• conorab@lemmy.conorab.com
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    18 days ago

    I’m guessing Steam decided against being able to leave your games to somebody else when you die because of how most EULAs I’ve read work: they are often non-transferrable licence and so in most cases the store has no choice in the matter. Now GOG are willing to say they will do what they can given this limitation, but I can see why Steam wouldn’t: it’s a whole lot of work for realistically not much benefit. It’s probably easier for Valve to gift the same games over to the new person.

    • halcyoncmdr@lemmy.world
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      18 days ago

      Aren’t all the games on GOG DRM-free? If so, there’s not much difference here than giving someone a USB drive filled with the installers.

      • wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        18 days ago

        Pretty sure that’s the technicality GoG is using when they keep saying all this sort of stuff. Their terms of service have effectively the same language about purchases only being a license that Steam does.

    • averyminya@beehaw.org
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      18 days ago

      And from the corporate side of things, it’s not very business savvy to miss out on an entire generation or two of gamers buying games.

      If you and I are parents and our Steam library has 1,000+ games, our child likely wouldn’t buy those games. But if they need to create a steam account for themselves, now those games are back on the table, securing future revenue for Valve.

      There’s workarounds sure, like family sharing or just ignoring the ToS and sharing passwords. I think the real tell will be for our grand/great grandchildren, for once we are 100 or 120 then Valve will probably start wondering… Is averyminya really still alive and kicking, or did he share his library?

    • ricecake@sh.itjust.works
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      17 days ago

      “In general, your GOG account and GOG content is not transferable. However, if you can obtain a copy of a court order that specifically entitles someone to your GOG personal account, the digital content attached to it taking into account the EULAs of specific games within it, and that specifically refers to your GOG username or at least email address used to create such an account, we’d do our best to make it happen. We’re willing to handle such a situation and preserve your GOG library—but currently we can only do it with the help of the justice system.”

      That’s a very fancy way of saying “we’ll comply with a court order”, which is what any business would do.
      This is marketing fluff. DRM free is good enough reason to like them without framing them as fixing literally every problem with steam.

    • Wrufieotnak@feddit.org
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      18 days ago

      I think a death certificate and your will are enough. Only one of the two is probably not enough.

      • CosmicTurtle0@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        18 days ago

        Wills aren’t required and not everyone will have one.

        I think the best course of action is to have a trust set up and have all of your assets under the trust. That’s how my attorney set up my end of life tasks. It saves you problems with probate and taxes while also giving you flexibility if you want to change things.

  • TehBamski@lemmy.world
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    18 days ago

    And just like that, GOG rose to surpass Steam as the better place to buy video games.

      • asexualchangeling@lemmy.ml
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        18 days ago

        If only they had a Linux client I might do that too, but the client they said they would come out with never apeared

      • ℍ𝕂-𝟞𝟝@sopuli.xyz
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        18 days ago

        Funny how people like it when they actually provide value to you instead of only forcing an ad delivery/data collection tool on you, right?

    • krash@lemmy.ml
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      18 days ago

      Correct me if I’m wrong: if you’re a linux gamer then GOG doesn’t support your platform, no?

      • Gimpydude@lemmynsfw.com
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        18 days ago

        Yes and no. They do have Linux binaries for games that support Linux, but GOG Galaxy is Windows. Heroic Launcher and others do support GOG.

      • greyw0lv@lemmy.ml
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        18 days ago

        To my knowledge the client (gog galaxy) doesn’t work. But the binary installers the actual games you buy can still work.

        • RogueBanana@lemmy.zip
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          17 days ago

          They only support like a dozen different currencies, everyone else has to buy it in USD. If there implementation sucks, then it might as well not exist for us ignored by gog.

  • John_CalebBradberton@lemmy.world
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    18 days ago

    Why can’t they just take Linux users seriously. It’s what’s keeping me from buying more of their games and using them more.

    • Nik282000@lemmy.ca
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      18 days ago

      Market share. I know it’s a meme but seriously, push Linux on people who will benefit from it.

      My girlfriend is totally non-technical but I set her up with an old laptop running Debian and after a few months she loved it. No ads, no popups selling cloud storage, no forced reboots, and it doesn’t crash. That’s one more browser hitting websites without Windows in it’s useragent string.

    • Hadriscus@lemm.ee
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      18 days ago

      Duh. You can record yourself one of those “if you’re seeing this…” videos, and then when you die you just email it to them

  • frigidaphelion@lemmy.world
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    18 days ago

    I have no idea what GOG even is but im seeing it as a steam competitor in headlines lately. What’s going on that’s causing it to come up a lot?

    • shinratdr@lemmy.ca
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      18 days ago

      GOG is “Good Old Games”, a digital distribution service for PC games run by CD Projekt Red, developers of The Witcher and Cyberpunk. It mostly focuses on old games from the Win95/98 days that have been patched/fixed by their in-house dev team to run on modern Windows releases. However, it also sells all CD Projekt Red titles and seems to be expanding to just be a regular PC game distribution service.

      It’s being talked about a lot right now because unlike Steam, EGS, and other stores they sell you a DRM-free download. Because of recent legislation in California, companies are required to use clearer language when they aren’t selling you something that you own forever, they are instead selling you a license to access something.

      This has reignited discussion on digital ownership, Steam, and what happens if you die or Steam shuts down/is acquired and you lose your non-transferable access to the games in your library. GOG is the ideal solution right now, because it while it offers a client that is simple to use like Steam (called “GOG Galaxy”) but if they announce a shutdown or acquisition, you can simply download offline installers for all your games and you don’t lose access to anything.