99% of games will never release on GoG no matter how old they get though, because once they’re on GoG they’re essentially free.
GoG is great, but GoG is fundamentally never going to be a competitive storefront. It will always be niche and missing most games people want to buy.
Also people don’t seem to realize but you can “back up” digital Xbox and (I believe) PS5 games too. Download them, transfer them to an external HDD or 10 if you want, and then at any stage you can plug them back in to your console, transfer them over to the internal drive, and they work. Even without internet. It just has to be on your console that is marked as “home console”.
Unlike all the ones on Steam that never get pirated? Steam DRM is so easy to bypass it may as well not exist. Also, unlike GoG, you can add your pirated game to Steam and play multiplayer.
There’s no way Steam don’t know this is happening which means there’s no way it’s not intended (especially given Gaben’s stance on piracy).
More games release on GOG when customers show there’s money to be made there. If you make it important to you that your games are DRM-free and spend more money on GOG than Steam, you help tip those scales. It’s not fundamental. If DRM is poison for making money, then fewer games will employ it.
transfer them over to the internal drive, and they work. Even without internet.
That might work for some games, but there’s an increasing number of games requiring you to establish some sort of connection to the internet even for single player or mostly single player games (Lego Horizon for instance).
Try to transfer one of those and load it up on a new console without an internet connection.
Sure, your “home console” might work for some games for now. But in 10-15 years when Sony is trying to sell you the PS8, they’re going to be cutting off service to the PS5. What happens when you have to take that device in for maintenance and they need to do a factory reset? You need to log in again to activate it, except now it’s a brick that might only be able to play a few games on physical media. Anything downloaded/backed up would likely require that specific account.
By that time I’d be more worried about finding a working PS5 than their auth servers being taken down. That’s also assuming that they have completely removed backwards compatibility, which in an x86 world is highly unlikely.
The fact is that to preserve games forever, digital distribution is actually much better. These consoles will be emulated at some stage, and they won’t be playing physical games.
99% of games will never release on GoG no matter how old they get though, because once they’re on GoG they’re essentially free.
GoG is great, but GoG is fundamentally never going to be a competitive storefront. It will always be niche and missing most games people want to buy.
Also people don’t seem to realize but you can “back up” digital Xbox and (I believe) PS5 games too. Download them, transfer them to an external HDD or 10 if you want, and then at any stage you can plug them back in to your console, transfer them over to the internal drive, and they work. Even without internet. It just has to be on your console that is marked as “home console”.
Unlike all the ones on Steam that never get pirated? Steam DRM is so easy to bypass it may as well not exist. Also, unlike GoG, you can add your pirated game to Steam and play multiplayer.
There’s no way Steam don’t know this is happening which means there’s no way it’s not intended (especially given Gaben’s stance on piracy).
More games release on GOG when customers show there’s money to be made there. If you make it important to you that your games are DRM-free and spend more money on GOG than Steam, you help tip those scales. It’s not fundamental. If DRM is poison for making money, then fewer games will employ it.
That might work for some games, but there’s an increasing number of games requiring you to establish some sort of connection to the internet even for single player or mostly single player games (Lego Horizon for instance).
Try to transfer one of those and load it up on a new console without an internet connection.
Sure, your “home console” might work for some games for now. But in 10-15 years when Sony is trying to sell you the PS8, they’re going to be cutting off service to the PS5. What happens when you have to take that device in for maintenance and they need to do a factory reset? You need to log in again to activate it, except now it’s a brick that might only be able to play a few games on physical media. Anything downloaded/backed up would likely require that specific account.
By that time I’d be more worried about finding a working PS5 than their auth servers being taken down. That’s also assuming that they have completely removed backwards compatibility, which in an x86 world is highly unlikely.
The fact is that to preserve games forever, digital distribution is actually much better. These consoles will be emulated at some stage, and they won’t be playing physical games.