I will keep my thoughts short-and-sweet: The service Steam offers is a highly predatory one that needs to be regulated. By tying your "ownership" of titles to a single platform, Steam is able to cultivate an audience of loyalist who will fight any-and-all threats to Steam's marketshare (because if Steam ever lags so far behind the competition that they need to close shop, then all those who have been invested in the Steam ecosystem will be without a major component of their video game library, potentially losing thousands of dollars in video game purchases). This is distinct from the ownership present on Nintendo, Sony, or Microsoft as these platform holders offer a physical option which may be used to dump your games and save data onto PC , running through an emulator, well past the collapse of their storefronts. Additionally, AFAIK it is not possible to dump files from your Steam library onto your PC like how one can dump their Nintendo Switch (physical and digital) library onto PC.

And to add, this isn't a Steam exclusive issue: ALL of these digital storefronts (excluding maybe GOG) are fully guilty of this practice. This is an industry-wide issue and it needs to be dealt with ASAP in my opinion.

What are your thoughts?

I think if there was a law which mandated digital downloads with every purchase (or at least in the case of store closure), most of these concerns would be negated. Sadly, digital rights, or even the mere concept of such things, are not on the minds of those who could protect us.

I don't know. I mean my Steam games work, they aren't going anywhere in my lifetime. If they had economic issues, given their user base, somebody would buy them up and keep it running.

I guess the short version my concern is 0.001%.

Edit

I also find the physical lasts forever argument a bit iffy.  Disk readers break.  Storage drives break.  Older consoles don't connect to modern TVs without an adapter.  My DC, ps1, OG xbox, 360 and Wii U all died..  meanwhile if my computer breaks, I fix it and carry on.  Nothing lasts forever.  And the other aspect I don't understand, is I couldn't even replay all the games I own, so does it really matter?  

A digital only future for gaming is almost as awful as the AI future.

Where is that quote from? Who the fuck said that?

Just name a few…

Whoever the fuck they are. I never heard or seen that said before. Some random ass YouTubers. YouTubers are just a bunch of silly dumb cunts looking for clicks, not actual discussion. Giving those dry cum floor lickers any attention is what they want. Is that the real belief or what people are repeating from these paid shills?

It's an interesting debate indeed

In one hand I agree having licenses revoked should be the same as having your property removed, and give you the rights of asking for refunds

But in other hands physical goodies mostly have obsolescence, so their digital equivalents shouldn't be treated differently i.e. it's completely fine and legal to have expiring licenses

My solution: Your license should have a fixed expiring date, roughly similar to its physical equivalent, which is the case of gaming should be 20 to 30 years (not specialist in physical media and console preservation so feel free to correct me). In this case publishers could not revoke your license without paying you an equivalent restitution

After that publishers can have the right to revoked your license if they want

The same would apply to store fronts, which would make Steam legally obliged to offer services to make you download your games even if their marketplace ceases to exist


I don't think this will ever happen of course, but sounds fair for me on both consumers, publishers and storefronts side

It feels real.

There should be a right for all digital purchase to be able to make a safety copy that needs no DRM to function, if the services ever go down. It's the closest thing to physical ownership of PC games we have left. Just keep all your games on a hard drive or two in your house.

That said, Steam wouldn't be a monopoly if the competition stopped shooting themselves in the foot over and over again.