Sure you get a DRM-free license on GOG, but for many games you are still dependent on online servers for authentication, which can be shut down at any time rendering your access null and void. The only recourse is technically “hacking” a game a creating local servers which is both against terms of service and against the law in some countries.
Comment on Reminder that you do not own digital games
486@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Reminder that you do not own digital games
That is not universally true. On GOG for example you can download all your games, so thing like this could not happen there. Sure, you still purchase a license and do not actually buy the games, but for all intents and purposes this is still the closest you get to actually owning the games.
BrikoX@lemmy.zip 4 weeks ago
486@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
online servers for authentication
I am not aware of any game on GOG that requires an online server for authentication. I’m not saying no such thing exists - I don’t own every single game on GOG, but that would go against the whole DRM free thing. Care to name a few games that do this? I don’t mean games that have an online mode that require a server, but games that just require authentication against an online server to be able to play the game.
BrikoX@lemmy.zip 4 weeks ago
You are talking about always-on DRM, I was talking about dependence on the servers for connecting to the multiplayer. Most of GOG games lose partial funtionality when servers get shut down as GOG doesn’t use/host their own servers.
486@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
You specifically said “online servers for authentication”. That’s what I understood as just that - a server required to be able to play the game, not a server required to use an actual online feature of a game. Don’t get me wrong, I very much prefer when games allow multiplayer games without requiring a server run by the publisher. All that is very different from what the posts title is about, though.
By the way, there are still games on GOG that let you run local servers for multi player gaming.
grue@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
It’s not ever true. It is always a lie pushed by copyright-maximalist shysters who hope the public is too cowed to call them on their bullshit.
Kolanaki@pawb.social 4 weeks ago
They don’t have DRM. That’s not the same as owning the game. If you don’t back up the games or installers yourself, and GOG goes under, you lose access to your library the same as if Epic or Steam going away.
You can back up your Steam and Epic games, too. You just need to be able to access your account to verify your license for most titles (but not everything; loads of games do not use Steam or Epic’s DRM, have no online checks to verify anything, and you can just copy the installation folder to another machine to play the game).
486@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
That’s why I mentioned that you purchase a license. That has also always been true even if you “bought” a game as a physical copy in a store. A DRM-free game is still the closest thing you get to owning a game.
I have heard this argument before, but I really don’t get it. Of course you could lose your files if you don’t download them. I’d say that’s so obvious it isn’t even worth mentioning. If you lose or destroy your physical copy of a game you also lose access to it. Pretty obvious.
Ashiette@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Why could you both not be right ? Yes, right now a DRM Free game is the closest thing that we get to owning a game. Yet, that wasn’t always true, we used to have an unlimited access to our video game, executable, as long as we had a disk.
But they took that from us ! 👿
Alinor@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
But that’s the point they’re making, isn’t it? With GOG games you can download the installer. With that you also get unlimited access to it.
Given you don’t lose it, but that same argument goes for physical disks.
kewko@sh.itjust.works 4 weeks ago
So you’re saying torrenting and seeding is basically a moral obligation?
Kolanaki@pawb.social 4 weeks ago
It’s just basical preservation of art. 😤
AnyOldName3@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Depending on the era of the game, you might well own a copy of a game on a disk, just like you own a copy of a book when you buy a book. Weaselling out of first-sale-doctrine stuff came a long time after people started buying video games. A century ago, publishers were trying exactly the same thing with books, and depending on the country, either legislation was introduced that made it explicitly illegal, or the courts determined that putting a licence agreement in a book just meant that the customer got a copy of a licence agreement with their book, not that they were bound by its terms.
Kolanaki@pawb.social 4 weeks ago
I was born in '85. IBM pioneered the idea of software licensing in the '50s.
grue@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
You own your individual copy of the game software, end of. It doesn’t fucking matter if it’s on a disc or a digital download.