I must not, because I see zero difference between Steam and GoG in this regard other than the fact that Steam provides a bunch of side services that GoG does not. Otherwise they’re both just selling you a revokable license to play a game.
No. You do not own the contents of a vhs or cd or whatever your preferred media is with copyrighted material on it. You can only make copies for personal use because of a limited, singular license.
When people say “I own the game” these days they are generally saying there is no DRM or other factor preventing their passing it around for whatever reason - whether it’s illegal or not is immaterial. They are saying they can easily hand it off (I.e. letting people borrow or re-selling your own individual copy). Almost always this means an executable file not attached to a platform or any sort of online “check” or, of course, a hard copy. It also means the vendor can’t revoke your license at-will. Which valve absolutely can. Nintendo cannot walk into my house and grab my hard copy of a game, but valve can absolutely revoke your license and you will no longer be able to download the game that you paid the exact same price for.
When I “buy” a digital game on, say, xbox, i cannot easily transfer those contents. So most people distinguish it from hard copies which you can simply hand off to people. If I talked about a game on my Xbox the same way people talked about games on their steam account, they would say that I don’t “own” the game on Xbox yet they own it on Steam. This is why I talked about “colloquially” because people are actually not following technicalities, people pick and choose all the time how to apply the term “ownership.” It’s more about the ability to transfer the contents than it is about any legal aspect.
This is why you hear people generally say “I buy hardcopies because I like to own my game.” Even though that is technically not the case. They have purchased a limited license on a piece of physical media.
To bring this back to GOG: I said what I did because their EULA they have is not unique, it has been the case in all media formats for decades. So if they want to be pedantic and point to that, then it is fair for me to say “well technically, no one owns anything then.” But we were talking using imperfect definitions. Otherwise, anytime somebody says “I own that game” I could be obnoxious and correct then by saying “well, technically nobody owns any game except the IP holder.” Which would be super annoying and besides the point, because we obviously all know what the person meant.
When people say “I own the game” these days they are generally saying there is no DRM or other factor preventing their passing it around for whatever reason
That’s why I said:
If it’s actual ownership instead of availability
The context is that the person I was responding to said they use GOG because they ‘own’ the game, in response to someone else saying that there are games on Steam with zero DRM that you can also buy.
Frankly, with the ‘availability’ argument you also don’t need Steam to play them and could copy them over to a PC that’s never had Steam installed and play them as well.
I must not, because I see zero difference between Steam and GoG in this regard other than the fact that Steam provides a bunch of side services that GoG does not. Otherwise they’re both just selling you a revokable license to play a game.
Guess you don’t either.
It kinda sounds like you dont either, tho
No. You do not own the contents of a vhs or cd or whatever your preferred media is with copyrighted material on it. You can only make copies for personal use because of a limited, singular license.
When people say “I own the game” these days they are generally saying there is no DRM or other factor preventing their passing it around for whatever reason - whether it’s illegal or not is immaterial. They are saying they can easily hand it off (I.e. letting people borrow or re-selling your own individual copy). Almost always this means an executable file not attached to a platform or any sort of online “check” or, of course, a hard copy. It also means the vendor can’t revoke your license at-will. Which valve absolutely can. Nintendo cannot walk into my house and grab my hard copy of a game, but valve can absolutely revoke your license and you will no longer be able to download the game that you paid the exact same price for.
When I “buy” a digital game on, say, xbox, i cannot easily transfer those contents. So most people distinguish it from hard copies which you can simply hand off to people. If I talked about a game on my Xbox the same way people talked about games on their steam account, they would say that I don’t “own” the game on Xbox yet they own it on Steam. This is why I talked about “colloquially” because people are actually not following technicalities, people pick and choose all the time how to apply the term “ownership.” It’s more about the ability to transfer the contents than it is about any legal aspect.
This is why you hear people generally say “I buy hardcopies because I like to own my game.” Even though that is technically not the case. They have purchased a limited license on a piece of physical media.
To bring this back to GOG: I said what I did because their EULA they have is not unique, it has been the case in all media formats for decades. So if they want to be pedantic and point to that, then it is fair for me to say “well technically, no one owns anything then.” But we were talking using imperfect definitions. Otherwise, anytime somebody says “I own that game” I could be obnoxious and correct then by saying “well, technically nobody owns any game except the IP holder.” Which would be super annoying and besides the point, because we obviously all know what the person meant.
That’s why I said:
The context is that the person I was responding to said they use GOG because they ‘own’ the game, in response to someone else saying that there are games on Steam with zero DRM that you can also buy.
Frankly, with the ‘availability’ argument you also don’t need Steam to play them and could copy them over to a PC that’s never had Steam installed and play them as well.