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this post was submitted on 26 Aug 2026
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And I boycotted steam's avidly for the first years because I knew what will happen and how they will kill physical games and the 2nd-hand-market (and the lending of games) for the poorer.
Caved in with left4dead2 finally and am now at like 20k games. And was right. Both markets are basically dead and I joined the devil.
At least, as long as they're not going public, they enrich gaming a bit, as they're not just a sales-platform like epic.
Fast internet is what killed physical games.
So, you're saying porn is the ultimate culprit? Because without porn we'd probably still be on 1Mbit or so
Basically. It ruined Beta too.
That's a widespread myth and absolutely false.
Yeah but it ain't fat enough for my streaming of movies at top quality in AV
Then invest in fatter networking cables that can hold more signals in them.
Steam is the second less evil of the current market, the least evil is GOG
True. Wouldn't even color gog evil at all. No DRM and it "conservated" old stuff. Buy game, own game. Even if gog is gone tomorrow, as long as you downloaded all your stuff, it's still yours.
You can lend games on steam.
Really
You can either create a family and share games that way or you can login on your friends computer and install the game. They can then borrow the game.
You cannot play a game while your copy is being borrowed (played) by another user.
Kinda. Unless it's excluded. And if family member x plays one of my games, I cannot play a game or else they'd get kicked. Better than nothing though.
If you are doing Steam Family Sharing, then the only limit is that you both cannot play the same game at the same time. You can play different games at the same time, even if they are both from your account.
I use the feature all the time, it is great. Convinced my SO to buy a few games already as they tried it from my account, liked it, then bought their own copy so we could play it together.
Oh is that so? actually never bother witu the sharing, was adamant that it was account, not game-restricted. OK even better then. Still far from optimal. You can't just gift a game away you don't want to play anymore. That would be big.
This used to be the case, which is probably why you thought that. They improved the feature a few years ago.
Ahhh makes sense. As I never really used it it vanished off my radar. And rarely things get better than worse 🥴
That would be super cool if you could generate a unique code and once its redeemed its removed from your library.
That certainly would he big!
And it'd be so simple. Just like you said. But that would hurt sales and help you not to clutter your lib and poorer ppl get cool games too.
Sigh....
Two people can play the same family share game if they are both in offline mode when they launch the game.
Obviously though, as they can't check the DRM 😊
Yeah, I remember when you could buy a physical PC game and then resell it when you didn't want it anymore.. oh wait, they'd always fucking refuse 2nd hand pc games, and not even give refunds because the CD key would have been seen by someone.
We need more alternatives that are similar to GOG
True, it was always moving that way, because greed, but better Steam than EA, Ubisoft, Microsoft, Epic Games and Blizzard with their shit stores.
Yes absolutely. Hence my closing sentence. As long as they remain a private company, all will probably be smooth. But thinking of how shit will go south with light speed once Gaven clocks out...I don't wanna think about it.