Something I think a lot of people in first world countries might not be thinking about also, is that Valve set very reasonable prices in third world countries for about 5-10 years. It meant not having to pirate games anymore, risking viruses and having to look for cracks every update, having distributors closed down, etc.
Steam set reasonable prices, had a download manager that could pause downloads, offered download servers in several regions and countries to make it faster, etc. And now they’re making gaming on Linux easier. 🤷🏻♂️
Platforms like EGS have been throwing incredible games at us for years (until recently), and they can’t get enough people to stick around because it’s just not worth the trouble even free. I have collected many of those games, and I ended up buying them on Steam because it was just easier to deal with, even with third-party modding (such as SMAPI for Stardew Valley).
The one thing I will say against Valve/Steam is that their social platform is a shitshow and either they should invest in moderation or just shut it down, because it’s impossible to enter there and not be blasted with racism, misogyny, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, etc. It sucks because there have been times when I went to a game’s Steam forum and found out about some recent bug or workaround, so there is value there, but it’s completely overtaken with all the bigotry. But I get it, gAmErS… if they ever moderated that place, their userbase would probably shrink.
Haven’t even bothered making an account on epic for the free games or what ever they are offering. I just don’t care, steam is so much better. Got a few games in GoG too but I wish they did a little better in the Linux support side of things.
I’ve been gaming on Linux for a year now and I have (and run) way more games from GOG than Steam.
Historically I avoided Steam because of the whole “you don’t own the games, you just license them at full price” nature of the “phone home” validation they have for most games, so I had a much larger collection in GOG than Steam to begin with since I would only get from Steam the really interesting games which I wouldn’t find in GOG (plenty of games I simply did not buy because they were Steam only).
That said, running GOG games in Linux is as least as simple as Steam games, thanks to me using Lutris which does all the heavy lifting of properly configuring Wine and VKDX to run my games and even integrates with GOG to directly download the installers: in practice I have about the same chance of success with click-and-play installing and running a game in Linux from the Steam Store via the Steam App as I do from GOG via Lutris.
Then on top of that, because I’m a techie, I actually prefer Lutris + Wine because it’s so much more open for configuration than Steam and to figure out yourself how to run games for which there are no pre-made configuration scripts, such as pirated ones - for example, for one of my Steam games I couldn’t at all find a way to run the official version of the game in Linux via the Steam App, but I could get the pirated version of that game to run just fine via Lutris.
I even have a default setting in Lutris which will run my games inside a Firejail sandbox with networking disabled plus a bunch of other security settings, something I can’t do in Steam (were I can only do it for the entire Steam App, which won’t function with disabled networking).
You’re confusing ownership of the “copyright of a game” with ownership of the actual instance of a game.
In jurisdictions were the Law is not just bought and paid for by industry lobbyists, you definitely own that copy you got when you downloaded the offline installer from GOG same as you would a game CD. What you don’t own is the copyright of the game.
Further, even in the jurisdictions were IP Law is thoroughly bought and thus has been subverted to serve media industry interests, you de facto own that copy you got when you downloaded the offline installer from GOG: because the way things are set up with GOG (meaning, no DRM), the copyright owner would have no recourse but to literally take you to court to take away that copy, which they won’t because it’s too expensive so not worth the cost - unlike with Steam they can’t just switch off you access to it by toggling a flag in a database.
Curiously, with Steam they can block you from accessing the copy of the game you bought even in the non-corrupt legal jurisdictions, because if they just block you from accessing it even if they legally can’t, it’s now up to you to take them to court to restore access to something you legally should have access to, and you won’t do it because it’s “too expensive so not worth the cost”.
…
Whilst the whole thing is a bit of a mess with multiple takes on multiple jurisdictions, the praxis side is the same everywhere: “Possession is 9/10 of the law” as the saying goes - so if you have it fully under your control (so, no “phone home” system that can lock you out from using it) THEY have to take you to Court and justify to the Judge why they should be allowed to take it away from you, whilst if it’s not under your control and they just take your access to it away from you, YOU have to take them to Court and justify why they should have to restore you access.
Even were you do not have legal ownership of a copy of a game, the way the GOG stuff is set up, once you’ve downloaded the offline installer you have de facto ownership which is pretty costly for them to overturn.
Meanwhile, the way the Steam stuff is set up you do not have control over that instance of the game and they can just take it away from you, and then it’s you who will have trouble overturning it even in jurisdictions were you’re legally in the right.
Yeah, but the store doesn’t actually tell you which is which when you’re looking to buy a new game, now does it?!
Further, will that copy of an install folder work if you copy it into a new machine? Maybe, but probably not (it depends on things like how the game handles missing registry keys and/or the graphics card changing whilst there’s already a shader cache for the previous graphics cards).
When you’re making a purchasing decision, if that factor is very important to you, Steam’s possibility that maybe it can be done in an unofficial non-supported way, but you don’t get told upfront if it does work, and you’re not sure if it will work if you change machines, doesn’t count as a real “I get to keep the game no matter what” feature - it’s a hack, that sometimes works, usually doesn’t.
This wasn’t a “hey this is ok because you can sometimes do it in a jank way” comment, more of a “hey in case you didn’t know you can go make copies to preserve what you like” comment
Epic has offered quite a few decent games for free but their forced client/launcher is such shit that its not even worth installing. I absolutely wouldn’t be surprised if people pirate games even after they’ve gotten them free on epic just to not have to deal with that bullshit.
Something I think a lot of people in first world countries might not be thinking about also, is that Valve set very reasonable prices in third world countries for about 5-10 years. It meant not having to pirate games anymore, risking viruses and having to look for cracks every update, having distributors closed down, etc.
Steam set reasonable prices, had a download manager that could pause downloads, offered download servers in several regions and countries to make it faster, etc. And now they’re making gaming on Linux easier. 🤷🏻♂️
Platforms like EGS have been throwing incredible games at us for years (until recently), and they can’t get enough people to stick around because it’s just not worth the trouble even free. I have collected many of those games, and I ended up buying them on Steam because it was just easier to deal with, even with third-party modding (such as SMAPI for Stardew Valley).
The one thing I will say against Valve/Steam is that their social platform is a shitshow and either they should invest in moderation or just shut it down, because it’s impossible to enter there and not be blasted with racism, misogyny, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, etc. It sucks because there have been times when I went to a game’s Steam forum and found out about some recent bug or workaround, so there is value there, but it’s completely overtaken with all the bigotry. But I get it, gAmErS… if they ever moderated that place, their userbase would probably shrink.
Haven’t even bothered making an account on epic for the free games or what ever they are offering. I just don’t care, steam is so much better. Got a few games in GoG too but I wish they did a little better in the Linux support side of things.
I’ve been gaming on Linux for a year now and I have (and run) way more games from GOG than Steam.
Historically I avoided Steam because of the whole “you don’t own the games, you just license them at full price” nature of the “phone home” validation they have for most games, so I had a much larger collection in GOG than Steam to begin with since I would only get from Steam the really interesting games which I wouldn’t find in GOG (plenty of games I simply did not buy because they were Steam only).
That said, running GOG games in Linux is as least as simple as Steam games, thanks to me using Lutris which does all the heavy lifting of properly configuring Wine and VKDX to run my games and even integrates with GOG to directly download the installers: in practice I have about the same chance of success with click-and-play installing and running a game in Linux from the Steam Store via the Steam App as I do from GOG via Lutris.
Then on top of that, because I’m a techie, I actually prefer Lutris + Wine because it’s so much more open for configuration than Steam and to figure out yourself how to run games for which there are no pre-made configuration scripts, such as pirated ones - for example, for one of my Steam games I couldn’t at all find a way to run the official version of the game in Linux via the Steam App, but I could get the pirated version of that game to run just fine via Lutris.
I even have a default setting in Lutris which will run my games inside a Firejail sandbox with networking disabled plus a bunch of other security settings, something I can’t do in Steam (were I can only do it for the entire Steam App, which won’t function with disabled networking).
You don’t own gog games either. Not using drm doesn’t grant ownership.
Two things:
You’re confusing ownership of the “copyright of a game” with ownership of the actual instance of a game.
In jurisdictions were the Law is not just bought and paid for by industry lobbyists, you definitely own that copy you got when you downloaded the offline installer from GOG same as you would a game CD. What you don’t own is the copyright of the game.
Further, even in the jurisdictions were IP Law is thoroughly bought and thus has been subverted to serve media industry interests, you de facto own that copy you got when you downloaded the offline installer from GOG: because the way things are set up with GOG (meaning, no DRM), the copyright owner would have no recourse but to literally take you to court to take away that copy, which they won’t because it’s too expensive so not worth the cost - unlike with Steam they can’t just switch off you access to it by toggling a flag in a database.
Curiously, with Steam they can block you from accessing the copy of the game you bought even in the non-corrupt legal jurisdictions, because if they just block you from accessing it even if they legally can’t, it’s now up to you to take them to court to restore access to something you legally should have access to, and you won’t do it because it’s “too expensive so not worth the cost”.
Whilst the whole thing is a bit of a mess with multiple takes on multiple jurisdictions, the praxis side is the same everywhere: “Possession is 9/10 of the law” as the saying goes - so if you have it fully under your control (so, no “phone home” system that can lock you out from using it) THEY have to take you to Court and justify to the Judge why they should be allowed to take it away from you, whilst if it’s not under your control and they just take your access to it away from you, YOU have to take them to Court and justify why they should have to restore you access.
Even were you do not have legal ownership of a copy of a game, the way the GOG stuff is set up, once you’ve downloaded the offline installer you have de facto ownership which is pretty costly for them to overturn.
Meanwhile, the way the Steam stuff is set up you do not have control over that instance of the game and they can just take it away from you, and then it’s you who will have trouble overturning it even in jurisdictions were you’re legally in the right.
Many of my favorite games don’t have drm, and you can just copy the install folder and boom, you own a copy
Yeah, but the store doesn’t actually tell you which is which when you’re looking to buy a new game, now does it?!
Further, will that copy of an install folder work if you copy it into a new machine? Maybe, but probably not (it depends on things like how the game handles missing registry keys and/or the graphics card changing whilst there’s already a shader cache for the previous graphics cards).
When you’re making a purchasing decision, if that factor is very important to you, Steam’s possibility that maybe it can be done in an unofficial non-supported way, but you don’t get told upfront if it does work, and you’re not sure if it will work if you change machines, doesn’t count as a real “I get to keep the game no matter what” feature - it’s a hack, that sometimes works, usually doesn’t.
In GOG that feature is standard.
This wasn’t a “hey this is ok because you can sometimes do it in a jank way” comment, more of a “hey in case you didn’t know you can go make copies to preserve what you like” comment
Ah, cheers!
It’s always good to inform people.
for me, it all boils down to this. The best DRM is making garbage. I won’t even sail the seas to find it, I just will never use it.
Epic has offered quite a few decent games for free but their forced client/launcher is such shit that its not even worth installing. I absolutely wouldn’t be surprised if people pirate games even after they’ve gotten them free on epic just to not have to deal with that bullshit.
https://heroicgameslauncher.com/
Works on windows, Mac and Linux. Connects to GOG, Epic and Amazon.
absolutely spot on write up, thank you