It’s their accounts, you just have access to them. They can close the whole thing tomorrow.
I don’t even want to know what will happen when the valve guy retires. A publicly owned (edit: meant to write privately owned) company that could just shut down tomorrow. Many gaming publishers are aware, having their own launchers. Are you?
I’m telling you, root server, self-hosted everything and FOSS. If you can’t do your things with that, it ain’t worth doing anyway.
To start with, you’re right. Digital distribution in general is volatile for consumers. While I will say that Steam, at present, is leagues better in that you must download the game purchase in order to play it (meaning, you have a direct copy of the game on your hard drive, which will remain there even if the game is removed from the Steam store), it is not outside the realm of possibility that this could change in the future.
That said, publishers having their own launchers, I’m sorry to say, has absolutely nothing to do with their fears over “the valve guy” retiring (his name is Gabe Newell, by the way), and significantly more to do with making more money. These publishers figure if they can get you, the consumer, to buy their games directly from them, they can make 100%+ of the money, instead of having to pay Steam a percentage for any transaction. Due to the limited scope of these Publisher-run launchers, purchasing a game from them is even more volatile than purchasing from Steam (at least in the current climate), in such that if the Publisher suddenly finds their launcher is not bringing in customers (which, on average, compared to the draw of Steam at present, they generally don’t) publishers could simply drop their launchers and the catalog of games you, the customer, may have purchased from that launcher would go with them… again, yes, this could happen if Steam went down, but presently, pound for pound, the publisher’s launchers are far more likely to fall than Steam will.
Also… for any of these services (Steam or publisher launchers), you have to download the game locally in order to run them. The games are not streaming as most movie and music content is. As such, once you install a game, you could crack them to remove any DRM attached to them (barring any game that’s strictly online), then, yeah, you can self-host/store these games yourself all you want. If you buy games from GOG they make this even easier for you.
Those launchers will be installed even if you use steam. You are mixing up store and launcher. The launcher often exists to have a viable game without steam running.
Saying it has absolutely nothing to do with it is a bit weird. I have bought most of my games on Steam since 2014, yet I have all the launchers.
Gog is the way to go for non-online games. And all the classics. And yeah, of course, the games often require online components. Not much to be done there. Sometimes, things just die.
Sometimes, they don’t. I still run a Trackmania server. Glorious.
So if steam went down, my games with launchers would still work. All others would be a crap shoot, at least until valve releases some offline-steam as a farewell for their customers.
Or they’ll have to resort to cracks, which could be illegal, or even criminal in some areas of the world.
The difference is that a hostile takeover can’t happen.
Unless the founder still owns a majority of the shares, you can take control of a public company without needing the consent of the board (and CEO, founder, etc)
Yeah, it doesn’t make much difference, I just commented on the low-hanging fruit of what was clearly incorrect.
My bigger problem is with your fear-mongering and the gibberish that assumes that self-hosted FOSS solutions are somehow a viable alternative for the majority of users. I’ll pick privacy-compromised convenient products 9 times out of 10 and actually spend my time doing things I want to do, and I’m pretty bored reading all the privacy nutjobs trying to tell me how to do things.
What fearmongering. Being cautious and talking about it is fearmongering now?
And why shouldn’t privately run FOSS solutions be viable for the majority of users? Millions and millions are doing it.
That’s like saying that cooking isn’t viable for home-use and that all people should just order their food, trusting that the service holds up their deal regarding quality. If they even follow a standard.
It is just a matter of lifestyle and how much one values their own authority over things. You seem to be biased in this area, yet I’m sure, in other areas you are doing exactly what you are calling me a nut job for.
You are throwing opinions out without any reasoning attached.
It’s their accounts, you just have access to them. They can close the whole thing tomorrow.
I don’t even want to know what will happen when the valve guy retires. A publicly owned (edit: meant to write privately owned) company that could just shut down tomorrow. Many gaming publishers are aware, having their own launchers. Are you?
I’m telling you, root server, self-hosted everything and FOSS. If you can’t do your things with that, it ain’t worth doing anyway.
To start with, you’re right. Digital distribution in general is volatile for consumers. While I will say that Steam, at present, is leagues better in that you must download the game purchase in order to play it (meaning, you have a direct copy of the game on your hard drive, which will remain there even if the game is removed from the Steam store), it is not outside the realm of possibility that this could change in the future.
That said, publishers having their own launchers, I’m sorry to say, has absolutely nothing to do with their fears over “the valve guy” retiring (his name is Gabe Newell, by the way), and significantly more to do with making more money. These publishers figure if they can get you, the consumer, to buy their games directly from them, they can make 100%+ of the money, instead of having to pay Steam a percentage for any transaction. Due to the limited scope of these Publisher-run launchers, purchasing a game from them is even more volatile than purchasing from Steam (at least in the current climate), in such that if the Publisher suddenly finds their launcher is not bringing in customers (which, on average, compared to the draw of Steam at present, they generally don’t) publishers could simply drop their launchers and the catalog of games you, the customer, may have purchased from that launcher would go with them… again, yes, this could happen if Steam went down, but presently, pound for pound, the publisher’s launchers are far more likely to fall than Steam will.
Also… for any of these services (Steam or publisher launchers), you have to download the game locally in order to run them. The games are not streaming as most movie and music content is. As such, once you install a game, you could crack them to remove any DRM attached to them (barring any game that’s strictly online), then, yeah, you can self-host/store these games yourself all you want. If you buy games from GOG they make this even easier for you.
Thank you for taking the time.
Those launchers will be installed even if you use steam. You are mixing up store and launcher. The launcher often exists to have a viable game without steam running.
Saying it has absolutely nothing to do with it is a bit weird. I have bought most of my games on Steam since 2014, yet I have all the launchers.
Gog is the way to go for non-online games. And all the classics. And yeah, of course, the games often require online components. Not much to be done there. Sometimes, things just die.
Sometimes, they don’t. I still run a Trackmania server. Glorious.
So if steam went down, my games with launchers would still work. All others would be a crap shoot, at least until valve releases some offline-steam as a farewell for their customers.
Or they’ll have to resort to cracks, which could be illegal, or even criminal in some areas of the world.
It’s a private company. You can’t invest in them.
Valve is private, yes, but you can still invest into them if Gabe accepts your investment.
The Valve guy doesn’t run a publicly owned company. But go on, keep spewing.
How does that make a difference? Anyhow, I meant to write privately owned. My mistake.
The difference is that a hostile takeover can’t happen.
Unless the founder still owns a majority of the shares, you can take control of a public company without needing the consent of the board (and CEO, founder, etc)
Yeah, it doesn’t make much difference, I just commented on the low-hanging fruit of what was clearly incorrect.
My bigger problem is with your fear-mongering and the gibberish that assumes that self-hosted FOSS solutions are somehow a viable alternative for the majority of users. I’ll pick privacy-compromised convenient products 9 times out of 10 and actually spend my time doing things I want to do, and I’m pretty bored reading all the privacy nutjobs trying to tell me how to do things.
What fearmongering. Being cautious and talking about it is fearmongering now?
And why shouldn’t privately run FOSS solutions be viable for the majority of users? Millions and millions are doing it.
That’s like saying that cooking isn’t viable for home-use and that all people should just order their food, trusting that the service holds up their deal regarding quality. If they even follow a standard.
It is just a matter of lifestyle and how much one values their own authority over things. You seem to be biased in this area, yet I’m sure, in other areas you are doing exactly what you are calling me a nut job for.
You are throwing opinions out without any reasoning attached.