Post #3534129
2026-07-02 12:34 UTC
Replies (6)
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@CaptainBasculin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2026-07-02 12:51
GOG games you download can be copied and played on any other computer without the need to connect to an external server. You do not even need the GOG Galaxy client to install the games you bought there. Though Valve is a fair argument
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@huey_m@reddthat.com 2026-07-02 14:37
Valve gets away with it because you can get games for dirt cheap there. I suspect if we were looking at the same image as above except buying Dead Space for $6 like you can on Steam, we’d be seeing a lot less pushback. Part of the excuse they had was physical media having a way bigger distribution cost compared to digital. They’re kind of trying to have their cake and eat it too, here. And yeah, GOG is DRM free so that’s a pretty big difference.
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@markz@suppo.fi 2026-07-02 14:49
GOG (not part of CDPR anymore) has no drm and gives you offline installers if you don’t use their client. Those games are yours forever. Steam not so much, but Sony’s track record makes Valve look like saints in comparison.
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@Tabitha@hexbear.net 2026-07-02 14:53
Valve seems significantly closer to a reasonable compromise between our ideology and the opposing ideology, especially compared to Sony and Microsoft.
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@Goodeye8@piefed.social 2026-07-02 18:45
Part of the reason Valve gets away with it is that PC is an open platform. If you don’t want to buy from Valve you don’t have to buy directly from Valve. If you find a better deal elsewhere you can buy the game elsewhere. That’s not true for consoles. When it comes to digital only on Playstation you pay the price Sony tells you to pay because nobody except Sony is allowed to sell on Playstation. If Sony decides to jack up the price you just have to deal with it. If Sony refuses to put their games on sale you just have to deal with it. The argument about removing your library is true for Valve (less so for GOG because you can just download all your installers and store them locally) but I think that’s a problem of the law. I think the law should catch up to digital media and give it the same rights as physical media. I hope SKG movements makes enough headway to lay the groundwork for someone else to come along and establish actual ownership of digital media.
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@yuri@pawb.social 2026-07-02 22:34
so wait, is valve supposed to sell physical CDs? is that what you’re getting at?