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Comment by bitexploder | Hacker News Reader

Steam games I bought a decade ago are still in my library. Steam is trusty. Google is not.

Nevermind Steam, nevermind Google, nevermind Apple.

I'm sick that you can't buy ("license") something on one platform and then immediately use it on another.

I understand that the platform costs and taxes are meant to recoup development and upkeep (to a certain extent), but it still pisses me off as a consumer.

If I buy ("license") a game or movie on Google, I should be able to watch it on Netflix or play it on Steam.

The whole walled garden "app store" system sucks.

Yeah, thats a HUGE downside to Apple, because they locked you into their AppStore you now suddenly have no rights to use the app on anything outside of an Apple device. That is very anti consumer and detrimental to everyone involved... except Apple.

There is no requirement to use the App Store on a Mac.

And yet those programs do not magically work on Windows or Linux because that's not how computers work. Developers have to specifically target and build their programs for the devices they wish to support.

And many apps (in particular SaaS ones) allow you to buy one license and use their program on whatever device they support. App Store doesn't stop you.

If you get some windows app, it's possible that you will be able to run it on Linux.

If I can get it to run, licensing shouldn't be another road block

In a parallel universe there's an Apple equivalent of WINE. It'd probably be called CIDER.

It exists, it's called darling: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darling_(software)

It's never been as reliable as Apple platforms are way more of a moving target, so it's never got as feature complete and dependable as wine

That's emulation. Apps don't just run anywhere without you doing this.

No, but I'm sure you're aware that publishers/developers can make versions that run on each platform and license them in more consumer-friendly ways. I've bought non-SaaS desktop apps that come with license codes for each platform. If not included, there's often a discount for buying licenses for multiple platforms. And this doesn't require me to create an account for phone-home license validation. That type of license bundling is not so easy* and definitely less common with walled gardens.

* - I am taking developers at their word on this. I haven't sold anything on the Mac App Store.

That's an extremely rose/favorable look towards Apple which is doing everything in it's power to put itself into the relationship between a developer and a customer (to charge 30% and limit, limit, lock, block). Thats very evil.

When I have something in my steam library I seem to be able to use it on any platform it runs on.

My knowledge about this is limited to a couple board game programs I used to use on a Mac and now run on Linux.

It’s not gog type freedom from drm but it seems to be cross platform. Well of course not on iOS….

If you buy a movie on Google (or YouTube), you can watch it on Apple and Amazon and etc. It's called Movies Anywhere and it's existed for a long time. Were you not aware?

* Open to U.S. residents only.

Thanks, I’d never heard of Movies Anywhere. It only seems to cover about half my library but still super useful!

Also applies to the physical versions of movies, there's a code inside the box. Maybe 3/4 of my blu-ray library is in MoviesAnywhere. But I will say I tend to stick to the popular stuff.

> Were you not aware?

Never heard of that before. Googled it, and it appears to be an american only thing. Any suggestions for the rest of the world?

How does this apply to Steam? They sell multi-platform games with a single licence which you can use on Linux/Mac/Windows.

I don't really see the value in transferring my Steam games to GOG for example. So I don't really see what the criticism is here.

Game store and some multiplayer integration is not that limiting. It's preferrable to every single game building their own awful mini-stores/platforms (like EAs and Ubisofts. Even Battle.net's can be annoying and naggy).

If a game exists on PC and a console like the PS5 then ideally your license would let you play on both. It's the same product, just sold on a different store.

I would guess there's not enough people that want to play the same game on both console and PC to warrant pouring effort. Most people play a game only on one platform.

I always wondered about the world where you buy a licence directly from a developer or publisher, and then paid for a content service to download the game from, such as Steam.

I was also wondering if the licence could be some form of asymmetric key which could be used to "unlock" the game, but that might be a solution looking for a problem.

I don't think this would ever work in reality, because it limits the ability of the delivery service to double dip.

> I'm sick that you can't buy ("license") something on one platform and then immediately use it on another.

Except on Steam. Never buy your games on the app store. Get them on Steam and you get all platforms* (at least most of the time).

* PC platforms of course. Hell will freeze over before you also get the console version.

If you own Alan Wake on Steam from when it was first released, you aren't playing the same game, now, guaranteed. Much of the music is gone due to the license time expiring. granted that's on the publisher and game studio, but Steam should have at least let you keep a copy from the valid licensing period.

old builds being inaccessible is a big problem that i wish more people were aware of. Developers are able to make retroactive changes to their games and customers are left with no recourse. Although it's rare, I have seen developers abuse this to remove content from games. There's also a more common problem of developers accidentally releasing bad patches that negatively impact performance for some customers.

Old builds are often accessible on Steam via the "Betas" tab in game settings. E.g. for Audiosurf, this is how you get a version from before they had to kill YouTube integration.

It actually got the music added back about a year ago, but from what I understand that's from a joint licensing deal for the Remaster. So maybe the original and remaster will lose the music again in 5 years?

It's a bit weird because other games haven't had those issues. It's common for racing games to get delisted because of expired licenses, but if you purchased it that licensed content is yours to download forever. Every 2 years or so a Forza game has to get pulled and goes on sale for $1 for the final week.

Edit: Doing some further digging it looks like it's because they kept selling Alan Wake after the music rights expired, so they had to push an update or delist the game. That's pretty crappy.

Steam isn't perfect though. Years ago, there was a patch to a game to remove songs, presumably as a consequence of a licence issue. Obviously the disc-based console versions didn't face the same downgrade.

https://www.pcgamer.com/grand-theft-auto-san-andreas-steam-u...

Why couldn’t they? Console games have had mandatory patches for years and years.

Just because it’s on the disc doesn’t mean the binary has to load it.

I was thinking of the PS2, but you're right, modern consoles have patches.

As for mandatory patches: you would at least have the option to play single-player offline without updating.

That is a good point. Short of buying and holding the physical media Steam is the best thing for gamers IMO. Even physical media have problems. Eventually it won't run or work on Windows, yet steam games will often get updates to work and get bug fixes. AAA titles work a little differently these days and tend to be massive and are honestly not even done when released these days.

Good Old Games is the best thing for gamers. The only thing that Steam does better is the size of the catalog.

Software I bought from Google on the play share a decode ago are still in my library.

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