![]() ![]() But as long as this entails installation of anything other than the games themselves. But these developers are telling me "want my game? you must buy it here", and my response, "you want my money? give me options".Īnd to Steam, I wrote them many years ago - You could offer me every game in your catalog for the sum total of one dollar, to download at my discretion, in perpetuity. Anything else I purchase, from a meal to a new car, I have options of where to buy don't like this restaurant? go to a different one don't like that car dealer? purchase elsewhere. Well, Steam has created a generation of gamers for whom it is the only way to obtain games, and a generation of developers for whom it is the only way to distribute games the goal, apparently, is to become a monopoly.īut my main acrimoniousness is for those developers who choose to distribute their games solely via Steam, thus depriving me of the choice of where to spend my money. ![]() What they did "right" was follow the lead of google the latter was once just another search engine, but through massive self promotion they convinced an entire generation of computer users they, google, were the only search engine, to the extent "google" is now synonymous with "search" (with that mindset, since Toyota is the best selling auto worldwide, we do not go driving we go Toyota-ing). MSFS itself can be bought through the MS Store or Steam, and most other games can be bought through one or more of Steam, Epic Games, GOG, Ubisoft or EA's online stores.Īs for Google search, it became the most popular search engine because it was the best one around, and arguably still is.Įdit: There are also a number of games on Steam that don't require any DRM to run. If you don't want to buy from Steam, most games are available in multiple online storefronts these days. And, yes, some developers still go too far with tying their games to online DRM, but that is the fault of the developer, not Steam itself. Remove any of this DRM, and the game would fail to run no different than removing Steam would (and sometimes it couldn't be easily removed at all once installed). Far too many of those had DRM schemes that did actually interfere with the user's computer and did qualify as malware, breaking things like DVD burning software or outright installing rootkits without telling the user at all. On the other hand, I think you have a rose coloured glasses view of buying software on CDs and DVDs. You also don't need to keep it running if you don't want. If you don't want it to automatically update your games, then disable it. Moving saved game files doesn't count as malware as the user did give permission to update the games (whether they understood that is a different topic). Steam became popular because it offered a good balance between the convenience of buying, installing and updating games for users with fairly un-intrusive DRM to protect against the many software pirates out. Simply having admin access does not make a piece of software malware. By definition malware is software that is doing something malicious to the user's computer, often including hiding what it does. ![]()
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