Games

Yeah.. it’s also a new law in California is it not? Kill shot? Hahahaha. Right. Who wrote this headline xD

Valve is holding up the bar not because valve is great but because everyone else is so shit. I've had a ton of issues with steam throughout the years and it's just.. nothing else is better. I was actually excited for the epic store launch and it's... Well, not the worst, because being the worst is a challenge some places take seriously, but certainly not a good steam replacement especially for low data people.

Steam may not let me control the updates to steam, but it won't force refresh my library causing ping spikes all the time as an intended feature.

Remember when they said Galaxy would get linux support? That didn't happen, and that promise got quietly retracted...

That said, Heroic is unofficial but has worked quite well.

Lutris lets you add your GOG account and download/install games directly. its not Galaxy, but its pretty flawless.

I mean I've always had an issue that digital goods could always be revoked/taken back. That's why I didn't buy things on steam until it became basically the only way (as consoles have less physical media). This is just a great reminder for the public that we're consistently loosing control over our digital lives.

I've been an advocate for forcing companies to change the wording for digital goofs to "lease" rather than "buy". Cause at the end of the day, no one owns their steam library.

I just like calling it "the kill shot", as though GOG is about to take all of Steam's market share some time next week.

I think it is fair. When you buy games through GOG, you get the offline installer. Nobody can take that away from you.

When you buy games through Steam, you can only install them via the Steam client. If the Steam servers are offline, you cannot install your games. In theory, some games are without any DRM, and you can just zip them up, but even then that doesn't always work, and you shouldn't have to. That's not to take away from Steam, of course, it is great at what it does.

Providing an offline installer that works no matter what is as good as "owning" the game IMO, even if "technically" you are just purchasing a license to use the game.

Many of their games do have native linux versions, and a lot do work under wine or proton, which can be used as a Non-steam game in Steam or even without Steam.

Their launcher doesn't yet have a native linux version but it's completely optional, and does still run under wine if you really want it.

Seriously not trying to just be contradictory:

What's the difference? In practical terms, what does this mean for me as the consumer? We don't own the intellectual property, but may use the software as-is? From a practical, consumer standpoint that feels the same as the days of owning your software on a disc, unable to be taken as long as you have physical control over the device. I'm fine with calling this "owning" personally.

I'm absolutely willing to be wrong on this. I'm by no means an expert. Please, if I have missed something, let me know.

Steam is not the evil corporation people pretend it is.

Indeed. They're not saints either but for my personal demands, they offer the best arguments right now. I rank funding improvements to the FOSS Linux stack higher than a DRM-free pile of shame. That may change in the future but for now I prefer Steam over GOG. CD Project is a rich company. They could make a Linux version of Galaxy, put it onto Flathub, make it behave well under Steam Deck Game Mode, and put a tiny fraction of their revenue into Linux improvements.