• @whileloop@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      So?

      Closed source isn’t necessarily evil, neither is DRM. It’s all in how you implement it.

      Valve’s launcher/drm are so much less intrusive than their competitors. They’ve demonstrated more openness to user customization and modding over the years than just about anyone else. If we didn’t have Valve, we would have more EA and Epic Games, do you really want that?

      • Gormadt
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        59 months ago

        DRM isn’t evil, it’s just it’s current implementations and the fact that when the software is abandoned companies don’t remove it. There’s no end of life plan for their software

        Also some forms in the past have been straight up evil.

        I’ll never forget sending a letter to a dev because I lost their code wheel for a game I owned and they sent a letter back telling me to buy the game again ‡

        I’d say that was my first step towards piracy

        ‡ Before anyone asks: No I don’t remember what game it was for or what company I sent it to, that was decades ago.

        • @whileloop@lemmy.world
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          69 months ago

          I’d say in your case piracy was 1000% justified. You bought it, you should be able to play it.

          I think piracy is acceptable if one of these two conditions are met:

          • You already own a copy of the game
          • The game is no longer sold as new, such that any legitimate copy would have to be secondhand.
          • Gormadt
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            39 months ago

            The main problem is the “No end of life plan” issue

            If the software/game/whatever has to call a server to verify itself then when the company goes under or stops supporting it then the software/game/whatever becomes useless without a crack of some kind that may or may not be possible for the layman to implement

            Companies need an end of life plan for their products with DRM

            • @whileloop@lemmy.world
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              79 months ago

              Someone actually emailed Valve about this back in 2013. Here’s their response: https://i.imgur.com/4sa1Ln6.jpg

              Thank you for contacting Steam Support. In the unlikely event of the discontinuation of the Steam network, measures are in place to ensure that all users will continue to have access to their Steam games.

              It seems like Valve wants us to think they have an EoL plan. With the goodwill they’ve built over the years, I want to believe them.

              • Gormadt
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                19 months ago

                Which makes me quite happy, unfortunately they’re the exception rather than the norm

                Not counting GOG though, they’re great with the No DRM thing. It means that they don’t need more of an EoL plan then telling people, “Hey download your installers, we shutting this bitch down in 30 days mother fucker.”

    • @AndrasKrigare@beehaw.org
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      139 months ago

      You say it like there’s some hypocrisy going on. Yes, I donate money to charity, no, I don’t leave all my money on my porch. Hot take: people should be allowed to sell their creations.

    • Ulu-Mulu-no-die
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      9 months ago

      Doesn’t that depend on game devs?

      I mean, I can copy Baldur’s Gate on a PC where there’s no Steam at all and play it just fine, because the game itself doesn’t have any restrictions. If other games have DRMs I don’t think it’s Steam fault.

      If you want to be totally free from DRMs you need to check GOG, if a game is there, it doesn’t have DRM, so neither the Steam version will.