What's funny is that Sony has done this before![0] I've had a personal boycott against Sony products due to this.
"The feature was controversially removed by Sony since system firmware update 3.21, released on April 1, 2010.[2] A class action lawsuit was filed against Sony on behalf of users, but was dismissed with prejudice in 2011 by a federal judge. The judge stated: "As a legal matter, ... plaintiffs have failed to allege facts or articulate a theory on which Sony may be held liable."[3] However, this decision was overturned in a 2014 appellate court decision[4] finding that plaintiffs had indeed made clear and sufficiently substantial claims. Ultimately, in 2016, Sony settled with users who had installed Linux or had purchased a PlayStation 3 based upon the availability of OtherOS."
Yep. I had tons of Sony games across the first three Playstation consoles. I was a grad student with a PS3 at the time and I actually used Yellow Dog Linux on it as a computer to write papers when my laptop broke. Then the update came and I chose to ignore it, but that meant I couldn't play online games. Soon new games required a firmware update (still remember putting in the Dark Souls disc and being stunned I wasn't allowed to play it!).
And with games it's just getting worse (Sony announced they won't make discs starting 2028; the Switch 2 takes carts but very, very few games release on a cart). If you care about control over the games you purchased, if you care about going back and playing older games, then the only choice is to use platforms that are DRM free. (Or, well, non-legal means.)
Valve is in a funny position now. They lived long enough to see every one of Sony and XBOX's moats dry up by being pro-consumer where possible, but with Steam as the leader of a fungible game distribution market it may no longer make good business sense to continue to act so benevolently.
We've reached a sort of gaming singularity where nearly every video game can be run on any hardware you choose or be streamed over the network to a thin client. PlayStation and XBOX consoles are basically dedicated gaming PCs that can only run Sony or Microsoft's version of Steam. DirectX is losing ground too thanks to Proton and Vulkan, so Microsoft won't have the last laugh there either. If Valve controls the store you purchase games from, the software which runs the games, and the operating system running the software, they are an ODM contract away from becoming Sony's PlayStation division, and look where they are now.
Steam still has to deal with Epic being willing to throw billions at trying to dethrone Steam, and Gog being alive and well and being in the perfect position to say "we told you all along that you shouldn't have to trust Steam, buy your DRM free games here". Also every big publisher wanting to pull their own games to their own storefront and only being forced to crawl back because gamers refuse to leave Steam
And even if they somehow arrived in a market position where being less benevolent would make more money: Valve isn't publicly traded, nobody is forcing them to make the most profitable move. As long as Gabe and the other owners prefer being benevolent they can continue doing it
(not that they are all around benevolent. "consistent" and "usually choosing the side of the customer over the side of the publisher" is maybe the better framing)
One point in Steam's favor (not to suggest that Valve is above reproach) is that it doesn't impose any DRM. If games have DRM, that's the publisher's decision.
Valve does make its own DRM, and they could certainly find reason to improve its efficacy and roll back their current policy without upsetting the applecart
> DirectX is losing ground too thanks to Proton and Vulkan
[citation needed]
My understanding is that Proton is effectively a distribution of WINE + DXVK, which does for DirectX what WINE does for Win32. Valve is even on record saying "make one good copy of your game and trust our compatibility tools to port to other platforms" which is effectively saying "use DirectX if you want - Proton will run it just as well."
I think I could have bolstered this point by claiming "Windows and DirectX are losing ground", but I stand by my argument that Microsoft's gatekeeper status is eroding thanks to the growth [1] of Proton and Vulkan. Now native Vulkan implementations are not growing the way Proton is, but one could argue that Valve has done more to grow Vulkan support than Google's Stadia team ever did by removing the onus to write for it from game developers. Either way you slice it, Microsoft is now competing with Valve for OS installs.
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They're always good until they aren't. They can only be trusted if they don't have a way to be bad. Steam could lock down tomorrow and you couldn't do anything about it.
True, but Steam still controls Steam and they can change their terms whenever they want. But for now it's ok, at least. And their hardware is happily open: I've played a bunch of games I got on GOG, DRM-free, on my Steam Deck, for example.
I don't disagree with you, but open hardware DOES make a difference, in the worst case scenario I can turn the hardware into a GOG machine, or into a PC.
Also if they ever lock my library, I am turning to piracy (I have 1000+ games)
Agreed, for sure. Open hardware is the only way forward honestly. As someone who has traditionally played mostly on consoles, it does make me sad, partially because consoles are so much less finicky. But the control is worth it (and work on things like Proton has made playing older games so much smoother).
Now if the RAM companies make it so you won't ever be able to afford your own hardware and every game company pushes cloud-only gaming... Well, we aren't there yet thankfully, but I fear it'll happen.
There's a lot that I love about it, but "choose which of these thousand settings permutations to get the game to look good without crashing" is a major chore.
One nice thing about Valve/Steam leading with hardware is that it gives console-esque performance targets. If you know your device is a bit better than a Steam Deck, you can probably start at the Steam Deck preset and adjust accordingly.
Imagine if Gabe went the Yvon Chouinard way? (founder of Patagonia refused to IPO, never sold controlling stake, recently left the entire company to an environmental conservation trust - certified LEGEND)
Gabe seems like the kinda guy who is in the Game for the love of games.
It would be a legendary legacy indeed to commit Valve and it's profits to a trust which defends digital rights and freedom.
Indeed the danger is there, but their hardware is open, so there is always the option to switch.
Also piracy will go rampant if Steam stops being a good actor.
That being said, what alternatives you have? GOG lacks support for Linux, Sony cares doesn't care for you, Nintendo likes to s** all over you and their most passionate fans, Microsoft killed itself.
I joined the class action lawsuit and got a small check a decade later. My proof that I had OtherOS ended up being timestamped whinging on the ars technica forums. My ps3 stopped working shortly after receiving the check due to bad solder, which was I guess fitting.
I got my $10 too. I remember laughing at the amount when I got the check. Thankfully after the OtherOS issue people worked to crack open the PS3, so by the time I got that check I had long since installed custom firmware on it.
Nintendo outright ships incomplete games on carts sometimes, requiring a day 1 patch to have the game in a non-buggy state (one of the recent pokemon games was like this)
And "gamers" refuse to listen to reason and assume physical copy = they can play it for eternity, when in reality, in 5 or 10 years when a server is inevitably shut down, they're forced to pirate. Nintendo does not allow offline patches.
I boycot Sony since they blocked my PSN account, which got hacked due to them! Purchases I made are not available, ... I really took a disliking before when they refused to fix my Vaio laptop, ... this was the last drop!
Good, but only laws will keep them on check.
If I boycotted all companies that have done something wrong, I would boycott all of them. I keep that option for the worst offenders. Laws and regulations is what keeps companies in check.
I am considering to still psuh them to re-instate my account (EU law), but they will stop the PS3 store too. Double ff-edff news from them, as that was the a generation with many downloadable content.
They make it up as they go along. Their 2005 Audio-CD EULA includes provisions purporting to require the immediate deletion of all copies if a user files for personal bankruptcy
When the debtor files bankruptcy ownership immediately moves to the bankruptcy estate. This supposed obligation to delete might be disclosable on the executory contracts schedule.
A buddy of mine is pretty insistent on physical media, wherever possible, and honestly, at this point, he's been proven right again and again.
Sad that most executable code (games, software, etc) these days is digital only and requires drm calls to a license server to install. I will not pirate executable code.
Reminds me of an American guy who I met in the UK around 2005 when I was doing my PhD (he was doing his 2nd PhD!!!). He refused to open a "cloud" email account (Google, Hotmail, etc). At the time when I asked why, he mentioned something that has stuck with me for all these years:
"It's not about what they are doing NOW with the data, but what they could do in the future" . Back then I thought he was a bit paranoid. These days... not so much.
So, regarding owning/buying stuff, im glad I have a collection of CDs and ibe bought most of my games in physical
There are some which are actually hard to get in pirate sites.
Yeah. Copyright monopolists equate copyright infringement to literal high seas piracy because it's the only way they can make any impact. Nobody would give a fuck otherwise.
One would think dozens of SWAT officers would rappel down helicopters and storm the mansions of these big tech CEOs. Unpayable trillion dollar fines, actual prison time. Instead the AI companies reached some absurd settlements with publishers that made a mockery out of all the previous copyright enforcement victims.
The fact that lawyers dreamt up the notion of "Imaginary Property" called it "Intellectual Property" and built a business around the scam for themselves, and other people take it seriously is some of the most compelling evidence that humans suck.
In the digital age where the cost of copying itself is functionally zero, we're supposed to pay people over and over again for a thing created once is like the human race taking advantage of itself.
I get making money for labor, novelty, and producing things but repeated payments thereafter would feel like a scam to any reasonable alien.
'Copyright' is humans at their most greedy and selfish.
Plenty of people purchase digital movie rentals from Apple, Youtube, etcetera because they know they will watch it once, and the lower price in exchange for a temporary license is acceptable to them. I don't think banning this is pro-consumer.
It should, however, be illegal to tell your customers that they are purchasing/buying media without explicit "Rent" language (which implies a non-expiring license) when you do not yourself have the right to grant non-expiring licenses.
Seems like a bad assumption at this point even if it goes against expectations. We've seen on multiple occasions now from different companies where a digital purchase wasn't forever. This is no way an endorsement of the behavior, but if that's your assumption then the quip "you know what happens when you assume" wins again.
So the default assumption should be that big companies are actively trying to defraud you?
The difference between "rent" and "purchase" has always been very clear: with the former you have to give it back, with the latter you own it forever. It is only very recently that this kind of steal-back has even become possible at all, as it can only be done with digital content delivery to an entirely-closed platform.
"You should assume that words have the opposite meaning and that big companies can steal from you with impunity" is a world I don't think I want to live in.
Whether you want to or not, that's pretty much where we live now. A default position of "every company is trying to defraud me" is not a bad position to take. As you find out a company is less of a criminal, then you can relax your position, but if you go in relaxed and need to tighten up, you've probably already been screwed out of something.
The "rent" vs "purchase" has never been different than it is now. Yes, purchase is a very deceiving word by design. The thing bringing it to the forefront is that they never were able to rip that physical product sold to you in the way they can with the digital product. That seems to have made people pay attention to the legalese that has always been there.
> Plenty of people purchase digital movie rentals from Apple, Youtube, etcetera because they know they will watch it once, and the lower price in exchange for a temporary license is acceptable to them. I don't think banning this is pro-consumer.
Many of these services offer cheaper rental options. When you go for the more expensive "buy" option, the assumption that you are actually buying it to keep should hold true.
Because they were purchases, not rentals. Under no circumstances would a customer reasonably assume that their purchase would be revoked for reasons completely outside of their control.
If that's the case, why isn't Sony suing Studio Canal? The proper license for Sony to get is one which doesn't allow Studio Canal to take it away after sale in any way. So did Studio Canal somehow hack into Sony HQ to violate that license, or did Sony simply screw over its customers by not getting the proper license in the first place?
They're both to blame. Studio Canal insisted on a licensing agreement that works this way, and Sony agreed to it to sell their content.
For Sony, the correct move here would have been to not list Studio Canal titles in the first place, and put out a very public statement saying that they aren't being listed until Studio Canal agrees to make purchased licenses perpetual as they should be.
Correct. In theory, Sony should have warranted that they have the rights to sell the thing the way they sold it. If they didn't have the rights to sell a movie perpetually, then that's on them.
Not wishing to let them off the hook, but consumers did not enter into a contract with Studio Canal, so it's somewhat irrelevant to the actual issue. Sony willingly entered into a contract with Studio Canal and then "sold" items to consumers that they could reasonably foresee would be time limited without making that clear to the purchasers.
I'd like to see Sony executives put in prison for fraud for this.
