alt Hacker News> I'm optimistic that the raise in PC gaming will act as a balance for the obvious greed of the consoles.
Why?
Steam has never done anything to support ownership of games, their policy completely bans transferring licenses or accounts to other people or leaving them to someone when you die. Their next CEO is someone who has only known extreme wealth their whole life and gets the job because daddy started the company, when has that been a catalyst for societal good?
GOG is the only one to have advocated a different status quo, but they have virtually no marketshare that could pressure developers and publishers to accept more equitable terms beyond eschewing DRM.
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I'm optimistic about PC gaming because if Steam begins acting as an evil gatekeeper then game developers can adopt other avenues to deliver the games to their players. It's an open platform. People are using Steam now because it adds value. People will stop using Steam if it subtracts value.
Can't you download your game off steam and play it forever; and if it can't connect to the service, it will just let you play offline?
Sure, that loses out on the ability to transfer it to a friend, but it's better.
Steam haven't put shenanigans like this because they have many competitors and PC users would leave them, the have built trust within the gaming community
The same reason you can be pessimistic?
Maybe if you look for evidence to be pessimistic, you find that, and if you look for evidence to be optimistic you find that.
I'd rather choose the more positive, hopeful perspective than the negative, downer one. What about you?
This was actually a funny question at work over lunch. A few of us have kids and like most tech guys over 30, our steam accounts have turned into collections. So I asked, who gets your steam account when you kick it. It’s difficult to think about and seems baffling to spend thousands of dollars and hours assembling a collection only for it to poof away into nothing.