Do I own my games or not?

[Zoltan]

I was around back when STEAM started. It took time to trust them that they will be around long enough from buying the games that were on disk to buying them on steam and still owning them.

Now I am being told I don't own my games that games are only a service.

What the Hell !

We need to know if steam is sticking to the original plan that we own our games.

[Boblin the Goblin]

Początkowo opublikowane przez GustavoM:

In a nutshell, you pay for rent, not to own the game. Which means devs can freely take away your game "rent" at any time they desire.

Of the instances that keys have been mass revoked, they were restored.

Once was when a dev's account was compromised. He restored the keys when he gained control.

The other was a nuclear option from a dev who saw a bunch of stolen keys. He restored them to any user who showed him their purchase receipt from Steam or any site he gave keys to for selling.

[xBCxRangers]

Początkowo opublikowane przez GustavoM:

In a nutshell, you pay for rent, not to own the game. Which means devs can freely take away your game "rent" at any time they desire.

Right, i think many of us agree with that. But at the same time, Valve has to be honest with their customers, and make the TOS that of a Lease Agreement.

The issue they may have with that, is they would have to drastically change the pricing, to that consistant with a Lease.

Which is to say, me spending 59.99 (usd) on a game at Xbox, is not the same as spending 59.99 here, for the game i'm buying to be played on the system for which it was purposed. On that system, it will always be played. Here, it will not.

There, they have viable customer services, even phone service i still use. Here, your reliant on other gamers to get you thru issues, and many times no resolution at all.

Here, they have a refund policy that tends to be pretty strict (and don't forget, the games are leased), where there, i've just gotten a game more than a year old refunded.

In short, yes, folks have to know they are leasing these games, but at the same time, the company has a responsibility to be on the up and up with their consumers.

[Brian9824]

Początkowo opublikowane przez GustavoM:

In a nutshell, you pay for rent, not to own the game. Which means devs can freely take away your game "rent" at any time they desire.

Not really, like many things owning soemthing doesn't mean it can't later be taken away. This is true for a wide variety of things like Cruises, guns, pets, tickets, memberships, etc. In steam's case however which people keep overlooking is that they don't take licenses away.

In rare cases if they are revoked by mistake they are quickly fixed.

Początkowo opublikowane przez xBCxRangers:

Right, i think many of us agree with that. But at the same time, Valve has to be honest with their customers, and make the TOS that of a Lease Agreement.
.

License, not a lease. A lease implies that you have to constantly pay and/or you only have access to it for a limited time. The SSA already makes it clear you are granted a license, and that the license can be revoked. I suggest you read it - https://store.steampowered.com/subscriber_agreement/

However you'd be hard pressed to name 1 single example in 21 years of steam of a license being revoked that wasn't quickly fixed, or the result of non payment or fraud.

People keep falsely claiming that steam takes away licenses when they don't. You buy a game and it remains accessible even if that game is removed from the store.

[xBCxRangers]

Początkowo opublikowane przez brian9824:

Początkowo opublikowane przez GustavoM:

In a nutshell, you pay for rent, not to own the game. Which means devs can freely take away your game "rent" at any time they desire.

Not really, like many things owning soemthing doesn't mean it can't later be taken away. This is true for a wide variety of things like Cruises, guns, pets, tickets, memberships, etc. In steam's case however which people keep overlooking is that they don't take licenses away.

In rare cases if they are revoked by mistake they are quickly fixed.

Początkowo opublikowane przez xBCxRangers:

Right, i think many of us agree with that. But at the same time, Valve has to be honest with their customers, and make the TOS that of a Lease Agreement.
.

License, not a lease. A lease implies that you have to constantly pay and/or you only have access to it for a limited time. The SSA already makes it clear you are granted a license, and that the license can be revoked. I suggest you read it - https://store.steampowered.com/subscriber_agreement/

However you'd be hard pressed to name 1 single example in 21 years of steam of a license being revoked that wasn't quickly fixed, or the result of non payment or fraud.

People keep falsely claiming that steam takes away licenses when they don't. You buy a game and it remains accessible even if that game is removed from the store.

Well i cannot say, at all, that in my own personal experience Steam taking away, anything. I'm just hearing, it's gonna happen any day now. In tune of more than a hundred of my games.

As compared to say, Xbox 360 to Xbox One, to Series X. I will never lose my games. And even there as i mentioned, a developer that DID change the License, to something i did not purchase more than a year ago, for about 27.20, was refunded.

And so, i'm certainly not looking at issues that i myself have yet faced. My relationship, as far as games and their sales, have not yet been a problem (i had ATS, but i bought that for five bucks lol).

However, we are going to deal with a HUGE problem, at least as what we are told, very soon. And if that means, i have leased my games here at Steam, and do not own them, if that indeed happens.

[RiO]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Zeyo:

But, if the software that you paid for is saved on a hard drive in your posession and it's not a live service game, what are they gonna do about it?

That depends.
E.g. if you backup digital games off of a Playstation console to a portable HDD, then Sony
stores encrypted backups that can only be decrypted via a secret key tied to-- iirc it was either the console or your PSN account, not sure anymore.
Bottom line: you can't restore those to just any other piece of console hardware.

[Tito Shivan]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Paladin Dawnheart:

We will get what we paid for and that's all there is to it.

Beware what you wish for. You may end up getting exactly and precisely what you paid for.

[Boblin the Goblin]

Początkowo opublikowane przez xBCxRangers:

Początkowo opublikowane przez brian9824:

Not really, like many things owning soemthing doesn't mean it can't later be taken away. This is true for a wide variety of things like Cruises, guns, pets, tickets, memberships, etc. In steam's case however which people keep overlooking is that they don't take licenses away.

In rare cases if they are revoked by mistake they are quickly fixed.




License, not a lease. A lease implies that you have to constantly pay and/or you only have access to it for a limited time. The SSA already makes it clear you are granted a license, and that the license can be revoked. I suggest you read it - https://store.steampowered.com/subscriber_agreement/

However you'd be hard pressed to name 1 single example in 21 years of steam of a license being revoked that wasn't quickly fixed, or the result of non payment or fraud.

People keep falsely claiming that steam takes away licenses when they don't. You buy a game and it remains accessible even if that game is removed from the store.

Well i cannot say, at all, that in my own personal experience Steam taking away, anything. I'm just hearing, it's gonna happen any day now. In tune of more than a hundred of my games.

As compared to say, Xbox 360 to Xbox One, to Series X. I will never lose my games. And even there as i mentioned, a developer that DID change the License, to something i did not purchase more than a year ago, for about 27.20, was refunded.

And so, i'm certainly not looking at issues that i myself have yet faced. My relationship, as far as games and their sales, have not yet been a problem (i had ATS, but i bought that for five bucks lol).

However, we are going to deal with a HUGE problem, at least as what we are told, very soon. And if that means, i have leased my games here at Steam, and do not own them, if that indeed happens.

You aren't losing them.

They are still attached to your account whether you upgrade to Windows 10 or not. They aren't getting removed.

If they were leased, they would be removed from your account like how Game Pass works.

[Boblin the Goblin]

Początkowo opublikowane przez RiO:

Początkowo opublikowane przez Zeyo:

But, if the software that you paid for is saved on a hard drive in your posession and it's not a live service game, what are they gonna do about it?

That depends.
E.g. if you backup digital games off of a Playstation console to a portable HDD, then Sony
stores encrypted backups that can only be decrypted via a secret key tied to-- iirc it was either the console or your PSN account, not sure anymore.
Bottom line: you can't restore those to just any other piece of console hardware.

From what I'm seeing, it's encrypted to the specific console.

So, to go to and entirely new console, you need to use the backup utility(which stores the encryption) and only then can you transfer that HDD to a new console.

Which, the games would appear, but then you would need to login to your online account to verify them.

[xBCxRangers]

Początkowo opublikowane przez SlowMango:

Początkowo opublikowane przez xBCxRangers:

Well i cannot say, at all, that in my own personal experience Steam taking away, anything. I'm just hearing, it's gonna happen any day now. In tune of more than a hundred of my games.

As compared to say, Xbox 360 to Xbox One, to Series X. I will never lose my games. And even there as i mentioned, a developer that DID change the License, to something i did not purchase more than a year ago, for about 27.20, was refunded.

And so, i'm certainly not looking at issues that i myself have yet faced. My relationship, as far as games and their sales, have not yet been a problem (i had ATS, but i bought that for five bucks lol).

However, we are going to deal with a HUGE problem, at least as what we are told, very soon. And if that means, i have leased my games here at Steam, and do not own them, if that indeed happens.

You aren't losing them.

They are still attached to your account whether you upgrade to Windows 10 or not. They aren't getting removed.

If they were leased, they would be removed from your account like how Game Pass works.

When you lose something, that means you can no longer use it. And if we're signing TOS, that have us have to meet that standard, we do not own the games.

Leasing happens in varying different ways. I may have a physical car in my driveway or on the street, as i would my games, but if it's leased and i do not meet the Terms, they put a boot on it, and cannot be operated until i meet the terms.

It's the same here.

[Brian9824]

Początkowo opublikowane przez xBCxRangers:

Well i cannot say, at all, that in my own personal experience Steam taking away, anything. I'm just hearing, it's gonna happen any day now. In tune of more than a hundred of my games.

As compared to say, Xbox 360 to Xbox One, to Series X. I will never lose my games. And even there as i mentioned, a developer that DID change the License, to something i did not purchase more than a year ago, for about 27.20, was refunded.

Then I would suggest you do some basic research as Steam has never done it yet Xbox for instance has repeatedly made games no longer available that people purchased

Xbox - https://www.gamingbible.com/news/controversial-xbox-game-pulled-from-users-libraries-359664-20230419

Sony - https://readwrite.com/sony-is-at-it-again-removing-content-people-have-already-paid-for-from-libraries/

There are more but that's just to give you an example that is easy to find if you do the most basic of searches.

Początkowo opublikowane przez xBCxRangers:

However, we are going to deal with a HUGE problem, at least as what we are told, very soon. And if that means, i have leased my games here at Steam, and do not own them, if that indeed happens.

No you are not, because you are listening to random people making unsubstantiated claims and you haven't done any research on the matter so you are blindly believing them. The facts are that steam does not remove games. Xbox on the other hand has indeed removed games with no refunds yet you think they don't because you don't do any research before you spread false information.

[Boblin the Goblin]

Początkowo opublikowane przez xBCxRangers:

Początkowo opublikowane przez SlowMango:

You aren't losing them.

They are still attached to your account whether you upgrade to Windows 10 or not. They aren't getting removed.

If they were leased, they would be removed from your account like how Game Pass works.

When you lose something, that means you can no longer use it. And if we're signing TOS, that have us have to meet that standard, we do not own the games.

Leasing happens in varying different ways. I may have a physical car in my driveway or on the street, as i would my games, but if it's leased and i do not meet the Terms, they put a boot on it, and cannot be operated until i meet the terms.

It's the same here.

You still can use them.

Leasing would mean the completely remove the car from your possession. Your games are still on your account. They are still attached to your account.

They aren't being removed.

[Brian9824]

Początkowo opublikowane przez xBCxRangers:

Początkowo opublikowane przez SlowMango:

You aren't losing them.

They are still attached to your account whether you upgrade to Windows 10 or not. They aren't getting removed.

If they were leased, they would be removed from your account like how Game Pass works.

When you lose something, that means you can no longer use it. And if we're signing TOS, that have us have to meet that standard, we do not own the games.

Leasing happens in varying different ways. I may have a physical car in my driveway or on the street, as i would my games, but if it's leased and i do not meet the Terms, they put a boot on it, and cannot be operated until i meet the terms.

It's the same here.

Oh your talking about windows, once again if it stops working you don't lose it anymore then you lose access to your digital games on xbox if your xbox breaks. By your logic if your old xbox breaks you've lost all your games since you can't access it on a newer console when you don't. However unlike PC there is no free OS you can install to access to your old content for consoles...

You just fail to understand the most basic concepts of what a license is and try to twist it into something it isn't.

[Boblin the Goblin]

Początkowo opublikowane przez brian9824:

Początkowo opublikowane przez xBCxRangers:

Well i cannot say, at all, that in my own personal experience Steam taking away, anything. I'm just hearing, it's gonna happen any day now. In tune of more than a hundred of my games.

As compared to say, Xbox 360 to Xbox One, to Series X. I will never lose my games. And even there as i mentioned, a developer that DID change the License, to something i did not purchase more than a year ago, for about 27.20, was refunded.

Then I would suggest you do some basic research as Steam has never done it yet Xbox for instance has repeatedly made games no longer available that people purchased

Xbox - https://www.gamingbible.com/news/controversial-xbox-game-pulled-from-users-libraries-359664-20230419

Sony - https://readwrite.com/sony-is-at-it-again-removing-content-people-have-already-paid-for-from-libraries/

There are more but that's just to give you an example that is easy to find if you do the most basic of searches.

Początkowo opublikowane przez xBCxRangers:

However, we are going to deal with a HUGE problem, at least as what we are told, very soon. And if that means, i have leased my games here at Steam, and do not own them, if that indeed happens.

No you are not, because you are listening to random people making unsubstantiated claims and you haven't done any research on the matter so you are blindly believing them. The facts are that steam does not remove games. Xbox on the other hand has indeed removed games with no refunds yet you think they don't because you don't do any research before you spread false information.

Man, even when Steam removes achievement farming games you can still download and launch them.

Microsoft doesn't even treat their customers with that respect.

[xBCxRangers]

Początkowo opublikowane przez brian9824:

Początkowo opublikowane przez xBCxRangers:

Well i cannot say, at all, that in my own personal experience Steam taking away, anything. I'm just hearing, it's gonna happen any day now. In tune of more than a hundred of my games.

As compared to say, Xbox 360 to Xbox One, to Series X. I will never lose my games. And even there as i mentioned, a developer that DID change the License, to something i did not purchase more than a year ago, for about 27.20, was refunded.

Then I would suggest you do some basic research as Steam has never done it yet Xbox for instance has repeatedly made games no longer available that people purchased

Xbox - https://www.gamingbible.com/news/controversial-xbox-game-pulled-from-users-libraries-359664-20230419

Sony - https://readwrite.com/sony-is-at-it-again-removing-content-people-have-already-paid-for-from-libraries/

There are more but that's just to give you an example that is easy to find if you do the most basic of searches.

Początkowo opublikowane przez xBCxRangers:

However, we are going to deal with a HUGE problem, at least as what we are told, very soon. And if that means, i have leased my games here at Steam, and do not own them, if that indeed happens.

No you are not, because you are listening to random people making unsubstantiated claims and you haven't done any research on the matter so you are blindly believing them. The facts are that steam does not remove games. Xbox on the other hand has indeed removed games with no refunds yet you think they don't because you don't do any research before you spread false information.

Well they were citing an experiences from certain users, like certain users are specifying that here, while you or others deny it ever happened to them.

But something tells me, in my own experience, if they refunded me for a game, that indeed was not even taken away, but just a change to something i did not buy, and it was refunded, the matter a bit embellished.

As far as Sony, they were apps as far as i know. And another an admitted glitch and bug when it came to game libraries they have since fixed.

I had a free app, a YT Background background player no longer operable. But i didn't pay for it.

[Brian9824]

Początkowo opublikowane przez SlowMango:

Początkowo opublikowane przez brian9824:

Then I would suggest you do some basic research as Steam has never done it yet Xbox for instance has repeatedly made games no longer available that people purchased

Xbox - https://www.gamingbible.com/news/controversial-xbox-game-pulled-from-users-libraries-359664-20230419

Sony - https://readwrite.com/sony-is-at-it-again-removing-content-people-have-already-paid-for-from-libraries/

There are more but that's just to give you an example that is easy to find if you do the most basic of searches.


No you are not, because you are listening to random people making unsubstantiated claims and you haven't done any research on the matter so you are blindly believing them. The facts are that steam does not remove games. Xbox on the other hand has indeed removed games with no refunds yet you think they don't because you don't do any research before you spread false information.

Man, even when Steam removes achievement farming games you can still download and launch them.

Microsoft doesn't even treat their customers with that respect.

Yep, its funny when people try to attack steam and praise microsoft without even knowing that Microsoft handles it far worse then Steam.

Then again that is what happens when you don't do any research whatsoever and just blindly repeat what random people tell you on subjects you have no knowledge of.