“A snippet of code in the Steam digital distribution platform has revealed that Valve may be planning to let users easily share their games with friends in the future. The Verge has verified the code’s authenticity, which was originally spotted by a member of the NeoGAF gaming forum; the code references a ‘shared game library’ and a notification that would alert a user when their games are currently in use by a borrower.” This would change the, uh, game.
So the Xbox One was evil for not doing it now Steam is f–king glorious for letting you do it.
Steam has things like mid-week sales etc because the publishers can actually guarantee sales. Xbox One was trying to bring this to console gamers and now it will be effectively dead.
Enjoy your £39.99 games forever …
No mid-week madness sales on Steam/Xbox one market place
No bundles on {insert popular series}.
I am going to put this here as devil’s advocate
http://thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=e3_wrapup_2013
Large retail outlets like walmat/tesco etc will dictate the RRP.
Edited 2013-06-19 23:09 UTC
Why do you think Valve would suddenly stop the mid-week and weekend sales?
I wasn’t talking about Valve, I was talking about the possibility on consoles.
“No mid-week madness sales on Steam/Xbox one market place” — clearly says Steam there. If you don’t mean Steam then why are you talking about it?
Because I am obviously talking about other game networks that are similar or work in a similar way ..
Do I really need to explain this?! FFS!
Well, yes, you say one thing and mean an entirely different thing. Be more coherent if you want people to understand you.
No how about you think about think like analogies and the like.
Seriously if you have hard time understanding quite simple references I make really please think harder.
It doesn’t matter whether I say Steam of Xbox the idea is the important thing.
Edited 2013-06-19 23:38 UTC
For the record, I do not get your point as well.
That makes 4 of us, I guess (including kragil down there).
You know, just like how copying your friends vinyl albums to tape killed the music industry back in the 70’s and 80’s…
I don’t see anyone saying they’re f—ing glorious for doing this.
?? Why no more midweek madness sales on Steam? I don’t get your reasoning there …
I think those won’t go away, BUT game lending ,now that the Xbox1 won’t support it, won’t come either.
Learn how the reply chain works.
The point is that a completely online store with no disks and no lending has let Steam do these type of deals which with Microsoft caving in won’t happen now.
Edited 2013-06-19 23:17 UTC
Screw ’em. You guys can continue to rent from Steam if you want. As for me, I like to actually own my games.
Your games always stay in your Steam library.
Even if you change computers.
No DVD’s lying around.
And best of all no pesky friends lending your games and not returning it;)
Yeah, as long as Steam exists. I’m still playing NES carts I bought 25+ years ago. Let’s see if you’ll be able to do that with Steam.
And under their own ToS, if they fail you get to download the games and play them without Steam.
(citation needed)
But can you back them up locally and install them at a later time when Steam perhaps doesn’t exist?
Now THAT would be a digital distribution model I could get behind.
We do not know, but it’s probable that if Steam were ever going to be shut down Valve would just release a version of Steam with all the DRM disabled. After all, you can back the games up locally already and you can copy them between machines, Steam can then pick the existing files from there and such, so all that would be required would be for the SteamWorks DRM to always return “Yes, it’s authorized, just run the game.”
Alas, as I said, there is no official word on such a stance and I do not think they will give you one until such a time where Steam is about to be put down. Obviously no DRM at all would be preferable, but most of the games that I actually like don’t come without such, so there’s not much I can do.
Too bad they’re all Indies or oldies, ie. not worth owning anyways!
FTFY
Seriously, though, the only non-GOG.com AAA games that I wish I could own are Portal and Portal 2… and I have no problem finding a Steam-using friend who bought Portal 2 so I can play through the story once at their place. (Same thing I did with Portal.)
That’s like saying music, movies or books older than X number of years aren’t worth owning.
If it’s good, it’s good. If it’s crap it’s crap. Age isn’t much of a factor.
Until Vavle actually says something on this, it’s as vague as it gets.
“shared games library” could mean pretty much anything. For example it could mean that users on the same computer can share games. Same goes for the notification.
(Seriously, Valve. Still no multi-user support? It’s not 1998 anymore…)
And really, discovered by a guy on a gamers forum? Yeah, excuse me while I remain sceptical.
I haven’t tried it, but couldn’t you have a separate logon with its own Steam folder? Or are the folder settings for the computer and not the active OS logon?
Am I the only one who doesn’t like DRM and shitware that comes with it? :/
No, you aren’t.
There’s been a few pronouncements in Europe regarding software resale, the biggest one being about Oracle:
http://www.zdnet.com/oracle-cannot-block-the-resale-of-its-software…
If they hold up in the higher courts and eventually trickle into EU-wide laws – which is quite likely at this stage – all actors in the software field will need to implement a way to resell whatever software you’ve bought. This is going to be painful for app stores and online services such as Steam but it’s way overdue. If I buy something, I own it and I can do whatever I want with it *including* reselling it; private property is a pretty basic principle in our economies and it’s been basically ignored by software licenses, EULAs, downloadable-only content and so forth.
Speaking of games I’ll shamelessly plug again for GOG here: they’re having summer sale now and there’s PLENTY of games there for only nickles. If you are into nostalgia-infused gaming or Indies head over there and buy DRM-free games: http://www.gog.com/
Now, I apologize for the advertisement, but alas, I hope to hook some more people into supporting GOG.com.
But oldies and indies aren’t worth owning
Indeed! I have this devious plan where I try to get people to support GOG, making it ever larger and sooner or later hopefully becoming so large and popular that they’ll introduce overreaching DRM to protect their customers with!
Just you wait!
Devious!
Actually, just to support GOG, I have (re)bought all the Ultimas from them. I also bought the Bullfrog bundle. Too bad EA royally screwed up Syndicate’s ‘reboot’. First Person Shooter, really??