It IS a scam since a lot of subscription services do not make it clear that the buyer is only granted limited access, and not ownership of the product.
Just last year, due to legal reasons, Steam placed a notice on their cart page stating that purchases only grant a license—much to the surprise of some Steam users. Steam has been around for 20+ years, and it took a piece of legislation to force the company to inform their buyers of this very important fact. It is clear that they would rather have misinformed customers, much like in a scam.
Steam is not a subscription service and in contrast to the services mentioned in the headline there is indeed grounds to be confused about what I’m actually buying. no one is surprised that a monthly subscription to say Disney+ does not grants them unlimited access forever. and buying on DRM-free platforms like GOG or itch also only grants a license, you’ll never own a piece of software by buying it in a video game store.
Steam provides a cloud service. Not dissimilar to other subscription-based services. Had they been using AWS, they would also have been affected by the outage, resulting in Steam also being mentioned in the headline. So it’s just as relevant as the others.
you’ll never own a piece of software by buying it in a video game store.
Sure, I’m both granted a license on both Steam or GOG, but the crucial difference is still about offline access. If GOG stopped existing tomorrow, I’d still be able to install, and play, all my GOG games. The same cannot be said for Steam. Which one, then, grants the most ownership? License or no license.
Tell that to all the people who’ve purchased digital copies of movies and TV to own only to have these companies later pull those licenses and leave them with nothing.
it’s not like people were being scammed
It IS a scam since a lot of subscription services do not make it clear that the buyer is only granted limited access, and not ownership of the product.
Just last year, due to legal reasons, Steam placed a notice on their cart page stating that purchases only grant a license—much to the surprise of some Steam users. Steam has been around for 20+ years, and it took a piece of legislation to force the company to inform their buyers of this very important fact. It is clear that they would rather have misinformed customers, much like in a scam.
uh…all software is like that. Has been for decades, you don’t actually own shit, even if you bought the discs.
Steam is not a subscription service and in contrast to the services mentioned in the headline there is indeed grounds to be confused about what I’m actually buying. no one is surprised that a monthly subscription to say Disney+ does not grants them unlimited access forever. and buying on DRM-free platforms like GOG or itch also only grants a license, you’ll never own a piece of software by buying it in a video game store.
Steam provides a cloud service. Not dissimilar to other subscription-based services. Had they been using AWS, they would also have been affected by the outage, resulting in Steam also being mentioned in the headline. So it’s just as relevant as the others.
Sure, I’m both granted a license on both Steam or GOG, but the crucial difference is still about offline access. If GOG stopped existing tomorrow, I’d still be able to install, and play, all my GOG games. The same cannot be said for Steam. Which one, then, grants the most ownership? License or no license.
Tell that to all the people who’ve purchased digital copies of movies and TV to own only to have these companies later pull those licenses and leave them with nothing.