I totally understand your point, but when people talk about "you own nothing" they don't really mean you "own" the content on physical media, they mean it doesn't have DRM that requires an online service. You're technically correct, but your pedantry is making you miss the forest for the trees, basically.

[–] Nibodhika@lemmy.world 1 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

But the same is also true for Steam, so it's a moot point.

[–] JackbyDev@programming.dev 1 points 8 hours ago

Nobody is saying otherwise.

[–] woelkchen@lemmy.world -2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

but your pedantry is making you miss the forest for the trees, basically.

No. People here claim, that just because GOG cannot remote wipe your drive, people buying off GOG have a perpetual right to the games they've bought. But they don't because that's not how copyright works. If a game's license is revoked, to keep playing the game is copyright violation.

Not only do so many people not grasp basic concepts of copyright, they claim Valve could take away all downloaded games. No, Valve cannot remote wipe my drive either. I can back up my Steam folder. Many games on Steam don't have DRM at all. It's opt-in and the actual Steam documentation outright says not to rely on Steam DRM because "it is easily removed by a motivated attacker." If games rely on crap like Denuvo, 3rd party launchers, or invasive anti-cheat, the publishers are required to clearly state so on the store page in one of those orange boxes. Users can make an informed decision on a per-game basis even with Steam. And those games that ship crap like Denuvo aren't on GOG in the first place.

So in the end GOG is a store that stretches the truth about game ownership in their marketing and despite all their Witcher and Cyberpunk money, they don't care about users of platforms competing against Windows at all.

[–] JackbyDev@programming.dev 3 points 1 day ago (2 children)

People here claim, that just because GOG cannot remote wipe your drive, people buying off GOG have a perpetual right to the games they've bought.

I think it's pretty clear from context that they mean they have the ability to perpetually play the games because of the lack of DRM, not the right.

[–] Nibodhika@lemmy.world 0 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

Again, the same is true for Steam as well, so it's a moot point.

[–] JackbyDev@programming.dev 1 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

Nobody is saying otherwise.

[–] Nibodhika@lemmy.world 0 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

This is a thread where someone claimed that you don't own the games on Steam but you do on GOG, this is the comment the person was replying to:

In case of Steam.

With GOG I get an actual license key & terms that state my ownership.

So yes, that's exactly what the person is saying. So the fact that GOG can't remotely wipe your drive is a strawman fallacy, because neither can Steam, and the differences between GOG and Steam is what's being discussed, so anything that is the same has no bearing on the discussion.

[–] JackbyDev@programming.dev 1 points 3 hours ago

GOG is the only big option if you want to own the games you purchase.

I think it's pretty clear from context that they mean they have the ability to perpetually play the games because of the lack of DRM, not the right.

[–] woelkchen@lemmy.world -3 points 1 day ago

I think it’s pretty clear from context that they mean they have the ability to perpetually play the games because of the lack of DRM, not the right.

Plenty claim it's their right and with much ferocity while as vehemently ignoring that there are plenty of games on GOG that offer reduced content when playing offline (an extensive list was posted by someone). Also, because games on Steam must disclose their use of DRM (and anti-cheat), people can just buy DRM-free games which can be backed up just as well. Goldberg is a drop-in library for games that use Steam APIs. So everything is fine there as well for people who actually make informed buying decisions.