His point is highlighting that even if you pay for it you don’t actually own the game. In this weird market you only own the game if you pirate it.
Ip laws are the worst and terrible for the market. Especially the media companies that just recharge you for for the same content just to watch it on a different medium.
> In this weird market you only own the game if you pirate it.
That's a really good way of putting it, I'm gonna steal that (irony unintended). It's totally true - when you purchase software or services it's conditional. You have some voucher that can be redeemed at the discretion of the provider, and there are always many ways (EULA violation, company goes away) that the voucher can be negated.
But when you steal something you aren't beholden to anyone. You actually "own" that piece of software in a way more concrete way. Yes, someone could pursue legal charges and force you to remove it, but it's a totally separate system vs the built-in contract between customer/ service.
>>His point is highlighting that even if you pay for it you don’t actually own the game
In the EU at least, you absolutely own the copy and are free to do with it as you please though, including making more copies for your own safekeeping. There are other comments in this thread pointing out that even in US with its crazy laws you also have this right, although I cannot comment on that personally.
The two scenarios I'm comparing (and finding not much difference between) are:
> You "buy" the game from Stadia, it's taken from you, so now you pirate the game.
> You "buy" the game from Steam, it's taken from you, so now you download the pirate's crack to the game.
In either case, the original developer received compensation so I don't think you should feel any moral obligations to anybody. Morally they're equivalent, the only real difference is whether you have the gamefiles already downloaded or not. In both cases you need to dip into the shadier side of the net to get the game you "bought" to run.
Yeah I think I can agree with that. The two scenarios you posted are equal in my mind. I was thinking more about a scenario where you bought a game from steam, then used a pirate crack to play it, vs a scenario where you didn't buy a game, just pirated it. Those two aren't the same - obviously.
They're completely fungible, and the "damage" to the manufacturer, even a potentially contrived "piracy is theft" argument doesn't hold up. You already bought the game, the developer got paid as much as they would have if the service stayed up. Just because the service provider shuts down doesn't change those facts.
That's like saying that if you're watching a blu ray rip of your own purchased disc, it isn't the same product you bought. Technically correct, but it's completely legal to rip your own discs(at least in the EU, can't comment on other countries).
My issue with "just download a crack" is that I have to spend time hunting down the crack, and I can't be sure the crack won't include malware, or won't introduce bugs which only appear later in the game. The last of these has happened to me on multiple occasions. A cracked game is no longer the product I bought.
By contrast, when I buy a game on GOG, I get a product that is DRM Free and will work forever—and because it's the product I actually purchased, I receive some minimal level of assurance from the retailer.
I would feel somewhat differently if there was a single "universal" crack that worked on all Steam games, or even which worked on 95% of Steam games and failed in a predictable way on the remaining 5%. This is the case for iTunes TV Shows, and so I have no problem paying for those, because I can run them through some software and I know the DRM will get stripped correctly every time with no quality loss. I'm not aware of any such software for Steam games.
You are correct of course. My point is that if Steam would disappear, a technological solution would appear to play your games. Just like even once every single PS1 on the planet turns into dust, we can still play PS1 games by other means. With stadia, this will never happen because you can't get a copy of a Stadia game I'm the first place.
I just question how much that matters in practice. In both cases, you can theoretically replace the game you bought with a pirated copy.
All PS1 games have been archived, yes, because the method of ripping a PS1 game is consistent across every title, and the total number of games released was relatively small. That's not the case with PC games today, and I think it's virtually inevitable that a lot of indie games released exclusively on Steam will eventually be lost to time. As will many of the indie games released without DRM on itch.io—but at least any game you downloaded from itch.io will be playable forever.
You can argue cloud gaming is even worse. Maybe so, but at least it provides a lot of extra utility, since you can play on low-end devices. Steam provides automatic updates, that's kind of nice I guess, but not in the same class as running Assassin's Creed on your phone†. (Even then, I personally wouldn't pay full price for a game I can only run on someone else's servers, but I understand why someone else might.)
I don't like Steam.
† In theory. I've always found cloud gaming has too much latency for me. But in theory, if it worked perfectly—which perhaps it never will—the promise is nuts.
You seem to be saying (and be certain of) that in the EU, were Steam to be discontinued, it'd be completely legal for you to download a crack to bypass the DRM for the game you were previously licensed to play through Valve's platform. Is this established as a matter of law? Could you share any links on the topic?
If it wouldn't be legal, then downloading the crack to the game you paid to play through Steam but can't anymore would presumably be just as illegal as pirating the whole game to begin with. Did you really purchase the game or just an indefinite (but not necessarily eternal) license to play it?
Ip laws are the worst and terrible for the market. Especially the media companies that just recharge you for for the same content just to watch it on a different medium.