[PaulKeeble]

People still don't own their games with Steam, the main PC platform. I don't think its going under anytime soon and currently its reasonably customer friendly but as we have seen these big tech companies can turn on their customer base at any moment. GOG is about the only way to actually own the games since no DRM is applied and you can download the entire package and keep it and don't require their launcher.

PC already went digital no ownership for most people unfortunately. His argument that it isn't the same doesn't wash, you still can't sell them or lend them to someone else and you have to hack around Steam's DRM, which is a loophole that can be closed at any point.

[Gigachad]

Steam has gotten a free pass because they have a history of 20 years of not taking your games away. Even if something gets delisted they still allow you to download it if you already purchased.

Console manufactures have a history of shutting down the download and authentication servers after the consoles age. Sony just took away hundreds of movies consumers had purchased.

[LazyGooze]

the catch was that steam used to have, or maybe it still has, crazy discount prices, i would be mad to lose access to a 15 year old game that costed me 80$, but i wouldnt be that mad if the game costed 10$...

Still, steam didnt prevent you from accessing games, the game publisher did, like "the crew" case happend.

[aceazzameen]

You talk as if all Steam games use Steam DRM. No, it's not GOG but it's not the same category as Sony and Microsoft at all. It's starting to sound disingenuous when I see Steam lumped together with them.

[Uvix]

Until Steam starts telling me before I buy which games have their DRM and which doesn't, they belong in the same category as Sony and Microsoft.

[greycol]

It's always listed in the same spot on all the store page for games. Now why they haven't allowed us to filter games by DRM (like they have f2p) is another question. I'd love if they allowed this and published stats because I like most people assume I'm in the majority and would love to see that you're cutting off access to X% of your market if you include rootkits/aggressive drm.

[Uvix]

Only additional third-party DRM is listed there, not Steam's own DRM.

[kanemcgrath]

Also the steam DRM on a lot of single player games can be removed very easily. https://github.com/atom0s/Steamless

and is a recommended step for engine modding games like skyrim.

[hx8]

I think it's a fair comparison. Steam can change their behavior to become much more user hostile at any point, and hold our triple digit steam libraries hostage.

[PaulKeeble]

Its not like we can sell or even lend the games from Steam that we have, not without breaking the licence terms and hacking around the DRM. Its precisely the same as what Sony is intending to enforce.

[nemomarx]

Can you sell or lend gog games, though? You can transfer the files obviously but if a steam game comes with no drm (which is pretty common for indies) you can do the same thing. GOG nicely requires everyone on their platform to do this but ultimately the devs have to want to not put in drm too.