Oxenfree is being completely removed from itch.io in October

Quoting: finaldestHere we go again,

When will folks learn that physical media is the only true way to have ownership.

I know PC games generally don't get physical releases so I now buy PS4 and PS5 games when I want a copy to preserve. Most PlayStation games work offline without ever needing an update but PS5 does have a backup option built in.

I still primarily buy games on Steam but accept the risk I could lose games in the future. I will also be using GOG where possible to buy games I want to preserve as they offer a direct download of the installer.

I now have over 600 Movies and 30 PS4/5 Games on physical. I now refuse to just rely on 3rd parties with my media purchases.

True ownership has nothing to do with physical media: any drm-free game purchased digitally grants you more ownership than any disk (or even cartridge) release that comes preloaded with a phone-home-to-see-if-the-publisher-grants-permission-to-play check.

Even this current case still allows you to get your eternally playable copy before they remove it - where the shutdown of a grant-permission-server would have blocked you from playing it in the future if this game had had drm restrictions.


Last edited by emphy on 9 September 2024 at 2:47 pm UTC

Quoting: Mountain ManThat is one of the ironies of media piracy. Pirates are the scourge of the industry, but in many cases, they are the only source for games, movies, television shows, and music that are no longer commercially available.

Piracy might have killed Amiga gaming, but guess who is still keeping and making available even the most obscure titles even today? Games that would have been unplayable without cracked code protections and even unavailable because the original floppies are long dead and they had physical copy protections, so nobody but talented crackers would have been able to rip them. I haven't downloaded any pirated games for over two decades, but very recently I read a post by an indie dev who said they had just two copies of their game purchased on steam, and one of the buyers put it up on piratebay or torrent, or some such. Yup, they're still here.

[quote=amatai]

Quoting: chr

Quoting: MicromegasI think Itch.io doesn't get much of a say in this. Distributing a specific game can become illegal if some licenses expire (most commonly for music or car brand likeness used in the game), therefore Itch.io requires a method for the game uploader to remove the game from the platform.

I was under the impression that steam was able to keep games that has been bought downloadable even after they stop being sold. I may be mistaken, but if I'm not, that reflects very badly on itch that games that has been bought can disappear.

This is entirely a dev or publisher decision. There are publishers who have removed a game from Steam and also removed it to download. It's rare, but it does happen. This isn't unique to itch. The way IP and copyright law work means that every online store must have a way for the owner to completely remove their stuff

Quoting: IrisNebulaFolks, if you are dissing on itch, you're overreacting. This is certainly bad PR for Netflix/Night School Studio since they had no reason to do this, but itch isn't breaching any trust nor contract. You bought your game, you got your game. It has given you a DRM-Free installer that you can use whenever you want, as many times as you want. Even if new downloads are pulled, this shouldn't affect anyone much. Imagine going to a store and demanding a new copy of your game because you lost the game CD you bought there last year and being angry they won't service you. Infinite downloads for DRM-Free stuff is a courtesy and honestly they aren't even always provided by some software shops.

If it was on a platform like Steam, that by design makes you re-download to re-install which would mean you'd be locked out of new installations, then yeah, that would have been a big deal, but that's another beast entirely.

Don't make excuses for shitty stuff happening.

You buy stuff digitally with the understanding that you get to keep your games.

Your comparison with a retail games is unfair, because you bought that with the understanding that you bought one copy.

Quoting: EagleDeltaThere are publishers who have removed a game from Steam and also removed it to download. It's rare, but it does happen.

Which one? So far I've only seen removed depots and I haven't checked whether they could be extracted from older manifests.

Quoting: razing32And once again i have to differ to people that use GOG.
I use Steam for convenience and proton but stories like these make me realize that when push comes to shove its best to have a backup copy of your game.

I'm not sure what you mean to say by referring to GOG here? Itch.io and GOG offer the exact same benefit in this case: a DRM free download. If Netflix had asked GOG to pull the game from download instead, it would be the same situation and you'd still have your local copy in either case.

Quoting: razing32stories like these make me realize that when push comes to shove its best to have a backup copy of your game.

Quoting: IrisNebulaYou bought your game, you got your game. It has given you a DRM-Free installer that you can use whenever you want, as many times as you want. Even if new downloads are pulled, this shouldn't affect anyone much. Imagine going to a store and demanding a new copy of your game because you lost the game CD you bought there last year and being angry they won't service you. Infinite downloads for DRM-Free stuff is a courtesy and honestly they aren't even always provided by some software shops.

I get your point, but it's unfair. What I'll say won't concern Itch because they certainly have no responsibilities in this situation. And Itch's cut is freely set by the developer I think, so Itch is not responsible here. But here's the thing. The ability of to make a backup is very nice. It protects against the store shutting down, which happened for more than a few stores. And it protects against game updates that make old-version not accessible anymore. I'm a huge fan of backups and I did backup some of my games.

But we can not backup all our games. A modern game take around 50 to 100GB. Given that on modern computers, hards drives are around a few terabytes, a gamer could backup between 20 and 50 games on one hard drive. We could instead store backups on BD. They are much cheaper but keep in mind that modern games have regular updates. Updating the backups on BD to keep it up-to-date is not a simple and easy task. It takes a lot of time, effort and money. We need to take into account that physical storage's life span is not infinite. We need to make several copies to prevent fires, drawings, robberies, ... making some inaccessible. We could also store backups on cloud storage. But it's expensive and we would still have to update the backups every time a game is updated.

When games where distributed by physical copies, patches were rare and small. But today's updates are frequent and big. How much time and money would require maintaining all your backups up to date? Maintaining backups for more than 50 or 100 games would be quite big, both in terms of money and time. With sales and bundles, our collections grow very rapidly beyond that limit. What would you do when you would reach your limit of 50 or 70 games? You would be forced to stop playing new games until your limit increases.

The deal we make with a digital stores is that a cut of the price covers infrastructure cost. Digital stores act as cloud storage systems. I know that I can safely delete a game to make some space for another one because I will be able to download it again. They even save my saves in the cloud! That's a good model for us as long as they indeed let us download games again. And it's a good model for them. Storage is much cheaper for them because they can mutualize storage costs between customers. By taking care of storage for us, and being paid for that, we can buy more games. It's a win-win situation.

Of course the deal I'm talking about is an implicit one. Legally, the terms of the license are more more restrictive than that. But implicit deals do matter. Even if nothing forces stores, developers and editors to completely remove a game from a store, common usage when delisting a game is to let owners the ability to play it. As probably many here, I own several delisted games that I still play. I bet that a store that would have a limit or deadline for downloads would close very quickly.

What Night School is doing is awful. Dismissing the awfulness of their action by saying we have to do backups is unfair. The industry standard is to let owners play. I'm even sure that stores are OK with it. When you release a game on a store, when you take money from people, you have the moral responsibility to the people who bough this game. I know it's not a legal one, it's a moral one. Because it can be legal but unfair. This is the case here.

To Night School Studio: I had nothing against you. But such a bad move against your customers is really a huge betrayal. It shows that you have no respect for the people who supported you. Because taking the game on Itch is also a way to give you more money as Itch takes a lesser cut. Taking the game from our hands is unfair. How would you react if we took the money we gave to you back? Would you be happy? Another point. Do you really think I will pay again to play a game I already bought? You're forcing legal customers to rely on piracy, with all the risks it entails, to play a game they legally bought. Do I need to explain why it's bad?

If you can take the game back, then give the money back!


Last edited by TheBard on 9 September 2024 at 5:05 pm UTC

Quoting: Ehvis

Quoting: EagleDeltaThere are publishers who have removed a game from Steam and also removed it to download. It's rare, but it does happen.

Which one? So far I've only seen removed depots and I haven't checked whether they could be extracted from older manifests.

It depends on the game, but some like World in Conflict and Order of War are either completely gone from libraries (World in Conflict and Order of War) or files no longer exist in Depot (which is functionally the same thing)

Still rare, but it does happen.

EDIT: It also appears that the state of some Steam Games removed depend a bit on the Region a person is in too.


Last edited by EagleDelta on 9 September 2024 at 3:48 pm UTC

Quoting: kuhpunktDon't make excuses for shitty stuff happening.
You buy stuff digitally with the understanding that you get to keep your games.

I make no excuses for anything, I just don't expect much either. When we are talking DRM-free, exactly as you said I buy stuff digitally with the understanding that I get to keep my games. That I get to keep them, not that someone else will do that for me.

When I buy games on Steam which I do for practicality reasons, I understand I risk them going away, even if Steam has promised to unlock them forever and let us keep them all if they ever go out of business, promises in the business world don't mean that much.

When I buy DRM-Free stuff, I know that I can keep them forever, and is exactly what I do. I download them and keep them. And I also have the option to make digital backups, which I usually can't even do with retail disks because of copy protections. It is the best deal as far as preservation goes, better than Steam, better than retail which you get with the understanding that you get only one copy as you said. I can make multiple copies of my digital downloads.

And no, I do not expect to be able to get them again forever, stuff disappears all the time on the Internet. Publishers can be ridiculous like Netflix here. Itch might go bankrupt tomorrow. Remember Desura? Yeap, I can't even recall how the site looked like anymore, but I still have copies of all the games I had on there that I cared about, along with all the other DRM-Free games I own.

Quoting: emphy

Quoting: finaldestHere we go again,

When will folks learn that physical media is the only true way to have ownership.

I know PC games generally don't get physical releases so I now buy PS4 and PS5 games when I want a copy to preserve. Most PlayStation games work offline without ever needing an update but PS5 does have a backup option built in.

I still primarily buy games on Steam but accept the risk I could lose games in the future. I will also be using GOG where possible to buy games I want to preserve as they offer a direct download of the installer.

I now have over 600 Movies and 30 PS4/5 Games on physical. I now refuse to just rely on 3rd parties with my media purchases.

True ownership has nothing to do with physical media: any drm-free game purchased digitally grants you more ownership than any disk (or even cartridge) release that comes preloaded with a phone-home-to-see-if-the-publisher-grants-permission-to-play check.

Even this current case still allows you to get your eternally playable copy before they remove it - where the shutdown of a grant-permission-server would have blocked you from playing it in the future if this game had had drm restrictions.

I have just checked the oldest disk that I have,(Theme Park) pressed in 1994 and the disk still works perfectly so from my perspective Physical media is ownership. I am not worried about DRM as it will always get cracked hence why piracy is so rampant.

Modern digital games are loaded with "Always On DRM" and are at the mercy of the service provider. I don't buy any game that requires online access to play be it digital or physical.

I changed my purchasing habits after I lost over 100 digital movies when the big movie corps decided to shut down the "Ultraviolet" service hence why I now only buy physical disks. For Movies I just rip to MKV and the disks go into storage.

The only real alternative to physical media is GOG but choice is just so limited and not forgetting that they don't support the linux community either.