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I agree that it's not a price issue because I wouldn't mind paying inflated prices if that money went to the workers. It would be worth it, in fact. But the corporate entities that get that money while the workers get laid off.
Don't know why you're quoting Gabe in this instance, Valve is selling the same "licenses" Sony is, revokable at the whims of the publisher.
Valve have a long history of ensuring that games purchased are still downloadable for customers who purchased them even after publishers have pulled their game off the store, or of providing refunds.
Sony has done neither and that’s a core part of the problem.
Part of this is Valve’s agreements with the publishers.
Sony could easily do this but they’re poisoned by the music and movie industries.
Yeah for all the shit steam gets, I bought that now de-listed Deadpool game like, however many years ago when it first came out (it was okay thanks for asking) and recently started a family sharing thing with my partner on steam, who was surprised to see that not only did I own it, but she could play it through steam's family share. Are they perfect? Hell no, but is Gabe right about this? Hell yes.
I bought a game and similarly forgot about it for years, and when I finally got around to playing it there was no discussion board. Come to find out the game was completely delisted, felt like I was in a ghost town, but it was still functional!
As far as I know, Sony has the same history for games. Valve does not sell movies and TV.
Valve technically sell at least one movie
because Sony is clearly absolute garbage...
name something valve has done that's horrendously stupid and anti consumer...
Pioneering lootboxes through TF2.
Well, while Valve had a hand in making that model popular, more so through CSGO, it was really "pioneered" and blown up by EA with FIFA Ultimate Team. Loot box mechanics existed before that even though, I know Maple Story had some.
You're moving the goal posts.
And they want us to feel bad for pirating media
Never feel bad about stealing back what was stolen from you.
I mean let's be real, it's both
He isn't wrong. The last game I pirated was Escape from Butcher Bay, because it wasn't on steam.
Fuck Sony.. Period.
Vote with your money and time. Don't give them any.. if you do.. then can't complain.
Just to poke the hornets nest: if CDs and Blu-ray discs are a crappy medium, moving forward, what would you suggest to be the replacement?
I’m all for physical media, but current optical media is more than a generation past obsolete and needs to be replaced.
I personally don't get the fixation on physical media. Like sure, you may put it on the shelf, which can be nice. But realistically digital is the way to go for most people. I just want what GOG is doing, where you gat a real installer that just works without internet connection, without steam/gog installed, same today as in 20 years, even if GOG goes under.
True. But steam's DRM is trivial. So if you downloaded your games and steam goes dark, you can easily "crack" them. I often do this to circumvent the 2hr refund window and test longer. As many games try to keep you entertained for at least 2hrs 😁
DRM-Free files that the user can archive on their own media, in their own format, as they wish.
The ability to distribute media without shipping physical goods allows for much smaller productions to have wide releases and in some cases to make their games cheaper than otherwise required (cough, switch tax). The issue is the DRM preventing the user from making their own backups, rather than the physical product (although steam does allow you to make backups and copies of your library folder which is cool).
The discs served as a proxy for licensing, right? It's easy to conflate owning the disc with owning the rights to play the game; but it's also easy to have DRM render discs useless if a game has "phone home" to unlock itself.
People don't necessarily want discs, they want to own a copy of the game. It's not a physical medium that really separates the two, it's licensing and DRM software.
this post was submitted on 03 Jul 2026
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