News Steam checkout banner clarifies you don’t own the game you buy — GOG takes a jab at Steam, saying it gives users offline installers that cannot be...

[Admin]

Steam clarifies that you only buy a license when purchasing a game on its platform.

Steam checkout banner clarifies you don’t own the game you buy — GOG takes a jab at Steam, saying it gives users offline installers that cannot be... : Read more

 

[ezst036]

Not a surprise. Software licensing has always been just licensing, not ownership.

And actual ownership ended when cartridges and CDROMS/DVD went away due to lack of customer demand. Even in those days it wasn't quite full ownership but it was a little more substantial.

This was a choice gamers themselves made. If they want to lay blame somewhere, I'm sure their houses have mirrors in them somewhere.

 

[coolitic]

Not a surprise. Software licensing has always been just licensing, not ownership.

And actual ownership ended when cartridges and CDROMS/DVD went away due to lack of customer demand. Even in those days it wasn't quite full ownership but it was a little more substantial.

This was a choice gamers themselves made. If they want to lay blame somewhere, I'm sure their houses have mirrors in them somewhere.

I'm pretty sure even "physical-copies" of games were also just licenses. And it's also the same w/ GOG, in the sense that you have a license to *play* the game, and not, for example, own the art-assets inside.

 

[Sluggotg]

GOG is my favorite! The vast majority of my digital game purchases are through them. Make sure to download the local installers. Make back ups and boom, you have your games safe and sound.

If some game developer pulled a game off Steam that I had purchased, I would expect a full refund. I would also NEVER buy another game from that developer.

 

[FunSurfer]

In the PC Gamer site they wrote about this subject: "You can't bequeath your Steam library to anyone upon your unfortunate passing either, which of course you would be able to if you really owned its contents."
But you can bequeath your Steam account password.

 

[AkroZ]

In the PC Gamer site they wrote about this subject: "You can't bequeath your Steam library to anyone upon your unfortunate passing either, which of course you would be able to if you really owned its contents."
But you can bequeath your Steam account password.

The law of most Member States of the European Union expressly or implicitly recognises that digital assets are part of a person's estate and can be inherited by their beneficiaries.

 

[Jito463]

If a developer takes a title you bought via Steam off the platform, the game will also be removed from your library.

That's not really accurate. Back when EA was distancing themselves from Steam, they pulled Dragon Age II from the store, but it remained in my account. There may be specific instances of that happening, but it's definitely not in all cases.

 

[Alvar "Miles" Udell]

Could be worse, remember the days before Steam when some DRM methods literally took away your ability to play a physically purchased game without recourse if you had to reinstall it a couple of times, such as after a HD failure, without deactivating it first? My Command & Conquer 3 disks became frisbees because of that. Or what about games that were rendered unplayable (without somewhat "illegal" means) because the physical disk was damaged even if all the disk was used for was DRM purposes?