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Steam is supposed to be this platform where you own games, but let's be real, you're just renting them from a digital landlord who can evict you at any time. It's like buying a house, but the deed says "you can live here until we decide otherwise."
It's been two years since I last used Steam, and I'm glad I don't use it anymore. I would purchase a game, play it once, and then never again, not even finish it. It was a waste of money and time in my life.
Steam, while not as harmful as Big Tech in stifling creativity, still uses a licensing model that restricts true ownership. In my view, Steam does offer some resistance to Windows through its SteamOS and Steam Deck community, which promote a more open gaming ecosystem.
It's not all bad, but deleting your account might feel like a loss because capitalism has conditioned you to tie your spending to emotional value, and that's exactly how it's designed to make you feel.
I'm glad I deleted my Steam account when I did.
@midtsveen Huh? Games that have long been removed from Steam are still playable as long as you have your own copy of the bits. I've never known Steam to DRM stuff. Their business is marketing & distribution.
@midtsveen@social.linux.pizza@jkntech While you can play a downloaded copy, if you uninstall it or lose local access, you are unable to redownload it in the future.
The platform retains control over your library, and licenses can be revoked or rendered useless if games are delisted or servers shut down.
This highlights the exploitative nature of digital ownership in gaming, where customers pay full price for products they never truly own.
@midtsveen This is legal CYA. Like I said, if you have the bits, you can continue to use it as you like. I can reinstall and play games that were removed from Steam long ago because I keep my own backups. That's no different from buying a physical copy. If you lose the disc, the distributor is not obliged to keep sending you another disc for life.
The law was made in response to well-known asshole behavior of other game platforms; of which Valve takes particular exception to.
@jkntech oh my bad, I did not realize you where speaking abot copying the game and backing it up.
@midtsveen Steam includes a feature to create disc images/backups for all your games. To me, that's pretty indicative of their intentions.