lemmeee

A few of them were libre software, but most of them were abusive proprietary software.

They way I understand it, their FAQ says that they will not refund any Librem 5 preorders.

We have your phone, and we will ship all the phones to those who have confirmed their mailing address, with the store credit available to the rest.

This is what they promised in 2023 and I haven't yet see any evidence that this didn't happen.

Do yourself a kindness and avoid this company like you would thieves, as there are still many cases of people spending $2.5k on a laptop, and not getting a refund as recent as 30 days ago.

If that's true, then it's pretty messed up. Is that legal under US law?

I'm picking on Valve, because their fans defend them so much and act like they are some kind of savior. It's ridiculous, especially in a community dedicated to free software. They deserve criticism and I don't care that they are not the only ones. That doesn't justify their behavior. I want people to recognize that Valve is a bad company. But their fans behave just like Apple fans.

Valve may have been first, may be the biggest, but they are not the only and frankly if it were up to the publishers I think it could be so much worse.

This is doesn't matter, it's not an argument. I'm not going to stop criticizing them, because they could abuse us more if they wanted to.

And once you find that nuance, it’s hard to blame Valve alone

That is not an excuse for their behavior. You are defending this company for no good reason. That's exactly why I made this post.

and you look to see how they may be putting the brakes on it

How? I'm not seeing that at all.

I could abstain from (Steam/EA/Ubisoft) video game purchases but, frankly I already do that. Work doesn’t leave me as much time as my youth…

That would be a good thing. I only buy from GOG and itch.io. Those platforms aren't perfect either, but they are a big improvement.

Back to piracy, sure, all DRM is broken eventually, hell even Denuvo for a time, but…Valve makes it too easy IMO. They could be constantly working on improving the DRM, keep the pirates on their toes having to put real work in and per-game unique hacks but, they don’t. I have it on good authority that bypassing Steam DRM is not only easy, but the same methods from years ago work today. They are certainly pulling their punches on this, probably because Gaben is willing to die on the hill that piracy is a service issue only, and will not give it any mind.

They have no problem with distributing games that have Denuvo, though. So they are willing to distribute spyware via their store.

That's a good point.

They should exist and I’m glad they do, but that doesn’t mean that every storefront needs to be the same if there are benefits worth the tradeoff.

But you are not getting any extra benefits. Whatever you are getting can be achieved without DRM and with free software. Valve is just screwing you over, because they can. Instead of admitting it, you choose to defend them for some strange reason.

All three of those links show your plain inability to read. Not one claimed that Valve invented Wine.

They claimed that we should praise Valve for inventing Proton. Proton is just a fork of Wine... It's hilarious how much you want to defend this company. It's messing with your ability to think critically.

TURN IT OFF, THEN, DIPSHIT. GET YOUR HEAD OUT OF YOUR ASS AND CLICK “DON’T UPDATE”. You’re so goddammed enticed with the smell of your own shit you can’t even google “how to turn off auto update”.

I knew most Valve fans had no dignity, but this pathetic even for them.

Yes, it's so bizarre! Especially in this community.

I’ll cut to the chase: I get what you’re saying that proprietary software by some standards is unethical, and so Valve dealing in proprietary software means they’re unethical… I think surely you would acknowledge that that’s an unusual view though.

It's not a popular view, but most people haven't even heard of the free software movement. This community is dedicated to free software, so I expected it to be common here. Proprietary software is incompatible with the mission of the free software movement. You can't have freedom when someone is actively trying to take it away from you. So we must get rid of non free software.

If what you mean is “Valve, Intuit, Atlassian, Microsoft, Apple, Team Cherry, and every single other manufacturer of proprietary software or games is unethical because of it,” I think you should say so. Nothing wrong with it, you’d be in some good company with it, but that’s a little different than coming at it backwards and saying Valve is abusing their users because every vendor of any type of proprietary software is abusing their users, and Steam is proprietary.

Every developer of proprietary software takes away their user's freedom and that's unethical, because people deserve to have control over their computers. Valve is just one of many companies that do it. DRM is also unethical, but Valve isn't the only company that uses that either. What surprises me though is that people aggressively defend Valve, even in places like this community. It's strange and it makes no sense. Why defend someone who is taking away your freedom? It's like watching people defend their own jailer. I think a lot of people here would agree that Microsoft is bad, but they aren't willing to admit that about Valve. Talking to Valve fans also reminds me of Apple fans, which is why I made this post.

I mean, I think the real answer is like so many things in the money. GNU/Linux can easily be developed as truly free software because the people using it are themselves highly motivated to make it and keep it functioning, but games don’t really work like that (outside of some specific niches like Tagpro, or a little labor of love that someone wants to make e.g. Dwarf Fortress).

You can sell free software. Nothing prevents anyone from making commercial libre games. There are a few games like that one Steam. We just need to make more people realize that this is an option. Indie developers can make this happen. I don't know if big studios would then do it too, but we have to start somewhere.

If there’s no DRM, some significant number of copies are gonna get copied around without the authors getting paid, and not a lot of people are going to be willing to invest as much effort as a modern game takes and then be ok with that happening. I think it’s rare under this system that you’re gonna see Elden Ring on GOG. That’s not really anything to do on the users’ side; it’s how the incentives are set up for the developers.

If developers think that, then they are wrong. Games with DRM get pirated all the time. Torrents are full of Steam games. The Witcher 3 has been sold on GOG since its launch and it sold very well despite being available in a DRM-free version.

To me the most logical thing if you wanted truly libre games beyond a little niche, would be publicly funding them (or crowdfunding them) and then releasing the results as open source once it’s done and everyone got paid. Honestly, I think a lot of developers and a lot of users would be happier with that system, if there were a way to work out to do it.

That could work, but you can also just sell them like any other game or app. It's way simpler, but people often forget that option for some reason.

I've been seeing people defend those practices for years, though. They are doing that under this very post. They are telling me how it helped the games market or that it's convenient or that it can't be avoided. It's like watching people defend their abuser. So unless we can somehow make people realize that this is terrible, I don't see how things could change.

Of course there’s also piracy in which case Valve has actually been a tremendous help. A majority of releases it seems are actually just Steam bypasses, because Valve has made a majority of developers content with just Steam DRM, and has done nothing to combat the issue. Now there’s Denuvo to fight that but that’s not Valve special…

Yeah, most of DRM is useless at preventing piracy. Blu-ray might be even easier, since people crack it on their own to make backups. GOG releases don't have DRM, so they are also often pirated too. I suspect the goal of DRM is mainly to destroy the second hand market.

Yep. I assume that this is legal, though. It's been like that for many years.

https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/7E78-08DB-AC21-CE32

Apparently you don’t remember SafeDisc and all the bullshit for PC games in the 90s which required physical discs.

I do remember and it restricted the user way less than Valve's DRM. What kind of argument is this anyway? We were also abused in the past (just less), so abuse is good?

All kids of games had DRM that was not the same as always online DRM, but was actually even more annoying than what we currently have.

Inserting a disc (or mounting it is an ISO) is more annoying than installing a proprietary app on every device and logging in to your account? To me it isn't, but that's subjective. Valve's way is certainly more unethical, though.

Everything else is a tradeoff, but your memory is failing if you think PC gaming was a better and cheaper experience before steam.

It certainly was better, since our rights were abused less. I can't tell if it was cheaper, though. But since you used to be able to sell games that you no longer played, I assume that it was. I can't sell my Steam games or trade them for other games.

You can still buy physical PC games, and you can still sell them.

Dude, almost all of them have DRM now. What are you talking about? What am I gonna sell a Steam key that is already assigned to my Steam account? This is something that Valve made happen and no, it wasn't like this before Steam became popular. Consoles still have a used games market, because physical games don't have DRM there. It used to be the same on PC.

I’ve never once heard a claim remotely similar to this, sounds 100% made up

https://feddit.de/comment/8084318

https://sh.itjust.works/post/3353959

https://lemmy.world/comment/7389934

Always could.

No, on Steam games are updated automatically.