That tracks, everyone still owned their games back then. At least Gaben got his 8 yatchs though.
Remember when you could sell games you’d never play again and people less fortunate than you could have their fun with them for a much lower price?
I remember hating the idea, during the age when games came in boxes. Now i support Steam with the tremendous support they’ve given the Linux platform. Most games i have are games on Steam, but i do have a bunch on GoG, as well as Itch.io. Don’t keep all your eggs in one basket, but have to admit the Steam basket is humongous.
He’s right. Everyone hated the idea of any always online DRM to play the disc you bought in a store. Steam backed off with options for a game to sometimes work offline and a pinky promise to free your games if Gaben died and the new owner decided you own nothing.
It’s weird, people hate the current DRM system for games and live Steam. Yet it was Steam that pioneered it. If Steam failed, there’s a chance we would still own games instead of them being tied to online DRM verification.
Steam is the benevolent dictator but that’s not going to last forever.
steam drm is the bare minimum license check and its not mandatory for anyone to implement in their game
This is revisionist history. Steam was not the origination of DRM or even online DRM.
I remember, buy game. Enter CD key “key already taken” Return game “sorry, box is open we don’t take media returns” Rage.
No, that’s what consumers like you are thinking in hindsight and unrelated.
The context Gabe is talking about is when he was approaching publishers. They were just being anti tech and believing in traditional brick and mortar. They were definently pro-DRM. They just couldn’t fathom a digital marketplace.
Maybe you weren’t old enough to remember it, but people were pissed and swore they would forever boycott Steam when it released
I indeed was one of them. Managed to boycott until left4dead2. Then i caved in. The war was lost anyway. And now i have easily put 5 figures into steam and own nothing.
Steam is undoubtedly convenient.
But if any game you care about keeping is on GOG, it’s a good idea to buy a copy on there, and then squirreling away the offline installer files/ extracted game files somewhere safe.
