Well, that's certainly an article title isn't it. But I mean it. Microsoft, don't you dare touch Valve. You're fat enough already and too big as it is.
I argue that digital is good as long as you make backups of your games.
I have an external drive full of steam games that steam can’t touch. So I’ll always have those games. Barring I lose the drive or don’t transfer the files before it becomes unreadable.
Another example where digital is good imo is the Switch. Those tiny game cards can suck my ass. If I drop one on my carpet it’ll be gone until next spring. Having multiple games saved on SD cards is the way to go.
That hasn’t been true for like ten years now.
Obviously anything that needs an internet connection will require steam. But pretty much almost all single player games do not need steam to run.
It varies a bit from game to game, but typically Steam games are intertwined with Steam in one way or another. You can move the files around, but you need Steam to verify and “fix” the files and their associations afterwards.
It definitely does vary though. For example, with KSP I was able to just copy the install directory and have many different install folders for different instances of the game (great for version and mod control). For others, I was able to copy the files, but it didn’t run, not until I manually set up Steam to the install directory and did the verify integrity thing.
I argue that digital is good as long as you make backups of your games.
I have an external drive full of steam games that steam can’t touch. So I’ll always have those games. Barring I lose the drive or don’t transfer the files before it becomes unreadable.
Another example where digital is good imo is the Switch. Those tiny game cards can suck my ass. If I drop one on my carpet it’ll be gone until next spring. Having multiple games saved on SD cards is the way to go.
Other than that, I agree.
You’re backups wont work if valve ceases to exist, since you need to be logged into a steam account, that owns the games, to restore the backups.
Same reason my D2D games ceased to work, cause D2D went away, along with their authentication servers.
That hasn’t been true for like ten years now.
Obviously anything that needs an internet connection will require steam. But pretty much almost all single player games do not need steam to run.
I didnt say to run the games. I said to unpack the backups.
No you dont? You can literally just copy files onto an external hard drive, there is no requirement to use steam to do that.
It varies a bit from game to game, but typically Steam games are intertwined with Steam in one way or another. You can move the files around, but you need Steam to verify and “fix” the files and their associations afterwards.
It definitely does vary though. For example, with KSP I was able to just copy the install directory and have many different install folders for different instances of the game (great for version and mod control). For others, I was able to copy the files, but it didn’t run, not until I manually set up Steam to the install directory and did the verify integrity thing.
There is a distinct difference between copying the game folder to another drive, and a steam backup.