Valve reminds Steam users they don't actually own a darn thing they buy

No, they're just the only ones doing it pre-emptively:

This disclaimer appears as though it's likely related to a California law set to come into effect next year

Probably because they know no one really cares.

No good deed goes unpunished.

It's full of... ugh... redditors.

internet archive is literally right now under attack by hostile actors, which by all logic must be capitalists or governments who want to destroy the public library in favor of a paid and/or censored one.

we shouldnt trust that it will still exist in a few years the way the world is moving.

In fairness, a lot of parents force their interests in their kids. That said, when my sister's husband wanted to force his kids to like Mario he had me set up an emulator rather than dig out an NES.

But yeah. People also overestimate how long hardware will last or what a mess playing decade old software is. Even when I want to play a chaos gate, I am jumping through enough hoops that I am not even starting from the big box.

You can take most of the game binaries out of steam as a backup, only few require steam to run in order to make DRM protection happy.

Additionally, you do not own the game on the disk, you have the license to use it privately, like you have with games bought at steam.

So the only difference is, that you are dependent on steam to keep them server running in order for you to download and reinstall a game, if you failed to back it up, prior loss.

Different are the games that require a server running in order to work, but this is not valve’s fault, but the owner of the game. I think the owner of such games should be forced to either keep the server running, or release the binary or the source in order for people to host their own server.

Good job completely missing my point.

I was talking about the actual event that happened in the recent past and what all of these lazy copy-remix-paste articles are parroting. Let me break it down for you.

• Steam was selling licenses a month ago.
• California passed the law in question at some point.
• Steam is selling licenses now but with a different label.

Do you see how fuck all has changed in that period? You are getting the same deal, but journalists need the sensationalism, so they're retelling the same known facts (known since the controversy decades ago where some famous person wrote into his will that his daughter should inherit his iTunes library and Apple said no) about the revocable licenses as if they had just discovered them.

I'm fully aware of the consequences of digital-only distribution. I have stacks of PC game discs, and have dedicated a large part of my NAS to storing game installers. Do not talk down to me like I'm an idiot.

I have heard that some of the newer sites have much better search engines and UIs, or maybe you can even get search built into your software. So perhaps it's more of a fallback site these years.

I guess you skipped over the..

I actually knew this buying digital.

...part.

Indie developers should sell licenses instead of games because otherwise they would not make a profit. Maybe you could explain the logic...