Games

Yeah seriously, Steam was universally hated at the time. Anyone else remember this gif?

(Sorry for the imgur link BTW, but Voyager uses the default Android upload dialog and it's AWFUL. Half the time the picture I want to upload isn't there, even if I directly navigate to the folder it's in.)

I remember Green Steam on dialup. The steam loading bar frolicking across the screen, left AND sometimes right. No "offline" mode. And, of course, being the only way to play Half Life 2.

GOG is pretty good but they have zero Linux support that I'm aware of. Had to return a game I bought off there last year. Bought it through Steam and it worked seamlessly.

I still have a bulk of those CD’s (not the boxes anymore). I keep them in a binder with the CD holder sleeves. Same for my drivers, and operating systems. I have disks of going back to NT, 95b, and 98. I only started in to PC’ in 1998/9. I wish i had my original Voodoo3 driver disk. I remember buying that card in my way back from school one afternoon. I was so excited to install it.

I was skeptical of Steam when it launched as well. It has proven to be a good service.

No, we stop at the second

News are slow. The milkman has to do work.

That's the difference between a private company and a publicly-traded one.

The competition might not be real right now, but they're smart enough to know it'll eventually catch up if they don't stay one step ahead.

even without real competition on the market,

Which is the effect of

giving the customers the best most experience possible

This is revisionist history. Steam was not the origination of DRM or even online DRM.

No, that's what consumers like you are thinking in hindsight and unrelated.

The context Gabe is talking about is when he was approaching publishers. They were just being anti tech and believing in traditional brick and mortar. They were definently pro-DRM. They just couldn't fathom a digital marketplace.

Games used stuff like cd keys and even pieces of paper that deciphered codes as DRM. DRM was always something sought after by companies. Just take a look at Sony rootkit scandal for music CDs.

steam drm is the bare minimum license check and its not mandatory for anyone to implement in their game

Steam is undoubtedly convenient.

But if any game you care about keeping is on GOG, it's a good idea to buy a copy on there, and then squirreling away the offline installer files/extracted game files somewhere safe.

I don't think you were a jackass. You purchased a physical copy and thus shouldn't need an internet connection to start your game (unless it's multiplayer only). It's crazy how easy it is for people to get used to new normals when it comes to things like this.

Remember when you could sell games you'd never play again and people less fortunate than you could have their fun with them for a much lower price?

If I buy something, decide I don't want it anymore, I can refund it within 2 hours of playtime or 24 hours of purchase (I might have the exact numbers wrong, but whatever). I've only ever used this a couple of times, but this is a reasonable expectation if you think of a video game as a product that you purchase much like any other product. I've never had problems with refunds, ever.

One time I bought a game on nintendo switch, and discovered that I couldn't play it because it required joycons and I didn't have any of those. I attempted to refund the game, but nintendo won't let you refund a game if you've downloaded it.

I still buy games on steam. My switch though, I gave that away.