TL:DW Steam has now changed its language from buy game to A purchase of a digital product grants a licence to the product on steam. This may also be non compliant with the new regulation as it still uses the word purchase. Also GOG used this opportunity to let you know their games come with an installer that they cannot take away from you.
Not really, just some wording…?
It was always licenses on Steam, nothing changed in their ToS. Though there are some DRM-free games on Steam, even free from Steam-DRM.
It was technically always licenses for every video game ever commercialised. It’s just that a publisher has no practical way to control what happens to someone’s floppy/optical disc/cartridge/whatever physical media.
Same for almost every book you’ve ever read, every CD you’ve ever listened to, and every movie you’ve ever watched. You owned the leaves of paper the book was printed on, or the plastic disc the music or movie was stamped into, but never the words, the songs, or the movie itself.
We’ve only ever had licenses to consume.
Like Kichae mentioned, every media we buy is technically a license. License to use. However we own the physical part of it and we can use (read, watch, play etc.) it whenever we please. Should be like this with games as well. At least GOG does this. As long as an installer is in our hard drives, it’s a physical media.
Nice, this is only the 90000000th time this has been posted! Seriously guys, STOP. This didn’t change literally anything. It’s just a clarification to comply with an upcoming California law.
STOP POSTING THIS IT’S NOT NEWS
I haven’t really seen anything posted on on beehaw about it though it might be we are not federated with the communities that posted it or I have been on at the wrong time to see it. Also thanks for pointing out that the change is a clarification going to add that to the title since it could clickbait people into thinking its a change with how steam operates. cheers.
any non-video source?
https://12ft.io/https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2024/10/steam-now-reminds-you-that-it-really-sells-a-license-for-a-digital-product/ Here is an article with the paywall removed. I tried the internet archive but forgot it is read only at the moment. (Edit someone beat me to it by 7 hours.)
The law didn’t change Steam. It was always like that. Steam just added a note to clarify this. Nothing has changed really.
In principle, I’m very mad! Those are my games!
In reality, I don’t replay very many games, so I don’t care too much.
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But it’s still digital when pirated…
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