital only nonsense, cant buy cheaper pre owned games and cant trade games with your friends anymore

i applaud gog for actually letting you download the games you paid for, it should be compulsory for all storefronts to let you do this.

The problem isn’t the store being greedy. It is unfriendly and government controlled IP enforcement.

This is a pr Blended of license classification.

It’d be better if valve or GOG just sold games in a more friendly open license.

Software companies and their government counter parts put themselves in this situation because of digital rights and wanting to control their IPs even though we all know it’s pretty futile.

 

[Buggy Loop]

Well, except that they give you a version of the game that you can back up and install anywhere you want without any limitations, so...

Many games on steam allow the same and which are 100% DRM free, it’s publisher dependent, valve doesn’t force anyone.

The big list of DRM-free games on Steam - PCGamingWiki PCGW - bugs, fixes, crashes, mods, guides and improvements for every PC game

www.pcgamingwiki.com

I’ve had this debate like half a dozen times on this forum already

It’s Groundhog Day

Nobody bothers to backup. Nobody gives a shit. Not only is the steam library in general way more modern, game sizes are nowhere near « old games », but the group of peoples who really think in a post apocalyptic world where steam dies and they can’t access their library, they should have bought on GOG, is like a dozen peoples, preppers.

BG3 for example on steam, you can go and backup the folder and never have to deal with Steam… but who does that?

Not to mention that if GOG goes under and publishers revoke all licenses, yes you backed it all on a double raid 20TB like a good prepper, but all that becomes illegal technically, hard to find I’ll give you that, but in no different situation than me with zero backups off to pirate whatever I want.

Even that physical media you buy, it’s a license.

But let’s dog pile on steam for simply saying what everyone else is doing

 

[diffusionx]

Reminder that GOG.com once shut down the website and locked people out of their accounts as a marketing gimmick.

 

[rodrigolfp]

Reminder that GOG.com once shut down the website and locked people out of their accounts as a marketing gimmick.

Good thing we don't need the site and account to play the games.

 

[Danny Dudekisser]

Many games on steam allow the same and which are 100% DRM free, it’s publisher dependent, valve doesn’t force anyone.

The big list of DRM-free games on Steam - PCGamingWiki PCGW - bugs, fixes, crashes, mods, guides and improvements for every PC game

www.pcgamingwiki.com

I’ve had this debate like half a dozen times on this forum already

It’s Groundhog Day

Nobody bothers to backup. Nobody gives a shit. Not only is the steam library in general way more modern, game sizes are nowhere near « old games », but the group of peoples who really think in a post apocalyptic world where steam dies and they can’t access their library, they should have bought on GOG, is like a dozen peoples, preppers.

BG3 for example on steam, you can go and backup the folder and never have to deal with Steam… but who does that?

Not to mention that if GOG goes under and publishers revoke all licenses, yes you backed it all on a double raid 20TB like a good prepper, but all that becomes illegal technically, hard to find I’ll give you that, but in no different situation than me with zero backups off to pirate whatever I want.

Even that physical media you buy, it’s a license.

But let’s dog pile on steam for simply saying what everyone else is doing

1) The DRM-free Steam lineup is still pretty sparse. There are also many games that have issues when you attempt to run them without the Steam client - for example, Super House of Dead Ninjas will not save your progress, so while it's DRM-free, it's functionally useless.
2) Nobody bothers to backup? Who cares? If someone does care, they'll do it. The point is that you can.
3) People aren't necessarily safeguarding against Steam disappearing into the abyss. More realistically, people don't want to deal with shitty DRM schemes that attempt to phone home, or that break after some amount of time due to incompatibilities, or situations like with GTA or Alan Wake where the devs updated the game solely to remove licensed music and you can't do anything about it without having an earlier version of the game stashed on your hard drive. These are all real, demonstrable issues that you cannot avoid with games purchased on Steam.
4) The whole "even physical media is just a license" talking point is tired and, practically speaking, doesn't matter. Laws around this stuff are changing, and that sort of legal language very well may be invalidated in the next several years. Either way, that doesn't matter so much as the fact that functionally, you can do whatever you want with a physical game even if it's technically against the dubious license agreement.
5) Falling back to "well I can pirate it if they shut it down" is an absolutely ridiculous solution for accessing a thing you've paid for.

You probably keep having this debate because your points don't stand up to any amount of scrutiny.

 

[Buggy Loop]

1) The DRM-free Steam lineup is still pretty sparse. There are also many games that have issues when you attempt to run them without the Steam client - for example, Super House of Dead Ninjas will not save your progress, so while it's DRM-free, it's functionally useless.

thousands of games are, a good chunk out of the portion GOG has, with exception to the really old games for DOS of course.

Steam has 10 times the size of the library, being gog exclusive seems insane to me

2) Nobody bothers to backup? Who cares? If someone does care, they'll do it. The point is that you can.

I hope he's happy 100% exclusive on GOG

3) People aren't necessarily safeguarding against Steam disappearing into the abyss. More realistically, people don't want to deal with shitty DRM schemes that attempt to phone home, or that break after some amount of time due to incompatibilities, or situations like with GTA or Alan Wake where the devs updated the game solely to remove licensed music and you can't do anything about it without having an earlier version of the game stashed on your hard drive. These are all real, demonstrable issues that you cannot avoid with games purchased on Steam.

You can't even buy GTA on gog

Why the hell would I waste hard drive space to backup Alan wake to keep a song in the credits. Even GOG version now if you download will have the updated version. You had to backup before it happened. These are first world problems.

4) The whole "even physical media is just a license" talking point is tired and, practically speaking, doesn't matter. Laws around this stuff are changing, and that sort of legal language very well may be invalidated in the next several years. Either way, that doesn't matter so much as the fact that functionally, you can do whatever you want with a physical game even if it's technically against the dubious license agreement.

Physical media nowadays is disgusting to begin with, if you even have the complete game on disc to begin with and its not a token, if its even playable remotely good without the numerous patches.

There's a reason this site exists

DoesItPlay? - Home

Working to ensure games remain accessible now and always!

www.doesitplay.org

Thinking that any modern consoles you're "ok" with physical is cute, you put a physical disc into the ultimate DRM itself, the console. Unless you hack said console.

Blu-rays are oozing with encryption based DRM built both in the disc and player. New players can stop supporting decryption keys and lock out a disc and new discs can have bad playback on old players. Oh so you can just keep that old player and never connect to the internet right?
They have a neat little thing called BD+ on it, which lets content companies run arbitrary native code on your player (among other things). It also lets you update your player's key revocation list for HDCP. Offline? Matter of time before you put a more modern Blu-ray in it and it updates the list. AACS2 allows for carrying revocation lists on discs. What makes you think this is not in consoles right now?

Ideas for fucking you over with physical media have been numerous and won't stop gen to gen.

Sony patents tech to tie discs to user IDs

A new patent application by Sony, if developed into a real-world product, will make it impossible for game discs to be sold, shared, or traded, by tying each disc to a console or user account. The patented technology works by embedding an RFID tag in the disc, which a reader in the console can...

www.engadget.com

With Nintendo taking a page from Sony and implementing a way to track game IDs. If they see multiples of that ID, they outright ban physical game carts if not outright brick your console.

5) Falling back to "well I can pirate it if they shut it down" is an absolutely ridiculous solution for accessing a thing you've paid for.

Falling back to like 2 decades of HDD backups, finding on which one, if its actually working, oh shit, yea, the raid copy will work, to then install them back on PC and boot a 2004 game...

is a ridiculous fucking solution

Even if Steam allowed it for all games tomorrow, you think I'm gonna spend on a double 20TB raid setup to back over 500 games? Nope.

In the improbable case that Valve closes down for some obscure reason and that the kill switch they promised would happen to give us access to all games bought, doesn't happen... I'll... probably not even bother to download them to be honest, even pirated. But hey, to each their own.

You probably keep having this debate because your points don't stand up to any amount of scrutiny.

Its more like morbid curiosity to see data hoarders, a mental sickness like any hoarders in real life for physical objects, clench to their media and put so much effort into it, for something that might never happen. Very much like preppers.

 

[Guilty_AI]

Well, lots of games on steam work offline indefinitely or even without the client running, though you need to check each one to be sure. I still prefer GOG since the offline element is presented in a much more convenient way (my library there is easily twice the size of my Steam's), and if there are caveats to any specific game it's quickly pointed out by reviews on the site.

I only care that the games will run offline, and though i do dislike the idea that companies can take these licenses back, i've never seen it happening for a game that wasn't always online - and if it happens to an offline one, you can still sail the high seas to assert what should've been your given rights.

Oh, and whenever i see people preaching physical over these issues, i will pray for these poor souls because a rude awakening though not probable, is 100% possible. Physical collections aren't safe from corporate shenanigans, i wouldn't trust anything from beyond the ps2 and mayhaps the ps3. Unless we're talking about hacked consoles.

 

[kevboard]

Reminder that GOG.com once shut down the website and locked people out of their accounts as a marketing gimmick.

a great demonstration on how you aren't dependent on their website or your account to still play the games you have installed.

anyone who buys a game on GoG should instantly download the offline installer and back it up onto one or even multiple HDDs, USB drives, or SSDs

 

[justiceiro]

Since steam dropped support for win 7 I have come to appreciate gog accessibility to allow all games to be downloaded anywhere.

 

[Closer]

It's a shame GOGs library of games still sucks ass.

It's because gamers want everything on Steam only.

 

[RoboCain]

I miss when they gave away games that you owned on Steam.

 

[HogIsland]

It's because gamers want everything on Steam only.

I don't think anyone gives a shit that games are Steam-exclusive. The stupid mistake is doing exclusivity off of Steam.

 

[Laptop1991]

, Get in GOG, great riposte, GOG will get more and more popular at this rate with the anti consumer shit the industry keeps pulling, and i'm all for it and a few years ago i hardly used GOG over Steam and the other launchers, now i prefer it.

 

[Closer]

I don't think anyone gives a shit that games are Steam-exclusive. The stupid mistake is doing exclusivity off of Steam.

Funny you say that because they want everything on Steam to buy it on Steam instead of anywhere else.

 

[HogIsland]

Funny you say that because they want everything on Steam to buy it on Steam instead of anywhere else.

Sure because it's the best platform to game on.

 

[Hawk The Slayer]

I just wish GOG allowed gift cards or at least have their own GOG cards like how Steam does.

 

[Kataploom]

It's like me making fun of Donald Trump because he's orange, even tho he's rich and probably bangs a different super model each day

 

[P.Jack]

thousands of games are, a good chunk out of the portion GOG has, with exception to the really old games for DOS of course.

Steam has 10 times the size of the library, being gog exclusive seems insane to me



I hope he's happy 100% exclusive on GOG



You can't even buy GTA on gog

Why the hell would I waste hard drive space to backup Alan wake to keep a song in the credits. Even GOG version now if you download will have the updated version. You had to backup before it happened. These are first world problems.



Physical media nowadays is disgusting to begin with, if you even have the complete game on disc to begin with and its not a token, if its even playable remotely good without the numerous patches.

There's a reason this site exists

DoesItPlay? - Home

Working to ensure games remain accessible now and always!

www.doesitplay.org

Thinking that any modern consoles you're "ok" with physical is cute, you put a physical disc into the ultimate DRM itself, the console. Unless you hack said console.

Blu-rays are oozing with encryption based DRM built both in the disc and player. New players can stop supporting decryption keys and lock out a disc and new discs can have bad playback on old players. Oh so you can just keep that old player and never connect to the internet right?
They have a neat little thing called BD+ on it, which lets content companies run arbitrary native code on your player (among other things). It also lets you update your player's key revocation list for HDCP. Offline? Matter of time before you put a more modern Blu-ray in it and it updates the list. AACS2 allows for carrying revocation lists on discs. What makes you think this is not in consoles right now?

Ideas for fucking you over with physical media have been numerous and won't stop gen to gen.

Sony patents tech to tie discs to user IDs

A new patent application by Sony, if developed into a real-world product, will make it impossible for game discs to be sold, shared, or traded, by tying each disc to a console or user account. The patented technology works by embedding an RFID tag in the disc, which a reader in the console can...

www.engadget.com

With Nintendo taking a page from Sony and implementing a way to track game IDs. If they see multiples of that ID, they outright ban physical game carts if not outright brick your console.



Falling back to like 2 decades of HDD backups, finding on which one, if its actually working, oh shit, yea, the raid copy will work, to then install them back on PC and boot a 2004 game...

is a ridiculous fucking solution

Even if Steam allowed it for all games tomorrow, you think I'm gonna spend on a double 20TB raid setup to back over 500 games? Nope.

In the improbable case that Valve closes down for some obscure reason and that the kill switch they promised would happen to give us access to all games bought, doesn't happen... I'll... probably not even bother to download them to be honest, even pirated. But hey, to each their own.



Its more like morbid curiosity to see data hoarders, a mental sickness like any hoarders in real life for physical objects, clench to their media and put so much effort into it, for something that might never happen. Very much like preppers.

You make a pretty good case, but you are mising the bigger picture, I think.

First of all, maybe you should click the link to doesitplay yourself, only to realise the vast majority of releases, even today, have fully playable builds on disc.

That data is on a disc. How you access that data might change in the future. Original hardware is most of the time the easiest way to access it but, like you mention, maybe the console provider tries to hinder you. But the data is still in your hand, is it likely they succeed?
Or maybe, your preferences might’ve just changed?

As an example, when PCSX2 came around 15 years ago, I popped in my PS2 games in my laptops CD-tray and had a portable PS2 with high-res all of a sudden. Didn’t have to bother downloading any games because I had them already.

There is value in the data. Storing data is not free. Some people have limited access to that data. Many appreciate that value.
You can pretty much always get something back from a physical game. Many times you can make money by just holding on to them. And if you are cheap and don’t mind waiting, you can play any game you want for free. It is a good commodity, any person can easily realise its value just by looking at it.

Physical is a proven concept, my NES games turns 40 next year and guess what, I still own the license to play them. And if my consoles and everdrives fail, my ROM filled harddrives stops working and internet is gone, I can still pickup my copy of Contra and be granted a license to play, by whichever means necessary.

 

[ZehDon]

Many games on steam allow the same and which are 100% DRM free, it’s publisher dependent, valve doesn’t force anyone...

You're trying to present this as a good thing.

... Not to mention that if GOG goes under and publishers revoke all licenses, yes you backed it all on a double raid 20TB like a good prepper, but all that becomes illegal technically...

Not really. GOG's DRM Free stance and offline installers offers users an implicitly irrevocable license regardless of any publisher's actions. If a publisher wished to revoke my license and take me to court for using the core feature of the service I specifically paid for that they specifically partook in, I'd really like to see them defend their argument in court. Rolling over for publisher DRM bullshit is the kind of lackey non-sense that created the Xbone DRM.

... Even that physical media you buy, it’s a license...

The license is attached to the physical media, like the DVD or Blu Ray, and not the end user. As such, it can only be revoked due to participation in either a product recall or post-sale exchange. Warner Bros. can't revoke my Dune Blu Ray license - period.

 

[Tams]

And yet GOG is also selling licenses, and Valve hasn't taken away anyone's games.

Taken away? No. But prevented people from playing them? Yes.

I've been almost completely boycotting Steam for over a decade now due to them not letring me play installed games because I'd forgotten to turn on offline mode.

If I can get a game on GOG, I'll buy it there. If not, then I consider hard if I really want the game - the answer is often no.

GOG and Nintendo have enough games to fill up all my time for gaming. I only buy physical games from Nintendo if there is a physical version, so that side is sort of covered.

 

[HogIsland]

You're trying to present this as a good thing.

Not really. GOG's DRM Free stance and offline installers offers users an implicitly irrevocable license regardless of any publisher's actions. If a publisher wished to revoke my license and take me to court for using the core feature of the service I specifically paid for that they specifically partook in, I'd really like to see them defend their argument in court. Rolling over for publisher DRM bullshit is the kind of lackey non-sense that created the Xbone DRM.

The license is attached to the physical media, like the DVD or Blu Ray, and not the end user. As such, it can only be revoked due to participation in either a product recall or post-sale exchange. Warner Bros. can't revoke my Dune Blu Ray license - period.

Except they do

 

[Tams]

Reminder that GOG.com once shut down the website and locked people out of their accounts as a marketing gimmick.

While terrible, they didn't sell you the right to always be able to download what you bought from them. You buy a licence to have and use a copy that they have to reasonably allow you access to.

If they permanently stopped access to downloads (shut down the store); if you could prove you weren't given enough time to download your purchases that you could win a case in court to force them to provide copies.

 

[diffusionx]

While terrible, they didn't sell you the right to always be able to download what you bought from them. You buy a licence to have and use a copy that they have to reasonably allow you access to.

If they permanently stopped access to downloads (shut down the store); if you could prove you weren't given enough time to download your purchases that you could win a case in court to force them to provide copies.

They blocked peoples' access to their downloads, suddenly, without warning, it wasn't like "we are shutting down on October 30th, download your games", as a marketing stunt.

I know it was a long time ago, and they admit it was a mistake, but over the years I bought maybe 1/10th what I would have otherwise after that. I don't think that is something that could ever be totally forgiven as a service that exists to sell digital games. It's like when people still talk about Apple putting U2 in everybodys' iTunes without asking, there are just some things you cannot do under any circumstance and is a total violation of the trust your customers put in you.

 

[Tams]

They blocked peoples' access to their downloads, suddenly, without warning, it wasn't like "we are shutting down on October 30th, download your games", as a marketing stunt.

I know it was a long time ago, and they admit it was a mistake, but over the years I bought maybe 1/10th what I would have otherwise after that. I don't think that is something that could ever be totally forgiven as a service that exists to sell digital games. It's like when people still talk about Apple putting U2 in everybodys' iTunes without asking, there are just some things you cannot do under any circumstance and is a total violation of the trust your customers put in you.

I pre-empted your response in my comment.

 

[phant0m]

GOG continues to be the best (legal) way of preserving videogames. News at 11.

Eh, big credit to GOG but I'll still take backup copies of media I already own + emulation (which is also legal).

I own a lot of PS2 + PS3 games that aren't available anywhere else, GOG or otherwise.

 

[diffusionx]

I pre-empted your response in my comment.

Who is going to go to court to get their $9.99 copy of Ultima V?

These stores operate on the idea that you trust them to deliver what they say they will and invest to keep the service running. When they violate that, it sticks out.