Reposting my comment from the other post:
Stores should only provide DRM, and anything else that they do must be optional.
But earlier:
I would rather pay a fraction of the price to play a game for one month than pretend digitally distributed games have the lifespan of a boxed physical product.
So, DRM is bad… but acceptable if it’s only DRM?
If DRM is a critical failure point for game preservation and ownership, then a store providing only DRM is still part of the problem.
In lieu of even the simplest commitment by Valve… Game Pass represent far greater value to consumers.
Game Pass is the epitome of temporary, self-updating, DRM-heavy software that you can’t patch, mod, or preserve. Yet it’s presented as a solution?
Valve does not expect users to delete their account; they think… nobody will ever hold them accountable.
Then:
They claim that upon deleting your account, your community posts will remain and will be attributed to [deleted], however this is not true…
Wait, isn’t it contradictory to say they didn’t expect users to delete accounts while criticizing their policy on deleted accounts?
Because the Steam client patches itself… their DRM prevents running Windows 98-era games on original hardware.
That shit is 25 years old. Does this goober really think it’s reasonable to expect support for an obsolete operating system?
Also, is this really a steam-only issue?
Valve’s… design deliberately hooks and blocks access to those APIs as part of Steam Input’s initialization.
This is typical behavior of API abstraction layers.
If Steam Input replaces lower-level APIs, that’s exactly what it’s designed to do. Epic, Microsoft, and others do the same. The difference is the option to disable it - not the architectural behavior itself.
In summation: This dingbat is a walking contradiction with an axe to grind.
I would field a guess, that this person is super angry about being left behind in the ever growing tech industry. Some of the complaints are valid, but directing them at specifically Valve seems super weird, since they are currently the best company concerning user-experience.
Some of the complaints are valid, but their solutions are just as baffling as their targets.
It seems evident that they’ve either got a case of cognitive dissonance flowing out their ears, or they’re dishonest in their motivation.
In any case, you’re right, it is weird to point the finger at valve, especially since they’ve done so much for gaming as a whole;
- Proton: should speak for itself. Carves games out of M$'s gated community.
- Platform features: workshop, discussions, groups, guides. Fucking amazing.
- Family sharing: nobody asked for it, and it seems like a bad business move - Valve did it anyway.
- Index: great piece of tech. Too bad about the price tag though.
- Deck: fucking masterpiece. Blows Switch out of the fucking water.
- Support staff: fucking legends. I’ve had multiple interactions where they have breached their own policy to keep me happy,
- Privately owned: despite the incentives to cash out and make bank. They have a fucking spine, which makes them dangerous to other platforms.
This guy claims to be a long-time developer and modder, yet suggests Game Pass is better for preservation than Steam. If that’s their industry insight, no wonder nobody at Valve took their feedback seriously.
They immediately lost me with props to the Microsoft store with what a pain it was to even access the game directory in the past. And even if it is improving is something that just locks you into having to use Windows OS as opposed to being able play the purchased game on other OS.
Hell with stuff like recall and Windows moving to trying to force OS online accounts compared to how clean Winows 7 used to be they just lose credibility for whatever they are trying to argue.
Here’s the actual source, I don’t think the article really adds anything
https://gist.github.com/Kaldaien/c66bf3dca62a5ac63785714f686e60ad
Enter Monthly Subscription Game Libraries and DRM-free → Exit Steam
I strongly disagree with this paragraph, as we saw with Netflix and video streaming monthly subscriptions are a trap which allows a massive increase tot he cost to the consumer and a noticeable drop in the quality of the content in a way steams model simply does not.
“You no longer have the liberty of buying a game from wherever you want. You must consider whether your store is going to continue receiving patches, whether the store itself is going to continue supporting your hardware and software, and whether your friends online bought the game from the same store.”
So are we pissed at the entire industry, or just Steam? You don’t have the liberty to buy anything from wherever you want. Go download Fortnite from Steam, buddy! Oop! It ain’t there!? Here’s hoping he deleted the rest of his online accounts while he was at it, but online blowhards tend to be hypocrites.
You’re only underscoring Kaldaien’s point about Steam by bringing up Fortnite, given that Epic is willing to release their products on other stores, whether it’s mobile or Microsoft Store on PC, as long as the terms are reasonable, not junk fees, as Sweeney puts it.
^ Mental gymnastics
The inverse is also true. Go buy Half Life on Origin. Can’t? Oh no! Monopoly! blows siren
Yes, Valve is quite consistent about keeping things locked to its store. Steamworks is also limited to Steam. Proton is an exception, but the LGPL license of Wine simply wouldn’t allow it to be otherwise. Publishing the source code is required if building on it rather than just using it as a component.
There is a valid argument against the DRM being that your ancient air-gapped system should be able to run the game still but can’t run the DRM due to the requirements changing after the point of purchase. Perhaps there is a discussion to be had about whether DRM should be removed once you change the system requirements drastically, but this feels like a rare circumstance.
The simple solution is to get DRM-free copies from GOG where possible. Archive the installers if you’re worried about future compatibility. That way you can have a nostalgic Windows 98 machine or whatever that only plays games and won’t bug you with random unprovoked changes and updates from day to day.
Kaldaien in need of more attention? How is this news?
The author of this article reflexively and illogically defends Steam (like usual):
But at least some of what Kaldaien complains about isn’t necessarily on Steam’s shoulders. It’s well within devs’ powers to provide players with access to older game versions on Steam (KOTOR 2, which I recently replayed, lets you access its pre-Aspyr version via a beta branch, for instance), but many of them elect not to. That strikes me as an issue with individual devs rather than Steam as a whole, and as for Steam Input? Well, again, if there’s a problem there it’s with developers electing to use that API over OS-native ones that’s the issue.
He literally completely misses the modder’s point. Steam itself will not run on the original machine you purchased KOTOR 2 on. You can buy a gaming machine, purchase a game through steam and 6 years later, one random day you’re suddenly no longer able to play your game, simply because Valve has decided that the version of Steam that you bought the game through is no longer ok and now you need to upgrade your hardware and OS to play the same game you’ve been playing for years.
This issue has multiple facets and the answer changes depending on the end result you want.
The author of the article sees the problem as “Old games you bought on steam are unplayable on modern hardware”. Kaldaien sees the problem as “Steam cannot run on older hardware anymore, even if the games I bought still work there”. Both people want the same thing (To be able to play the games they bought) but are looking at it from different angles.
Ultimately, Steam is a DRM tool that has a very good storefront attached to it. If you want true ownership of the software, buy the game in a way that will let you run the software by itself. Valve expects that the overwhelming majority of its users will keep up with semi-modern hardware (In this case, a machine capable of running windows 10/SteamOS) which I don’t feel is is an unreasonable ask. However, expecting Valve to retain support for an OS that hit end of life 20 years ago is unreasonable.
I agree with the opinions of the article’s author. It would be far better to ensure that support for the old titles you bought are available on modern hardware rather than making sure Steam is still accessible on a PC running windows 98. This is one of those corner-cases where piracy is acceptable. You already paid for the game, you just need to jump through some hoops to play it on your 30 year old PC.
Or just support GoG and buy the game from them.
This seems like the wisest option for the long term. I just recently decided that any games that are available on both and don’t make use of Steam-exclusive features I will buy from GOG instead. Up until that point I had been buying games on Steam by default when they had sales, but GOG has equivalent sales at the same time. Unless the game takes advantage of some Steam-exclusive feature, there seems to be no good reason to buy it from Steam instead of from GOG.
I like Steam, but they are catering to a certain audience that doesn’t care as much about game preservation. Now that GoG is doing the opposite… it is the optimal place to buy those old games you want to keep forever. Seems simple to me. It’s healthy to have two different markets anyway.
I agree with you, but I started thinking about this not even from a game preservation perspective but from a DRM perspective. This article was a timely reminder that if I buy any media with DRM, no matter how purportedly lenient and user-friendly it is, the DRM controls when and where I’m allowed to use that media in perpetuity unless I break the DRM, which I understand is illegal in some jurisdictions. Imagine having to jump through hoops or even break the law just to keep using the media that you “bought” with your hard-earned cash.
I just move the games folder out of steam.
I agree with you though.I’d love a tutorial on this on Linux.
The games folders are the same on linux. Theyre just in home>deck>steam instead of c>programs>steam, or whatever the paths are.
I do the exact same, but I also buy multiplayer and VR games on Steam, because I run Linux, and GOG Galaxy isn’t out on Linux (yet). I really don’t want to faff about getting all of that working on each individual game. I bought Rain World and FTL on GOG, but Star Wars: Battlefront 2 on Steam.
Thanks for pointing this out about multiplayer and VR games. I had wondered about this exact thing, so I appreciate your confirming it!
You can run Heroic Launcher on Linux and it ties into GoG, didn’t know if you knew. (I run Linux too! There’s dozens of us xD)
I already use it, but thanks for recommending it. It’s really great. Here on Lemmy, I think the number of Linux users is in the thousands, not dozens.
Here on Lemmy, I think the number of Linux users is in the thousands, not dozens.
Can confirm
Heck I just run GOG Galaxy in Proton to not have to patch everything manually.
Valve expects that the overwhelming majority of its users will keep up with semi-modern hardware (In this case, a machine capable of running windows 10/SteamOS) which I don’t feel is is an unreasonable ask.
Valve is forcing them to upgrade their software and hardware to keep playing games they already purchased, on the hardware they purchased it on.
However, expecting Valve to retain support for an OS that hit end of life 20 years ago is unreasonable.
It is very reasonable. No one forced Valve to build their business model this way, and they are one of the most profitable companies per employee, ever. It would not be onerous for them to continue supporting a couple of old versions of Windows, they would just have to hire a few more people to do it. Gabe would still be a billionaire.
It is very reasonable. No one forced Valve to build their business model this way, and they are one of the most profitable companies per employee, ever.
Literally every software company built their business model this way. Go open a support case with any software vendor complaining that their product won’t run on Windows 98 and see how many help you out beyond “Buy a computer from this millennium”
It would not be onerous for them to continue supporting a couple of old versions of Windows, they would just have to hire a few more people to do it.
You are failing to understand just how much has changed since Windows 98. It’s a completely different environment that requires specialized knowledge to develop for. They can’t just dust off some old source code and re-release the client. The entire back-end has changed. It would be a massive undertaking that would appease about 12 people total.
Gabe would still be a billionaire.
Sure, but I would argue that there are a lot of better things that Valve could be doing with those resources than supporting Windows 98
The entire back-end has changed.
Literally. People miss the fact that Steam is still a 32-bit app just to support older games. The rest of the world has moved onto 64-bit operating systems and applications. It’s shocking they still support 32-bit in 2025. So the argument that they aren’t supporting older titles is a little misleading because that’s the whole reason they still run a 32-bit client.
Most operating systems are no longer even offered in a 32-bit variant, 64-bit only.
I haven’t had a device with 32-bit hardware in almost 15 years. The last device I can even think of that was still 32-bit within the last 15 years was a Google Nexus 6 in 2014. All the Pixel line have been 64-bit.
Steam is literally one of the last 32-bit holdouts. Everything else has moved on. Even Discord dropped 32-bit support last year.
EDIT: Also, for reference, since Windows 98 is heavily mentioned in the arguments, those operating systems included 16-bit code. We’re talking about dropping 32-bit code, 16-bit code is deader than a doornail. Windows 3.11 was the first introduction of 32-bit code. Windows XP seems to be where they dropped all 16-bit code in 2001. We’re talking over 30 years of hardware changes.
All versions of MS-DOS and the below versions of Windows had 16 bit code:
MS-DOS (all versions)
Windows 1.x/2.x/3.x (all versions)
Windows 4.x or 9x (Windows 95/98/Millennium Edition) (all versions)The steam client has nothing to do with the games it launches.
Process.Start() works on 32 bit or 64 bit processes…
They are on 32 bit because they don’t need to upgrade to 64 bit and it’s likely too complex to upgrade.
Visual Studio, which actually benefits from 64 bit, just recently upgraded because these massive software stacks are difficult to update.
They keep a bunch of 32-bit libraries for backwards compatibility with older games that they launch. You can find numerous discussions about this in the Steam forums as well as on sites like Hackernews.
If you want, I can give it to you from a Valve employee:
https://github.com/ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux/issues/179#issuecomment-267790879
We will not drop support for the many games that have shipped on Steam with only 32-bit builds, so Steam will continue to deploy a 32-bit execution environment. To that end, it will continue to need some basic 32-bit support from the host distribution (a 32-bit glibc, ELF loader, and OpenGL driver library).
Whether the Steam client graphical interface component itself gets ported to 64-bit is a different question altogether, and is largely irrelevant as the need for the 32-bit execution environment would still be there because of the many 32-bit games to support.
Maybe do some cursory research before talking out of your ass.
You just proved my point.
Runtime environment != the steam client.
Starting a 32 bit process (ie, process.start()) means nothing to the 32 bit steam client.
They can upgrade the steam client to 64 bit without affecting the launched games. that’s the point I was making.
They just haven’t.
Literally every software company built their business model this way. Go open a support case with any software vendor complaining that their product won’t run on Windows 98 and see how many help you out beyond “Buy a computer from this millennium”
No, they didn’t. I can install the software I bought back in the day on the computers I bought it for, using the license key provided. GoG also famously uses a model where GoG does not care what OS you’re using.
You are failing to understand just how much has changed since Windows 98. It’s a completely different environment that requires specialized knowledge to develop for. They can’t just dust off some old source code and re-release the client. The entire back-end has changed. It would be a massive undertaking that would appease about 12 people total.
Lol, I’m a software developer that started by writing legacy windows software, I know exactly how much (little) has changed.
Sure, but I would argue that there are a lot of better things that Valve could be doing with those resources than supporting Windows 98
I don’t care. They have the resources to support it.
Either strip the DRM out and pay whatever you have to to the publishers to do that, or keep supporting the systems you sold your software for.
The idea that Valve is blameless for shitty behaviour because other tech companies also do that shitty behaviour is nonsense. They have been the dominant platform forever, and have had an insane amount of resources available to them.
Lol, I’m a software developer that started by writing legacy windows software, I know exactly how much (little) has changed.
Oh, so this whole situation is to a significant degree, your fault.
=P
Lol, I’m a software developer that started by writing legacy windows software, I know exactly how much (little) has changed.
It is this perspective that exposes your bias and colors your perception.
We live in a post-Heartbleed world. We live in a post-UAC world. We constantly find new bugs and vulnerabilities, and they cannot always be patched without massive changes to the architecture. We cannot forever maintain old systems that cultivated bad habits in it’s users.
Not all change is good, but all change is inevitable.
No that perspective is what makes me understand that when corporations talk about obsceleting things for security reasons, it’s almost always not actually because of security, because it would be a little less profitable to continue support.
And Valve didnt have to build a business around always checking in DRM if they didn’t want to support old clients, and they have more than enough resources to continue support.
Can I hold you to the decisions you made 20 years ago? I bought that program you built decades ago, that means I’m entitled to your continued support. And don’t you even think about getting paid, your support should be free. You shouldn’t have built and sold the software if you can’t support it…
GoG also famously uses a model where GoG does not care what OS you’re using.
I could have sworn their model was keeping old games updated to work functionally on newer hardware.
https://www.gog.com/en/gog-preservation-program
The GOG Preservation Program ensures classic games remain playable on modern systems, even after their developers stopped supporting them. By maintaining these iconic titles, GOG helps you protect and relive the memories that shaped you, DRM-free and with dedicated tech support.
Yes, and thats literally completely irrelevant.
The fact that their games are DRM free means that doesn’t matter one iota. If you buy a game from them on a set of hardware you’ll be able to play it on that hardware forever, regardless of whether their desktop client changes.
But if they keep it updated for modern systems that means as time goes on the files they are offering to install… won’t work on old hardware because they’ve been updated to the modern era.
Sure if you grab a file from them and never get a newer, more maintained version, it will play on exactly the hardware and software you had when you bought it… But if you lost the install file somehow and went to grab a new copy five years later the updated ones may no longer run on your old hardware
Can you name any other company that supports Windows 98 in 2025?
Literally any game sold that didn’t include always checking in DRM through a particular desktop client. i.e. virtually every single PC game not sold through steam.
That’s not what I asked. You said you wanted Valve to hire people to support Windows 98. What company still supports Windows 98 like that?
Lots. Do you know how much corporate software is still of that vintage?
Literally like half of AutoCAD’s products still use the graphics and windowing APIs from that era as one example. The WinForms API are clunky by modern standards but also relatively trivial for a programmer to pick up and code with.
I mean, there is still an industry of Cobol engineers maintaining mainframe code for banks from the 80s.
I am aware that some corporate infrastructure is hopelessly tangled up in legacy systems. But we are talking about consumer support here, which I know you know is very different.
I mean, there is still an industry of Cobol engineers maintaining mainframe code for banks from the 80s.
my gramps, that’s not the beacon of good business practice you think it is 🤣
In my opinion, that’s not on Steam to support their client on a long past EOL operating system. Not withstanding the added development workload and costs, there is also significantly more risk associated with supporting an OS that isn’t receiving security patches.
Not to mention the modder’s example Windows fucking 98. Steam still supports Windows 7, which was released in 2009. Your 6 year old PC will be fine.
In my opinion, that’s not on Steam to support their client on a long past EOL operating system.
It is on them since they “sold” you a game. They didn’t have to build a business model that popularized always checking in DRM, that meant that they were deceiving you when they sold you a game, but it was more profitable for them to do so.
I’m not sure valve deceived you. It’s not fair that we can’t run purchased old games on the OS they were built for. they could really show instructions on how to make them run on that OS, maybe even make a simple but official lightweight client that can download it for you, on that old OS.
but if you are on windows 10, what can they do with a game they sold you that won’t work correctly on anything beyond XP?
yes, the above things they could, and should. but even today you are not locked out: copy the game files to USB, drop in the goldberg emu, and play the game on your XP machine. It’s a single file, not eben needs internet.
if the game had DRM? I am not sure that’s the fault of valve. didn’t the devs put it there?and if you accept the “solution” to drop steam, and start renting your games? you won’t be able to do even this (edit: because they have real drm, not measly steamdrm that’s easily stripped out). you are literally locked out both if you stop paying, and if the service stops making that game available because their license expired, politics, or whatever. and you literally can do nothing about that.
but wait a minute. when, and how did exactly valve popularize always online DRM?
you know that they have nothing to do with denuvo, and steamdrm is not always online, right?
Steamdrm requires periodic online check-ins, which is the same thing for the purpose of this discussion about them forcing system upgrades.
I’ve been running steam on an unsupported OS (osx 10.13.6) for almost a year and a half now, and the only issue is a banner at the stop claiming that steam will stop working in 0 days.
I don’t remember what if anything I did to make this happen, but I’ve had no trouble buying, downloading, or playing games in that time.
A moot point if you’re running Linux.
Your problem is your OS, not Valve’s software.
Though I prefer Gog’s model.
Yeah, I… ok, I haven’t read the entire actual post, but uh…
Yes, Steam is not perfect, but… just run it on linux.
Via Proton.
A project massively spearheaded by Valve, that functionally has resulted in, among other things, extremely significantly improved game support on older hardware.
Also…with… a great many older Steam games… at least on linux, sometimes even on windows… you can just download the actual game files, and then move them out of the Steam directory, and … back them up, run them outside of Steam.
Its usually much, much trickier to do this on Windows, but still.
Yes, this doesn’t work if its reliant on hooking into Steam for whatever various services… but like… you can do this, I’ve done it many times for fucking around with more intensive attempts at modding a game.
And you of course can setup Proton without using Steam… at all.
I am honestly baffled that Kaldaien, who has been modding PC games for quite a while… seemingly doesn’t know or realize this.
I guess they just don’t have much linux experience?
… fucking MSFT doesn’t even support Win98, XP, or 7 or 8.1, and 10 is basically on its last legs.
How can Steam be reasonably expected to work on OSs that aren’t even supported by their own publishers?
Ok, I’ve now read his post.
Like don’t get me wrong, I super understand the frustration of being a modder and running into unending stupid edge cases where you need something to work that just does not have an actual ‘responsible party’, because it lies at the convergence of systems that 2 or 3 or more entities built to work between them, at that point in time… but that just is the nature of this beast.
A whole lot of this screed seems to be frustration with stuff like that, and… weirdly being angry that deleting your steam profile results in your posts being deleted?
???
I think Kaldaien needs a big fuzzy hug from a penguin.
I’m a big fan of Special K as it effectively fixed Nier Automata on PC for me. Kaldeian has done excellent, thankless work on making PC games work better and for more people.
And though Valve shouldn’t always be given the benefit of the doubt, I don’t really agree with his arguments.
Games you purchased on a Windows 98 machine later had their system requirements bumped up to Windows XP, then to Windows 7, then to Windows 10…
Is there any connection between the hardware your initial purchase was made on, and the hardware you would run that game on right now? You can buy games from your phone, or your Steam deck, or at the public library, or on your father’s Gateway. Maybe he means the game’s original system requirements, as listed “on the back of the box” so to speak. But if I want to play SWBF2 from 2005, must I find an Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 and an ATI Radeon HD 5570? No, I just need parts with equivalent/better performance that I can find today. Steam updating those system requirements for newer hardware makes those games MORE accessible, not less. It considers new gamers discovering older games and gives them a path to playing it.
The inexorable passage of time, and the eventual security flaws that can no longer be patched, means that every single one of those devices will be retired. But that’s why emulation and tools like Special K are important to game preservation. It’s why Stop Killing Games is not retroactive and does not ask for infinite software support.
The store you bought the game from is squarely responsible for your game not running.
I… Huh? If I wanted to play Dark Forces, a game developed for DOS, it doesn’t just run natively on my Windows 10 PC… I need DOS Box. Heck, that’s exactly what you get when you buy Dark Forces on Steam. Is Steam supposed to sell a game as-is, when it can’t run on modern processors and operating systems? The store is responsible for the move from i386 to x86-64?
Coming from the pre-Steam era of PC gaming, … [where you] go online to a BBS or FTP site to get patches (irrespective of whether the store you used is even still in business), this is all infuriating!
That era of gaming was the domain of SecuROM and it’s ilk, an era where I had to buy a game disc THREE TIMES because my disc drive kept scratching the disc! This waxing nostalgic for a bygone era is not convincing, I know the dark magic, I was there when it was cast.
I need DOS Box
It’s Valve’s responsibility that Microsoft stripped DOS support from their OS in Windows 10?
Starting with Windows 10, the ability to create a MS-DOS startup disk has been removed, and so either a virtual machine running MS-DOS or an older version (in a virtual machine or dual boot) must be used to format a floppy disk, or an image must be obtained from an external source.
Steam updating those system requirements for newer hardware makes those games MORE accessible,
I think they mean modifying the minimum requirements, because their electron based abomination of a client does not support older systems
so unless you know to use the goldberg emu, it will possibly make those games different, or at worst unplayable. I know of games that glitch with modern hardware, in one instance because it is so old the dev never thought about graphics hardware with 2 GB VRAM or more, and it was never patched either.
its suprising that such a high profile person does not know about goldberg emu (or various other solutions), so they rather recommend subscription services that are multiple orxers of magnitude worse.
they rather recommend subscription services that are multiple orxers of magnitude worse.
Yeah that was a pisstake, a totally unforced error in judgment. Many commented on his GitHub repo to say as much. I sympathize with getting jaded about Valve and Steam, I understand the frustration with how exploitative gaming has become, but nuking his own 20-year portfolio, a thing he should be proud of, because Valve made him so mad he wanted to stick it to them?
That’s a highly self-destructive and ultimately futile decision. What a waste.
Is there any connection between the hardware your initial purchase was made on, and the hardware you would run that game on right now? You can buy games from your phone, or your Steam deck, or at the public library, or on your father’s Gateway. Maybe he means the game’s original system requirements, as listed “on the back of the box” so to speak.
I think it’s more about if you don’t upgrade your PC.
Say you bought a game on Steam, while Windows XP was current, then just kept that PC, didn’t upgrade for whatever reason. Why would you, your game is running fine. But now Steam doesn’t support Windows XP anymore or Windows 7 for that matter, even if the game itself would run on it, making Windows 10, eventually 11, then whatever in the future, effectively the minimum requirement to play your game. The dev isn’t really at fault, because the game could technically still run on that OS, you just can’t download it anymore.
I agree with him in that regard, that it these things suck, however few people are actually affected by this. I think there should be some sort of “Legacy Client”, but then you have to deal with security. Just saying, connect your Windows 98 machine to the net for an occasional DRM check isn’t really viable. Installers would be the obvious answer, but that’s not what Steam does. Maybe Linux could be the answer, but I don’t know if it could be basically the same at one point with kernel version requirements or something like that.
Enter Monthly Subscription Game Libraries and DRM-free → Exit Steam
In lieu of even the simplest commitment by Valve to keep their DRM client free of system requirement creep, business models like Ubisoft+, EA Access and Game Pass represent far greater value to consumers. The claim is often made that you “do not own the game” with these services, but you do not own them on Steam either; Valve stops pretending to care if their store’s software breaks your game after you have played it for two hours.
I would rather pay a fraction of the price to play a game for one month than pretend digitally distributed games have the lifespan of a boxed physical product. You can consume the entirety of a game within one month and pay an appropriate amount of money for the ephemeral service offered.
this person is extremely misguided. the a copy if the game files, drop in the goldberg emu dll, and done. works forever, in as many copies as you feel like. DRMs can stand in the way, but that’s exactly what makes it even worse on subscription platforms. and online only, or strictly multiplayer games? these won’t work whatever you do, but that’s not valve’s fault.
valve is careless but today other than GOG, it’s still the best (read: least bad) popular storefront, and subscription based systems are simply just the worst.
I don’t necessarily agree with all of Kaldaien’s points, but I can’t say they aren’t well argued. Their opinions are valid if you’re willing to accept and consider their perspective.
I personally don’t see the point playing games on the original hardware, and I think keeping them updated for modern systems is a good thing, but I can see why someone might disagree and prefer running them in a VM on a traditional operating system, especially in terms of keeping the original way the game ran intact. I also disagree about the value of Microsoft’s game rental service, but I also see the value in saying “if I don’t actually own my games anyway, why not take it to it’s logical conclusion of just renting them.”
As I said, their points are well argued, even if I don’t necessarily agree on them.
I also disagree about the value of Microsoft’s game rental service, but I also see the value in saying “if I don’t actually own my games anyway, why not take it to it’s logical conclusion of just renting them.”
Yeah, monetarily it doesn’t even make sense, since it’s just cheaper to buy the game then rent them through gamepass lot of the times. Like I got Yakuza 0 steam key through a humble bundle that included other games and it took me a year to finish. Renting that on Gamepass to playthrough would have cost me 12 times the cost of what it cost to buy the Humble Bundle monthly that had Yakuza 0, and unlike Gamepass it is still in my steam account and not continued payment to retain access.
https://www.pcgamesn.com/yakuza-0/yakuza-0-the-division-humble-monthly-bundle
Why would I spend more renting and something that just stops working immediately once my subscription is up even if I don’t “own” the game on steam? Just bad money mangement.
Yeah, monetarily it doesn’t even make sense, since it’s just cheaper to buy the game then rent them through gamepass lot of the times.
Did you know that the main policy of Steam is its Subscriber Agreement? You never buy the games. Moreover, most people play games shortly after they come out, so they don’t care about something like Yakuza 0 in 2025. A new AAA game costs $60 to $70, but you can pay for a month of Game Pass for $12 and play through multiple new AAA or other games.
I’d rather buy a new AAA game than play it through Gamepass, since usually you can get those from like GMG for 10-20% off. And even if there was no discount I just don’t finish games fast enough.
AAA titles that I’d even be interested in are ones like Red Dead Redemption 2, which take me half a year or longer to get through. So paying $12 a month for it would end up being more expensive for me. And I don’t even keep access once the subscription ends. Would have to subscribe again and pay again.
Reason I put “own” in quotes was in response to people like you who say it isn’t buying. It was to point out that one time payment for much longer extended access is still something I consider way better than monthly subscription terms of agreement.
But that’s another thing isn’t it? If games like Yakuza aren’t worth it than it make much of the library not a good value if people aren’t only playing newly released AAA title. It’s wasting money to be paying games that aren’t newly released on Gamepass.
Anyways I haven’t bought a game at full price in years because playing at launch just isn’t important enough to me, so I’m just not the demographic for Gamepass. So for me trying to sell gamepass as some monetary savings just doesn’t apply to me.
To each their own. Some people are just too busy to finish a game in a month. Personally, I can finish a 30-hour game in a month without worrying too much, though I’d probably not even think of time if it was two months. That’s still $24 though. For $60, you can get four. I’m a patient gamer like you though and I wait for the deepest discounts, but most people aren’t.
Yeah it’s like for Gamepass if you decide to play mainly old games it’s not worth it. If you don’t finish new games fast enough it’s not worth it.
But, if you play new games and finish it fast enough it is worth it. Or for people who usually buy COD and Fifa annually because stuff like player base dies next new release or roster goes out of date so already like a subscription model.
Gamepass is like one of those things where unlike the Netflix model it can be hard to consume that much content to make it worth it. Much easier to watch a lot of TV shows and movies. And being a PC gamer it’s not like I need gamepass to play multiplayer so can view it like an add-on the way PS+ people do with their subscription.
And I guess enough people feel that way since I’m always amazed to see newly released gamepass games be top sellers on Steam. They decided they’d rather pay a one time $60-$70 to play at their own pace for however long the “steam subscription” lasts versus a month to month subscription approach of Gamepass.
You have (at the moment I’m writing this) 8 hours: https://www.gog.com/
