When you buy something on steam, do you own it?

[Venom]

When we go to a game store and buy a cd, we own it and whenever we want to play the game, we can just play it as it comes with the cd (unless it needs to be updated for the multiplayer purposes). Not only games but any kind of product you buy, the idea is that you own it and can do whatever you want with it.

But...

You can clearly say from the recent events happened on superhot game, we do not own anything. We pay for stuff we do not own but we get a life time rental service instead. So it is more like steam owns everything and lets you use their games for a little fee like a big brother borrowing you his stuff in return you to get him a cold beverage from the fridge or something.

Do we have any rights to keep what we paid for? or like i mentioned, is steam a rental service for creating a virtual game library? It doesn't make sense to "buy" things when we will never have an ownership of the item. Things can be taken away this easily worries me to no end.

[Chompman]

You have never owned a game like that even with the physical cd as it's only a license.

[tmwfte]

No. You don't own the game when you buy it on CD/DVD either, you only own the CD/DVD itself.

You've got a license to use the software on the CD/DVD, same as you've got a license to use the software on Steam or anything other digital platform.

It's just easier to enforce the terms of the license, including changing the software, on a digital platform than it is in regards to physical media.

[nullable]

Originally posted by Venom:

When we go to a game store and buy a cd, we own it and whenever we want to play the game, we can just play it as it comes with the cd (unless it needs to be updated for the multiplayer purposes). Not only games but any kind of product you buy, the idea is that you own it and can do whatever you want with it.

You owned the disc, not the data on it.

You couldn't make a hundred copies and legally resell them. So no, you couldn't do anything you want with physical media.

Originally posted by Venom:

You can clearly say from the recent events happened on superhot game, we do not own anything. We pay for stuff we do not own but we get a life time rental service instead. So it is more like steam owns everything and lets you use their games for a little fee like a big brother borrowing you his stuff in return you to get him a cold beverage from the fridge or something.

It's a trade off of the digital media format. CD's wear out or get broken. You'd have to buy a whole new game in that situation. You don't really have that problem with digital distributed games. But depending on the specific platform you're a little bit more at the mercy. Of the developers/publishers.

Again the trade off there with a lot of physical media games twenty years ago, they'd get patches for a few months, maybe a year. And then that was it, which could be a problem. We're a lot better off and a lot of games get patches and new content for years. I think of Terraria in 2011 versus 2021, that kinda thing wasn't happening when I was a kid.

Originally posted by Venom:

Do we have any rights to keep what we paid for? or like i mentioned, is steam a rental service for creating a virtual game library? It doesn't make sense to "buy" things when we will never have an ownership of the item. Things can be taken away this easily worries me to no end.

You have rights. But if you want your experience to be like you're running physical media, then buy games on physical media. Or buy the game from launchers were you may be able to control the updates. Steam is designed around keeping games current, it's one of the core features. And that's probably not going to change.

And I will say most of the time people don't have a fit about game updates, changes or content being added. So one example where a lot of people are put out is unfortunate but doesn't really expose a serious problem. This is a customer service problem with the develop, plain and simple.

[JellyPuff]

Depends on where you live. You don't "own the game", as in the IP. But you get a license to a copy of the game.
At least here in the EU, that license - and by extend instance of the game - is considered a "good" that you own. Some US states lean towards this as well. In any case, if a platform would take away games willy-nilly, there would be lawsuits up the butt.

Here's a great video, mostly about "live services" and their downsides, but it also goes into detail about game "ownership".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUAX0gnZ3Nw

Auto-updates and platforms or devs/publishers providing no legacy versions of videogames is another issue, unique to this medium. Use the tool "DepotDownloader" to get older builds, if you must and if the dev/pub decided not to wipe them from the Steam servers altogether. Downgraders are also often provided as mods by gaming communities, when an update removed content for whatever reason.

[Muppet among Puppets]

Originally posted by Venom:

You can clearly say from the recent events happened on superhot game, we do not own anything.

What happened there?

[ShelLuser]

Originally posted by Muppet among Puppets:

Originally posted by Venom:

You can clearly say from the recent events happened on superhot game, we do not own anything.

What happened there?

You may want to check their game forums for details, but in short: developer removed some specific content from the VR version and a part of the playerbase is up in arms over this and that generated some backlash.

[WhiteKnight]

We don't own anything.

Originally posted by ShelLuser:

Originally posted by Muppet among Puppets:

What happened there?

You may want to check their game forums for details, but in short: developer removed some specific content from the VR version and a part of the playerbase is up in arms over this and that generated some backlash.

I just read https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/617830/view/2992063678829322336. Instead of removing it completely they should make it optionally.

[Azure Fang]

Originally posted by WhiteKnight:

We don't own anything.

Originally posted by ShelLuser:

You may want to check their game forums for details, but in short: developer removed some specific content from the VR version and a part of the playerbase is up in arms over this and that generated some backlash.

I just read https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/617830/view/2992063678829322336. Instead of removing it completely they should make it optionally.

It was optional. There was a toggle to disable the potentially objectionable content. Then just they other day they decided to remove the content and the toggle.

[WhiteKnight]

Originally posted by Azure Fang:

Originally posted by WhiteKnight:

We don't own anything.





I just read https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/617830/view/2992063678829322336. Instead of removing it completely they should make it optionally.

It was optional. There was a toggle to disable the potentially objectionable content. Then just they other day they decided to remove the content and the toggle.

Wow that was dumb of them. face-palm

[Raiden]

We own nothing in this world. Our games belong to GabeN, our body and soul belong to god. But it is useless to be reminded of such things, as nothing in this world is eternal.

But I own a permanent music kit in CS:GO tho.

[Ganger]

It's a debate only the lawyers, courts and governments can figure out. But according the eula's and ToS's that we all agree too everytime, our digital games, items or/and digital accounts can be terminated at any time.

This already happens with online games and live service games. I do believe the law is catching up slowly with digital products but this is why I believe most big AAA+ developers want to go the live service route to bypass all the new laws (just my own opinion).

[nullable]

Well it would be understandable. Any time you release new content or otherwise change the game and someone doesn't like it, you need to accommodate them? It would certainly have a chilling affect on gaming.

[frederic677]

on the cd it was write to share the work not alterated it or sales but to give the work a detail good for them and you,to build a sofware good to pass the time and generation for a fare price to own and share our testomony like to not sayd right my properity is my share to the computer land my sofware is a correct device not a sharable for the price of it with out notification on the game and following the cd s?the price sayd we sahre the work y the use of it.we doint think ennough to build a society and give cd s sofwtware to the child to growwth and believes in what he do,can be free as can be $$$.science tell us waht it is a evolution so revolution

[MustangMR]

There is a difference between buying a CD and playing on Steam. With a CD I could play any time I wanted to. With Steam, I am at the mercy of them being available, as became the case for me yesterday as their guardian software didn't feel like sending me a email confirmation number after I rebuilt my system and I was unable to log into steam the whole day.

I also chose when I wanted to update my software, but with Steam, you don't get a choice. And if a company put out an update I didn't find out I didn't want until after I installed it, I could always go back to the CD. I have several games that I wish the dev's would quit messing around with and just make version 2, version 3, etc, rather than mess with the core mechanics of the game I originally liked.

There are differences, though I don't necessarily disagree with the posts about not really owning the game. Some control over versioning would really help.

[Start_Running]

Originally posted by MustangMR:

There is a difference between buying a CD and playing on Steam. With a CD I could play any time I wanted to. With Steam, I am at the mercy of them being available, as became the case for me yesterday as their guardian software didn't feel like sending me a email confirmation number after I rebuilt my system and I was unable to log into steam the whole day.

I also chose when I wanted to update my software, but with Steam, you don't get a choice. And if a company put out an update I didn't find out I didn't want until after I installed it, I could always go back to the CD. I have several games that I wish the dev's would quit messing around with and just make version 2, version 3, etc, rather than mess with the core mechanics of the game I originally liked.

There are differences, though I don't necessarily disagree with the posts about not really owning the game. Some control over versioning would really help.

There is a problem with giving version control to users in that basically they suck at it. This is why whenever the choice is presented pud/devs go for mandatory full control of the version.

Originally posted by Ganger:

It's a debate only the lawyers, courts and governments can figure out. But according the eula's and ToS's that we all agree too everytime, our digital games, items or/and digital accounts can be terminated at any time.

This was a thing even before digital games distribution. Its just that it wasn't enforceable.