Please list all the other software you still buy from a box on a shelf at a store. The only one I can think of would be a copy of windows (on a USB stick!) or physical movies, and that’s a shadow of its former self even though the physical media usually comes with a key for a streamable copy.
I get the sentiment, but physical media was a dead end the second broadband became viable. I’m glad vinyl made a kind of a comeback, but come on, even consoles are digital-first nowadays.
My steam key to download steam came with my physical copy of half life 2. I was there when the old magic was written, and that HL2 box was the last physical game I ever bought for my PC. For the decade before that, almost all my games were also digital copies, just not legit ones ;) And that’s the part you’re missing. Steam and Netflix were both easier and higher quality than pirating and cheap enough to justify. Netflix decided to milk that for all its worth, but Valve stuck to its plan and has consistently offered a very good alternative to piracy, which won over a generation of digital media hoarders.
So you think having to buy a unique licence for every game is a better alternative than being able to buy an actual copy of a game that you own, second hand for a fraction of the price?
Because thats the argument here, not comparing them to netflix, comparing steam to a model where you actually own the media you buy and can do what you want with it.
You’re not wrong that physical media was essentially doomed, and arguably it should have been as digital distribution is faster, easier, and objectively better for the planet (look into the environmental cost of manufacturing vinyl records, for example)
But who popularized the current dominant model of “you’re only buying access, not the game itself”? And before you go on about how it would be impossible to make a digital equivalent to distribution equivalent to purchasing physical media, remember gog exists and has been around and successful for almost 2 decades now
The secret sauce there is linux support. It may sound like a marginal thing, but Valve has been working on making Linux gaming viable for over a decade now and it’s paying off in spades. GOG exists, sure, but they’re a fraction of Valves influence for a reason. Besides, there was a DRM free distribution chain before GoG that everyone used, it was called piracy.
Please list all the other software you still buy from a box on a shelf at a store. The only one I can think of would be a copy of windows (on a USB stick!) or physical movies, and that’s a shadow of its former self even though the physical media usually comes with a key for a streamable copy.
I get the sentiment, but physical media was a dead end the second broadband became viable. I’m glad vinyl made a kind of a comeback, but come on, even consoles are digital-first nowadays.
I don’t buy any software FOSS all the way baby.
Yeah physical media died, and guess who was leading the charge on licence based media a decade before streaming was a thing?
My steam key to download steam came with my physical copy of half life 2. I was there when the old magic was written, and that HL2 box was the last physical game I ever bought for my PC. For the decade before that, almost all my games were also digital copies, just not legit ones ;) And that’s the part you’re missing. Steam and Netflix were both easier and higher quality than pirating and cheap enough to justify. Netflix decided to milk that for all its worth, but Valve stuck to its plan and has consistently offered a very good alternative to piracy, which won over a generation of digital media hoarders.
So you think having to buy a unique licence for every game is a better alternative than being able to buy an actual copy of a game that you own, second hand for a fraction of the price?
Because thats the argument here, not comparing them to netflix, comparing steam to a model where you actually own the media you buy and can do what you want with it.
You’re not wrong that physical media was essentially doomed, and arguably it should have been as digital distribution is faster, easier, and objectively better for the planet (look into the environmental cost of manufacturing vinyl records, for example)
But who popularized the current dominant model of “you’re only buying access, not the game itself”? And before you go on about how it would be impossible to make a digital equivalent to distribution equivalent to purchasing physical media, remember gog exists and has been around and successful for almost 2 decades now
The secret sauce there is linux support. It may sound like a marginal thing, but Valve has been working on making Linux gaming viable for over a decade now and it’s paying off in spades. GOG exists, sure, but they’re a fraction of Valves influence for a reason. Besides, there was a DRM free distribution chain before GoG that everyone used, it was called piracy.
valves Linux support is objectively good but it doesn’t magically undo establishing the anti consumer guidelines that now dominate the industry
Piracy also existed before (and after) steam, what’s your point?