Steam is dropping support for Windows 7 and macOS Mohave (and older), which could break or prevent downloading purchased games

[leadeater]

27 minutes ago, ccnow said:

The position that it's not right for Steam to require new hardware to play your games seems to ignore that the Steam client by nature needs to connect to the internet, and that the inability to securely perform that functionality inherently hinders the ability for Steam to provide their services on your outdated hardware.

What if when we brought games they came as is, the game, and worked in perpetuity, forever, not requiring anything else? Of course the game itself not being a factor here, just how we get it and execute/play it.

 

I have shelves full of games just like this, PC games are very difficult to purchase games under this model anymore, almost never on release.

 

This wouldn't be an issue if Steam wasn't required to start the Steam copy of the game. Most games purchased through Steam get issued a virtual CD key which you can choose to view but nowhere in the installer or the settings menu is there a way to actually put this key in, it's not required. But we could go back to allowing this method and decouple Steam entirely either at the start/release of the game or some time later.

 

Most people when purchasing games aren't agreeing to a time limit on availability and ownership, regardless of ToS. It won't actually take long for a very large class action lawsuit to happen over issues like these and Valve/Steam is aware of that too. Which is why I don't think Valve/Steam is going to intentionally kick that process off so willingly. They won't have to defend themselves once, they'll have to do it in potentially every US state, federal level, EU, Europe non-EU, Asia-Pacific etc. All it will take is one loss in court and that domino starts.

 

P.S. I really like Steam, always have and probably always will. The industry just need a better plan for legacy games, forced on them or not. Having to buy my games again on GOG is not an answer, even though I have had to do it and done it.

[ccnow]

29 minutes ago, leadeater said:

What if when we brought games they came as is, the game, and worked in perpetuity, forever, not requiring anything else? Of course the game itself not being a factor here, just how we get it and execute/play it.

I think this would be a good solution, but the reality is that the Steam EULA explains clearly that this is not how it works.

 

One of the reasons Steam became so popular is because it was highly adopted by publishers because of it's built-in DRM. Asking Steam to not use this feature is asking Steam to ignore what made it such a popular platform among game developers and publishers in the first place. GOG exists if you're looking for something along these lines.

[leadeater]

26 minutes ago, ccnow said:

I think this would be a good solution, but the reality is that the Steam EULA explains clearly that this is not how it works.

Doesn't matter what's in a EULA, no EULA forgoes any legal rights you have and if that's the way the courts goes if it comes to that then no amount of words Valve put in their will do anything.

 

26 minutes ago, ccnow said:

Asking Steam to not use this feature is asking Steam to ignore what made it such a popular platform among game developers and publishers in the first place

Steam made it simple to buy, manage and play games. Nobody, end user, cared or will ever care about the DRM. Also for the good last decade or more most games do not rely on or even use Steam DRM and use their own.

 

Steam DRM is actually optional, you can release games on Steam with zero DRM.

Quote

DRM is completely optional on Steam for developers, all CDPR games for example can run without it because they're fully DRM free, so you can download, then copy and run them without the client.

 

  

26 minutes ago, ccnow said:

GOG exists if you're looking for something along these lines.

 

58 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Having to buy my games again on GOG is not an answer, even though I have had to do it and done it.

[ccnow]

I'm a bit confused by your response.

 

You're right that EULAs are unenforcable if they're illegal...but it's not in this case. The idea that you're simply purchasing a license to software and not the software itself isn't new and isn't likely to be challenged in court, certainly not by the vocal minority of users on EOL operating systems.

 

I never said DRM was required - only that Steam DRM is the major reason for such a high adoption of the platform by publishers. I'm not sure what it being optional has to do with anything being discussed here. Publishers want DRM and Steam DRM meets that desire for the publishers in a way that is tolerable to consumers.

 

Regarding GOG - I was responding to your point that simply purchasing games without needing online DRM is hard to do these days, certainly not making the suggestion that you re-purchase all your Steam games from GOG. My point is more along that lines of "if DRM free software is important to you, this is probably where you should be looking for your software" more than anything else - and I do believe it is a valid one.

[leadeater]

13 minutes ago, ccnow said:

You're right that EULAs are unenforcable if they're illegal...but it's not in this case.

You don't now the legality of it. That's the thing, if it's a big enough problem and people get annoyed about it then we'll find out. It's not illegal to but non legally enforceable terms in to an EULA, nothing at all happens. People can comply or not, it comes to ahead only when tested in court.

 

13 minutes ago, ccnow said:

The idea that you're simply purchasing a license to software and not the software itself isn't new and isn't likely to be challenged in court

It has actually, in EU (Germany I think) and the ruling was you do own it. Any perpetual software license is ownership there, subscriptions no.

[ccnow]

2 minutes ago, leadeater said:

You don't now the legality of it. That's the thing, if it's a big enough problem and people get annoyed about it then we'll find out. It's not illegal to but non legally enforceable terms in to an EULA, nothing at all happens. People can comply or not, it comes to ahead only when tested in court.

 

I do think we find ourselves at an impasse then, as our positions are contradictory and both are supported by various court rulings in various jurisdictions.

[leadeater]

14 minutes ago, ccnow said:

only that Steam DRM is the major reason for such a high adoption of the platform by publishers

This is where I would argue they wanted on because that's where end users were going and wanted. I was very active through that transition and the reason most games went to Steam wasn't because of Steam DRM.

[leadeater]

4 minutes ago, ccnow said:

I do think we find ourselves at an impasse then, as our positions are contradictory and both are supported by various court rulings in various jurisdictions.

Yes but that's on a different aspect. Like I said we don't what is or is not until it's been tested in court and if for example in the EU it becomes a requirement for Steam games to be playable without a Steam internet connection no matter what, that like most of such situations flows to everywhere else.

 

And I know AUS/NZ would follow suit on such a legal requirement after that too, we wouldn't be the only ones. I could see California for example doing it.

 

It's not a problem now because it's not a problem. Saying something is in an EULA isn't good reasoning toward the issue because the point was if enough people get annoyed at some point and class action it then it becomes a problem and like I mention the problem isn't winning once it's winning every single time.

[leadeater]

21 minutes ago, ccnow said:

My point is more along that lines of "if DRM free software is important to you, this is probably where you should be looking for your software" more than anything else - and I do believe it is a valid one.

It's not, what's important to me is having something I own and if it's taken away from me buying it again is not a sufficient answer. The sufficient answer is force the issue in court to get the answer either way and live with the outcome.

 

I'll buy what I must again if I have to, but I'd rather not have to.

[ccnow]

4 minutes ago, leadeater said:

This is where I would argue they wanted on because that's where end users were going and wanted. I was very active through that transition and the reason most games went to Steam wasn't because of Steam DRM.

Again, I believe we're at an impasse. I was also very active during that period and remember discussing on the forums how much we hated the random DRM games used. Steam was the oft-suggested solution, and developers that embraced Steam DRM did not suffer the same way EA did. There were many other examples, but I do believe this was an inflection point. Adoption ramped up from there rapidly.

 

Here's a fun throwback to 2008 though - A TechCrunch article about Spore DRM.

[leadeater]

12 minutes ago, ccnow said:

Again, I believe we're at an impasse. I was also very active during that period and remember discussing on the forums how much we hated the random DRM games used. Steam was the oft-suggested solution, and developers that embraced Steam DRM did not suffer the same way EA did. There were many other examples, but I do believe this was an inflection point. Adoption ramped up from there rapidly.

 

Here's a fun throwback to 2008 though - A TechCrunch article about Spore DRM.

That doesn't mean that is why Steam became popular. Steam offered an acceptable DRM solution for those that insisted on having it but I'll point to Steam vs Origin/EA vs Epic Games Store as to the primary reason Publishers want on a platform, market user access aka money.

 

I'm not saying Steam DRM is a non factor, I just don't believe at all it was a primary reason. Steam came in and offered millions of people a very easy way to purchase and consume games and remove us from the tether of CD/DVDs and that was wildly popular and so the people came.

 

Steam official launch was 2003, by 2007 more than 10 million active users and in 2008 basically every major publisher signed on that year, most games maintained the usage for 3rd Party DRM on Steam, Far Cay 2 for example did. Most major publishers maintained the usage of 3rd Party DRM and still do even now.

[jagdtigger]

On 1/2/2024 at 5:12 AM, Donut417 said:

For the average Joe Blow, yes.

Joe Blow doesnt care about updates, as long as it turns on and XY web bbrowser opens they simply dont care.

 

On 1/1/2024 at 5:47 PM, whispous said:

The context of this entire thread is that an online service is dropping support

True enough, but see above as well.

 

 

On 1/2/2024 at 8:16 AM, Lunar River said:

You're right, people throw out perfectly working machinery even while the OS is supported just because people want next product

A minority maybe.....

 

20 hours ago, whispous said:

Well, eventually they'll change the APIs and technologies

They wont even have to do that, just put in a minimum version check.......

[Donut417]

51 minutes ago, jagdtigger said:

Joe Blow doesnt care about updates, as long as it turns on and XY web bbrowser opens they simply dont care.

They do when someone opens a credit card in their name. 

[jagdtigger]

14 hours ago, Donut417 said:

They do when someone opens a credit card in their name. 

That can happen on even a fully patched system... (social engineering, phishing, malware not known by AV, etc......)