You don't own the games. You can't trade them. If they get removed from the platform you are SOL. Also it affected physical games as well. Why did I have to install Steam (that was green steam btw) to play Empire Total War?

I'll stick to torrenting, besides a game is like 10% of my salary. Nope.

[–] andrew0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Are you sure about them being removed from the platform? I purchased GTA: San Andreas before the shitty remaster came out, and I can still download it. It is no longer available/purchasable, but I still "own" it. Do you have a better example, as I haven't really heard of this happening before?

But yeah, all the other points you mention are valid. GOG is better in this regard, but their platform is nowhere near the level of Steam in terms of user experience.

[–] thorbot@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

Valve has made it very clear that any game you purchase on their platform will always be available to you, and they've held up on that promise for 15+ years so far.

[–] thorbot@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I completely disagree. You still own the games in Steam, and you can download them forever as long as you have your account. It's not like streaming services that can just remove stuff. I think you may not understand the difference.

[–] Pili@lemmygrad.ml 5 points 1 year ago

I wouldn't say you own games on Steam. You can't install them without Steam, and usually you can't even launch them without being connected to Steam. And you if lose your account, they are lost forever.

GOG on the other hand, you can absolutely download offline installers for you entire game collection and keep them somewhere safe in a hard drive from which you could still install them 10 years after GOG is dead. (and hopefully the games still work on newer hardware)

[–] CaptainProton@lemmy.fmhy.ml 1 points 1 year ago

If I buy a game on Steam can I sell it to you? I remember when you could just buy a game and install it, now I need another program? Why?

[–] Burstar@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Until one day Steam declares bankruptcy or some other BS that shuts it down.

[–] thorbot@lemmy.world -2 points 1 year ago

There's no fucking way. The internet will go down before steam goes belly up