Steam Now Warns Consumers That They're Buying a License, Not a Game During a Purchase

I’m pretty sure this is in response to a recent California bill that forces digital storefronts to disclose if it is a license you are getting. Otherwise the storefront is not allowed to use words like “buy” or “purchase”.

https://www.theverge.com/2024/9/26/24254922/california-digital-purchase-disclosure-law-ab-2426

10/10 law can we please get this in Canada too?
- Better yet, can we just get a law that makes it so when we buy something we own it?
- At least for steam it looks like it might be rolled out worldwide

If there's an offline game you love and play all the time, consider buying it again on GOG.com.

Soon, GOG and all other storefronts will state that you're purchasing a temporary digital license for any game who's publisher uses an EULA that states you don't own the game. This is due to the recently signed California law that forces storefronts to be transparent about the publishers EULA.

https://www.theverge.com/2024/9/26/24254922/california-digital-purchase-disclosure-law-ab-2426
- But also with GOG you can download the installers and play offline. It's literally one of their big selling points. It's less convenient than things like steam, but you can do whatever the hell you want when you buy it. So in that regard, it literally is a purchase. Or as close as you can get with digital goods.
- https://x.com/GOGcom/status/1844752098145038435
- But GoG provides it DRM free, so you can always play what you've downloaded til the end of time. It's as good as piracy in that way.
- That's not GOG works. Get your offline installers.
https://support.gog.com/hc/en-us/articles/212632089-GOG-User-Agreement?product=gog

Check 2.1, GOG is the same.
- If I back up a DRM-free installer what's the difference?
- unless you keep the offline installers.
I would say, if you’ve purchased, just get a free version.
Nah fuck all that, you own the game already. You pirate it.
Also don’t forget to download the offline installers from GOG. I spent all of last week doing that
- Is there a nice FOSS utility to do that? I need to do a backup of my GOG library.
Problem there is the games I have in Steam which are Secret of Mana, Trials of Mana, and GTA 5 I was looking at and thinking about whether or not to get, are not coming up on GOG.
Nah, I'm good 😂

If only there was a Girl who was Fit that could, I don't know, Repack this situation, thus saving us from it...

Hey thanks for describing this hypothetical situation, I pay Steam for a lot of game licenses so I've lost touch with the current philosophy of hypothetical alternatives.
Instructions unclear, looking up Wii Fit Trainer on e621
I wonder if theres a direct link to something like that on a subreddit about it..
Can you dumb it down a little doc?

Before Steam you bought a physical disc and it didn't matter that you technically only purchased a license, the disc was yours and nobody was coming to your house to take it away if the publisher started fighting with the developer or whatever.

True, with some modifications:

Some games had online activation built in. Some games would simply not install on a second or third machine without getting permission from the publisher.

Regular CDs have a lifespan of 5-10 years, shorter if not stored ideally. Almost all games had sophisticated mechanisms to prevent backups being taken.

Even if you could take a backup, record associations and publishers lobbied to make it illegal and punishable by severe fines in many countries.

Sony shipped fucking root kits on their CD that would hijack your PC and screw with backup software. EA shipped CDs with autoexexuting software that would actually delete CloneCD and other CD copying software and prevent new installes from working. My copy of Sims 2 came with that bullshit and OH MAN I was not happy about it.
- Sony shipped fucking root kits on their CD that would hijack your PC and screw with backup software.
  
  Worse, this thing from Sony was on music CD's and not even games.
  
  The Sony Rootkit debacle is one of the reasons that I still will not do business with Sony in any of its guises, for any reason, no matter the price. And believe me, I have a long memory.
- Some games would simply not install on a second or third machine without getting permission from the publisher.
  
  I remember binning DDR2 RAM on a test bench back in the day and Windows deactivated itself after about a dozen times lol
- I've got CDs I've had for 25+ years and they're still fine
Before Steam (esp. right before Steam) it was common for a disc to have nothing but a 100mb installer that attempted to download the game, or an actual game build so buggy that you were forced to download patches that required you to be online.

Prior to this, games came with serial numbers and needed to be activated online. This made reselling PC games no longer a thing as you needed to trust who you were buying the game from.

In both cases, the physical disc was yours, but it was pretty useless. It wasn't the game, but also was required to play the game.

Before that, we had truly resellable DRM: "Enter the 3rd word on the 20th page of the manual 🤣".
- No, dialup was still common in the early days of Steam, game content was not largely being delivered as downloads yet and discs were still useful because it could not yet be taken for grated that a customer would be always online.
  
  But I'd still rather download a game straight from the developer or publisher without an additional middleman. Privacy aside, the cost of that rent seeking from Steam gets passed along to you.
The modern equivalent would be to make cold backups of your steam stuff.

Thanks, new California law!

The answer is to introduce law which would force digital products to be owned, not licenced for non commercial users.

I think the answer was to introduce a law which would force digital market places to clearly describe what users are paying for, for folks who weren't around during the controversial time when Steam and Xbox Live Arcade came out and can't grasp the concept; folks who didn't observe the reality before and after this shift.

Even though it was abundantly clear already, this is what the California law is all about.

If, with this clear explanation, you still want to merely get a license to use games via a service, you should be able to do it.

Valve isn't doing anything wrong: far from it. Steam is awesome and I understand that one day, it could all go away and with it, all the games I have access to.

I also understand that, at any time, Valve may decide that they don't want me to use Steam anymore, or that someone may hack into my account and I won't have access anymore.

Finally, I get that even now, things that I could do with physical games; I can't do with my Steam library (eg. Easily play a game on my Steam Deck while someone also plays another game on my desktop, or sell a game disc that sits on my desk).

I understood this when I reluctantly signed up to Steam to play Half Life 2 back in the day when it was a complete dumpster fire of a buggy mess of a service. But it has improved so much since then.

Hey, do you, but I don't see what the big deal is. We've already protested that Steam was a bad idea, and Valve was literally the devil, but it's actually turned out to be objectively more convenient than any alternative to play games, and it's no longer Valve forcing us to install Steam to play their games. Practically the entire industry has shifted, plus there are now alternatives (besides piracy) like GoG. Hopefully this law causes more competition in that DRM free space.
What exactly would that entail? I “own” Hades, thus I can depict Zagreus in my own works, as his likeness is my property? I’m allowed to copy the game to a dozen thumb drives and sell them on the street?
- It would mean that you were allowed to sell your license to somebody else, just as you would be able to with a physical copy.
  
  It would mean that you could continue to have it, and be able to reinstall it on future hardware if Valve closed shop tomorrow.
  
  Currently you can do neither of those things.
- Somewhat ironically, both of those things would actually require a license as opposed to ownership
- What exactly would that entail?
  
  Go figure 🙄

Hey, at least they're clearing the air a little bit

Isn't this only because it's soon to be legally required in California? I don't think they're doing this out of the goodness of their hearts.

The amount of comments on social media that I saw of people surprised by this means this really wasn't something the average person knew about, it's natural to think if you paid for digital content it should've the same rights of physical. Though reselling will get messy.

"EA, play the license".

We all know here that you don't own anything on Steam or any other client with DRM. Duh...

B this shit should be illegal, I buy a product, game, license whatever you call it, it is mine. This farce of consumer protection... "do you understand the words coming out of my mouth!?....License!!'. Yeah we do, let us own our purchased games.

If the game is FOSS, does this warning still show? 🤔

Yes.

And that's why the bulk of my game library comes from GOG, and I have Steam more out of commitment than taste.

We know about we been buying a license not a game.

gestures to the other 99% of gamers
Maybe the average lemmit, not the average gamer.

We knew it 10 years ago, we know it now, how is this news to anyone consuming online digital content?

what's old is new again! they tried to pull this shit back in the day but physical media was the only delivery method. now that everything is downloaded there's a bunch of legal grey area they're hiding in.

so the next question, is this retroactive? if so, then when will I get my money back? Licensed software is cheaper than the full MSRP I paid for titles that had physical options I could have bought at a store. this is because licensed software usually has an expiration date while physical media with software can be installed anytime after purchase.

so, Valve, one last question.

where is it huh?!

yeah no, this is just fixing the wording to better represent the truth that has always been.

this is because a California law recently passed requiring these kinds of purchases to inform consumers that they don't actually own these games. valve decided it would be easier just to do this for everyone.

this has always been true for all digital games you purchased. the fact that you didn't realize this is why the law was needed.

thanks California for being the only force fighting for consumers rights in the United States. i can see why conservatives give you so much shit. you do things that matter.
I think there's one key thing you missed: you have never bought a copy of the game on Steam! It's always been a license. Valve simply made the fact clear now because of legal changes.

so the next question, is this retroactive

So the answer for this is a solid no.