They need to make up their minds. Yes or no question, when I buy something on steam, do I own it or am I leasing it? I've been buying there under the presumption it was the digital equivalence of buying CD's like I used to. That was how it was sold to me, and the law is very clear about transferring possessions after ones passing.
this post was submitted on 02 Jun 2024
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I've been buying there under the presumption it was the digital equivalence of buying CD's like I used to.
Why presume when you can read the T&C?
That was how it was sold to me
I don't believe it was.
And I'm not here to support Steam/Valve. I much prefer GOG, because when you buy a game on GOG, the files are literally yours to use. Buy a copy, download it to your hard drive, copy it to a USB drive, plug the USB drive into a machine that's never been connected to the internet (let alone your GOG account) and boot up both copies at once.
YMMV when it comes to online multiplayer over severs. I'm a retro gamer, so that's not my area of expertise, lol. I think for those, you would need separate accounts to play online together.
A service cannot define stipulations that go against civil law ~~common law~~, even with when agreeing to "T&C". When you buy something in a store and then later they go "nono you didn't actually buy it", that is selling under false pretense.
I don't believe it was.
What are you talking about ofcourse it was, and GOG launched 5-6 years later then Steam. When Steam was launched it was marketed as your library of games made as convenient as possible. You lock yourself into our platform and we'll provide you with many tools like cloudsaves, chat system and online services like Xfire all-in-one, and even when you lose your CD's, the game is tied to your account, not a physical CD.
When you go into a store and buy something, you tend to leave with a physical product. Not so with Steam.
You mention a "library" of games...when you take something out of the library, it's not yours.
How do you normally access your games? Through the Steam platform, or by running executables directly from your machine (without needing an internet connection)? Because if you usually use the Steam platform, that was the first hint that you don't "own" the games. And if you need an internet connection, that was the second hint.
Another big hint is, as you said, the game is tied to your account. Not your person. Your account is explicitly non-transferable (e.g., in death). As well, they can remove your access to your account for not being in line with the T&C.
You buy a drill from a store, then you use the drill to break someone's lock. But you still own the drill -- neither Home Depot nor Ryobi has a legal right to take that drill away from you, even if you get caught.
Again, I'm not defending Steam here. This is why I recommend people look into DRM-free services like GOG if you actually care about "owning" your games.
Otherwise, good luck with your class-action lawsuit against Steam. It's not like I have an empty Steam library, so if a class-action actually won, I'd benefit from that too. I just don't think it'll ever happen, thanks to the T&C which most people seem to generally know and accept.
What the fuck are you on about, when I take something out of my personal library at home it absolutely belongs to me.
You obviously have no idea what you're talking about. DRM is copy and piracy protection and was never a way to lease a game instead of buying. DRM free means you can copy it to anyones PC and will work fine.
Lol...your personal library at home is composed of physical objects that you bought and assembled into what you call a library. A better word might be a "collection" rather than a library, but we're getting into semantics here.
You seem to be getting very emotional about this. Your anger should really be directed towards Steam, or maybe yourself for not reading the T&C.
DRM is used for copy and piracy protection, yes, but it encompasses many kinds of digital rights, including access. Steam itself is DRM -- they manage the rights of which account holders can access which digital games. Even with Steam's Offline mode (which not all games support), you can run into situations where you can't play your game offline because of update issues.
Give the Steam T&C a skim, and find out whether you own your games forever. And if I'm wrong and you find something in the T&C that invalidates what I've said, then I'd be happy to see it.
Digital content doesn't fall under the same rules as physical items, for better or for worse.
You seem to be missing my point, it is very clear what Valve thinks about this. It's literally the article above? And I get their point, but I'm arguing they don't have a legal leg to stand on.
In the EU there is legal precedent to give access to every account of a deceased person to their next of kin. T&C doesn't mean shit when it goes against consumer protection or civil laws.
When the T&C say you have to give your kidney to Gabe Newell it won't hold up in court.
Remember kids; if buying isn’t owning, then piracy isn’t stealing.
Agreed. Same for every digital product we buy, games, movies, music, pictures, etc. We paid for it, we own it, we can pass our along.