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Comment by keyle | Hacker News Reader

     But after that, for reasons that Sega does not make explicit, they will be "delisted and unavailable."

I really don't understand this move. The hard work is putting the games on Steam and making sure they work. Assets, testing, integration. Why take them away?

Anyway I'll never use Steam to buy a game anymore anyway, because you're only really buying a license to rent a game.

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> Anyway I'll never use Steam to buy a game anymore anyway, because you're only really buying a license to rent a game.

I wonder if you misinterpreted the article? The games are not being taken away from people who purchased them. They will simply no longer be offered for sale.

I know the DRM exists, but to the extent that you trust the word of Steam and Gabe Newell, they have said they will release a patch undoing all Steam DRM if Steam ever goes out of business.

It's easy for them to have that intention, but then the realities of operating from bankruptcy court or receivership or being assimilated by Microsoft or Sony could be much different.

I choose to only buy stuff for like $8 and under where I can expect to get my money's worth of gameplay in a short time frame and so not have to worry about any long term sunsetting. That's a reasonable middle ground between fully trusting the platform or fully abhorring it.

Honestly I doubt that, and not because I distrust steam and gabe newell, in my books steam is one of the good guys, in an industry filled with nickle and dime rent seeking, steam provides a reliable, unobtrusive service. Personally I think their margin is grossly high. And I too hate how many of my games are locked up depending on the benevolence of a corporation. But steam has thus far proved to be a very useful service, mainly by not fucking up.

I just don't think it could happen because when your business is going down in flames, the last thing on your mind is giving away the keys to the kingdom. The normal death spiral is. The business is unable to make a profit anymore and will have to be closed down. however it still has a reputation. somebody will buy the business with the expectation they will be able to make the changes needed to make a profit. these changes are vile, trying to extract any money they can from the corpse. it then gets sold to the next sucker. who repeats the whole repugnant farce. It is almost never a clean death.

If the developer offers the game on itch.io, buy it from there.

If the developer offers the game on GOG, buy it from there.

Otherwise, check if there's currently a crack for the steamworks version of the game. If so, buy it on Steam. Don't actually download or use the crack; just check it exists before buying.

Otherwise, don't buy the game.

The recent indie release, Kitsune Tails, was available on Steam and Itch, but the creator actually made clear on social media that Steam reviews were really important and that they were only counted properly if the game was bought on Steam and not added there via a key. They were really pushing to hit Overwhelmingly Positive shortly after release, I don't know if that was the only reason, though.

Also in your advice where you recommend verifying a crack exists before buying on Steam, isn't it similar to see if a GOG (drm-free) version exists that you could fetch at no cost later if needed, and then buy on Steam?

If the game developer wants to follow a particular marketing plan, e.g. they've discovered they get more sales when there's a lot of positive Steam reviews, then of course you can help with that. If retweets, or Reddit posts, or Facebook likes or lets-play Twitch streams, or whatever else sells copies, and you're in a position to do that...

However, when buying on Steam, you need to watch out for your own interests too. Will you still be able to play this game in 20 years? Checking there is a crack is your insurance policy.

If you can buy it DRM-free on itch.io or GOG, do that instead. Steam store pages will list if there is any _third-party_ DRM, but won't list if the developer is using Steamworks DRM, so generally you have to assume it is (unless the developer assures otherwise, or it's on https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/The_big_list_of_DRM-free_g... )

I can't recall any cases where a game delisted from Steam was removed from the libraries of people who already bought them.

Meanwhile, Oxenfree was removed from itch.io, including making it unavailable for download even for those who have purchased the game. This is unprecedented as far as I know.

Presumably, itch unlike Steam doesn't have the leverage or lawyers on staff to enforce what's a blatant violation both the consumer rights and itch.io's own terms of service.

https://www.theverge.com/2024/9/9/24239877/if-bought-oxenfre...

The reason I suggest itch.io is because they take ~10% cut, compared to Valve and CD Projekt's 30% cut. The developer gets more money.

But if itch.io, GOG or Steam shut down tomorrow... I would not expect to be able to download from them at all. You should install the games on your computer, storing them at your own cost. And if the game is DRM-free, you can still play the game!

Steam is of course very nice in serving re-installs to customers of no-longer-purchasable games. But you can expect that some day it will end. That's why the fight is to have no DRM... to ensure publishers can't "take away" a game already on your computer, or a book already on your e-reader. It's not to demand storefronts let you download your stuff from their servers indefinitely, which is nice but ruinously expensive for them.

The "license to rent a game" deal is a general grievance about Steam that is not related to the article.

Also it is one that can be extended to many other services offering digital goods for """purchase""", like iTunes

> I know the DRM exists, but to the extent that you trust the word of Steam and Gabe Newell, they have said they will release a patch undoing all Steam DRM if Steam ever goes out of business.

I do not believe this was said by Gabe. It was also made years ago before Steam was the size it has become. At the time, Steam might have only been losing Valve first party titles.

> Anyway I'll never use Steam to buy a game anymore anyway, because you're only really buying a license to rent a game.

Hasn't that always been the case for all games purchase for a while now?

I believe GOG still sells a lot of things DRM free.

They are DRM free, but you are still only buying a license to the game which can likely be revoked under the terms of that agreement.

But GOG offers offline executable installers, so from a practical perspective even if your license was revoked, they'd have no way of preventing you from playing the game (assuming that you had downloaded the installer, of course).

The even joked about it after Steam added the checkout banner: https://x.com/GOGcom/status/1844752098145038435

The license doesn't matter if you can have the DRM-free installer on your harddrive forever. They sold it to me (and called it a "purchase"), I downloaded it, who cares about the license, it's mine now.

Offline installer that doesn't ring home.

so does steam. it depends on the publisher

But is there a way to actually back up an installer (or the installed game) in a way that lets you run it on a different computer after, say, your Steam account has been closed for whatever reason?

On macOS an app bundle is usually self-contained, so if there is no DRM backups are simple enough; for Windows, it's usually not that easy, I believe.

For some games the executable just works outside of Steam, you can copy the whole directory from steamapps to elsewhere. I recall Starbound being like this during beta, good for last-minute local multiplayer at a LAN party.

Those games aside, I think goldberg steam emulator is used for ripping/cracking/sharing games. I don't wanna say too much as I don't know the process well, but I think sometimes you remove or replace a certain steam file and that's the main thing needed. This doesn't get you past extra layers of DRM like Denuvo, of course. I recommend not buying any such games. You can follow a Steam curator that checks games for Denuvo and then it will display if they have it (or used to and removed it, like Soulcalibur VI) on the store page if you're logged in.

https://store.steampowered.com/curator/26095454-Denuvo-Games...

Everything on GoG is guaranteed to be DRM-free (see occasional scandal when something sneaks through that has it)

no all, but any that make you sign a EULA before you can start the game, yes.

That was my point yes.

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