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Disc based PC adventure games?
When I die (
) the games that I have paid for, like everything else in my estate, I can bequeath quite legally to the person who inherits. If it were on Steam that becomes problematical. Not insurmountable but not as straightforward.
Why would it be problematical on Steam?
You’d need the account details to log in with for the deceased person. If you don’t know them then no access. I can’t see Valve supplying access if you told them that the original purchaser had died and bequeathed them to you even if you sent them a copy of the will.
The same could be said about gog, you need account details to download games. Or does everybody keep storage of all games and doenst redownload everytime you want to replay?
I download, and backup, everything I buy on GoG using the direct download facility. I won’t use GoG Galaxy for the same reason I won’t use Steam (unless I have to for a game that’s not available elsewhere like The Painscreek Killings).
This means that the games are available to whomever inherits my estate. Certainly patches aren’t available but that’s the same for anything I bequeath. Some things do die when we do 
Life is what it is.
Ok, I guess I just don’t really understand DRM that well, I probably shouldn’t have based my justifications on what I don’t know so much about. I suppose it’s not the lack of DRM that I find to be an issue with GOG, more that the addition of a form of DRM that makes clear that games are really purchased keeps a nice proof of purchase that is always there. When I said that the Steam system was effectively unable to be replicated through piracy, I meant that, while the games themselves could still be illegally cracked and pirated, it wouldn’t be possible to illegitimately link games to a Steam account and benefit from whatever features Steam has for them.
From personal experience though, I haven’t had any issues with DRM in the past. And for me at least, I don’t have any need of transferring games elsewhere, so even if it isn’t the optimal system, I don’t think I would gain any benefits for gameplay (I don’t actually know if there is much of a difference in the pricing of games on GOG and Steam, which could also be a factor I guess).
But, overall, while I have been trying to defend my preference of Steam to GOG, I don’t disagree with GOG being at least arguably superior to it, I just personally have no issue with Steam.
Also, I only just found out about GOG Galaxy, that really seems to cover a lot of what I like about Steam that I didn’t realise was applicable to GOG too.
When I die (
Why would it be problematical on Steam?
You’d need the account details to log in with for the deceased person. If you don’t know them then no access. I can’t see Valve supplying access if you told them that the original purchaser had died and bequeathed them to you even if you sent them a copy of the will.
The same could be said about gog, you need account details to download games. Or does everybody keep storage of all games and doenst redownload everytime you want to replay?
I download, and backup, everything I buy on GoG using the direct download facility. I won’t use GoG Galaxy for the same reason I won’t use Steam (unless I have to for a game that’s not available elsewhere like The Painscreek Killings).
This means that the games are available to whomever inherits my estate. Certainly patches aren’t available but that’s the same for anything I bequeath. Some things do die when we do
That’s good organization, I only download when I want to play it and proceed to delete it after.
Ok, I guess I just don’t really understand DRM that well, I probably shouldn’t have based my justifications on what I don’t know so much about. I suppose it’s not the lack of DRM that I find to be an issue with GOG, more that the addition of a form of DRM that makes clear that games are really purchased keeps a nice proof of purchase that is always there. When I said that the Steam system was effectively unable to be replicated through piracy, I meant that, while the games themselves could still be illegally cracked and pirated, it wouldn’t be possible to illegitimately link games to a Steam account and benefit from whatever features Steam has for them.
From personal experience though, I haven’t had any issues with DRM in the past. And for me at least, I don’t have any need of transferring games elsewhere, so even if it isn’t the optimal system, I don’t think I would gain any benefits for gameplay (I don’t actually know if there is much of a difference in the pricing of games on GOG and Steam, which could also be a factor I guess).
But, overall, while I have been trying to defend my preference of Steam to GOG, I don’t disagree with GOG being at least arguably superior to it, I just personally have no issue with Steam.
Also, I only just found out about GOG Galaxy, that really seems to cover a lot of what I like about Steam that I didn’t realise was applicable to GOG too.
Steam is better in a lot of ways and gog also has it’s advantages. Gog also likes to keep shouting that DRM stuff (and it works) because it’s their big advantage and good PR.
Thay also had no regional pricing, no early access and ditched that when they started missing a lot of games, so who knows if the DRM stance won’t change.
I do have an advantage over some in my storage ability, particularly those using laptops.
My main (C:) drive is on a 512GB SSD with data being stored on a separate 2TB hybrid drive. I then have a USB connected 3TB external HD for day to day backups and a 4TB network attached drive for long term backup with the ability to see over the house network. I appreciate that not everyone can do this and lack of space means, I would think, that quite a lot of people, understandably, follow your procedure.
Life is what it is.
I do have an advantage over some in my storage ability, particularly those using laptops.
My main (C:) drive is on a 512GB SSD with data being stored on a separate 2TB hybrid drive. I then have a USB connected 3TB external HD for day to day backups and a 4TB network attached drive for long term backup with the ability to see over the house network. I appreciate that not everyone can do this and lack of space means, I would think, that quite a lot of people, understandably, follow your procedure.
That’s a good setup, I’m not even backing up my photos correctly so I’m a terrible example…
I did try to do that in the beginning but the gog library started building up I realized it was too much work and was faster redownloading. Now it’s so big I don’t even begin to think about it… If gog went out of business and we had to download everything before the end I think I would give up half the games…
I do prefer gog just think Steam still gets a bad rep in this forum for wrong reasons.
Yeah, I realise that stealing and buying is just as distinct for GOG morally as it is for Steam, but it feels like buying on Steam really proves that the game is indeed purchased. Again, I wouldn’t pirate a game and would not consider it acceptable, but the end product of purchasing a game DRM free feels like it is not distinctly above what an illegally obtained DRM free game would be.
Everything on GOG is legal.
For the record though, when there have been cases where some publisher loses rights to sell some titles, those games are immediately pulled from sales on GOG, whereas they usually remain on sale on Steam much longer, thereby introducing a question whether or not Steam really cares about the legality of their games.
Even if the games are legal, there have been many cases where it has been GOG, not Steam, who has brought some old games back to life by negotiating their new distribution rights. Steam pulls a fast one and just does a similar deal with the rights holder after GOG has done all the hard work.
In that way, at least, I kind of like the Steam DRM for clearly showing that all of the games are properly licensed and owned at all times. The social network type features of Steam are also particularly nice for showing what games are in the collection, though for all I know GOG may have just as good a system like that.
GOG just recently introduced user profiles, so they have that. Whether it’s a good system or not, I can’t tell, as I turn all such systems as much off as they can possibly be.
And again, I’d like to restate that I do not think of piracy as being acceptable in any way, just that I prefer buying games on Steam to DRM free games for being completely unable to be replicated through piracy, which I feel preserves the collection’s integrity. Although, of course, buying games of any form is not able to be replaced by stealing them at all in terms of morality.
Steam does next to nothing to actually stop piracy. There are entire sites dedicated to following whether games on Steam are cracked or not. Such sites are unnecessary for GOG - the games are “cracked” as they are. You can find pirated versions of both Steam and GOG releases. The difference is, real customers who actually legally buy their games don’t have to suffer because of GOG policies, but they do need to suffer because of Steam policies. For those who illegally download their games, there is hardly any difference.
It is also worth mentioning that Steam can, even according to their end-user legalese, pull a game from distribution at any time. Admittedly, they have almost never done that, but if they do, you lose all access to that game.
With GOG, as long as you keep even one copy of the game in your backup files, you will always have access to that game.
Compare all this to DotEmu: they closed down their store and shut down their servers and deleted all user accounts. But, they were DRM-free, and they gave a fair warning about store closing. All customers needed to do was download their games, and properly back them up, and the games they once paid for will remain playable for the rest of their lives.
I can play “Tony Tough and the Night of Roasted Moths” anytime I choose to, because I bought it from DotEmu. Had I bought it from a store with DRM, and had that store later closed, I would have absolutely no access to that game. Well, except for pirate copies of it, which will always be available…
The same could be said about gog, you need account details to download games. Or does everybody keep storage of all games and doenst redownload everytime you want to replay?
I have two external hard drives dedicated just for backing up games. I am planning on buying a third one.
I download all games, all extra files, and even all language versions, although I think it’s highly unlikely that I will ever be playing a Polish Macintosh version of some game, as I have never used a Macintosh or learned Polish. But just to keep copies of what I have legally purchased, I keep them all.
I also keep installers as well as copies of folders where the game have been installed and extracted. This is advisable, if, for instance, there ever will be a situation where you change from Windows to Linux. Running a Windows installer under Linux can be tricky, but having those files already backed up from a Windows installation will make it incredibly easy to point ScummVM, Wine, or whatever to use those files.
I have also made copies of all floppies and CD-ROMs too (not counting ones crippled by DRM), so in case the original media becomes unreadable, I can still access the game files.
I haven’t yet found a way to back up my 8-bit and 16-bit collection, so I must use pirated versions for those. Also, I haven’t tried backing up PS/PS2 collection, although that should be relatively easy as far as I’m aware of.
My backing up has lately been disturbed by my attempt to download all freeware games that have ever been made with Adventure Game Studio. I am only halfway through the letter I, and have already almost 1000 games, so it will take a while. What makes it more challenging than it needs to be is that AGS homesite doesn’t have all games listed, and even those that are listed often have broken download links. But I believe that it is possible to find at least 90-95% games ever made with AGS, and the remaining ones will maybe pop up later somewhere.
(Also, if anyone happens to have copies of rare or lost AGS games, make sure to upload them to http://archive.org/details/adventuregamestudio for continued access and preservation. 
)
Everything on GOG is legal.
For the record though, when there have been cases where some publisher loses rights to sell some titles, those games are immediately pulled from sales on GOG, whereas they usually remain on sale on Steam much longer, thereby introducing a question whether or not Steam really cares about the legality of their games.
Yeah, I know that GOG itself is legal, it’s more a case of that the DRM free versions are, to the end user, nearly identical in usability, or so I thought until I found out about the GOG user profiles system…
GOG just recently introduced user profiles, so they have that. Whether it’s a good system or not, I can’t tell, as I turn all such systems as much off as they can possibly be.
Yep, didn’t realise that GOG had user profiles at a similar level to Steam, Steam doesn’t really have as much of an advantage as I thought in that regard. I guess there is still benefit in having the same user account apply to games, but yeah, otherwise that is not really an issue.
Steam does next to nothing to actually stop piracy. There are entire sites dedicated to following whether games on Steam are cracked or not. Such sites are unnecessary for GOG - the games are “cracked” as they are. You can find pirated versions of both Steam and GOG releases. The difference is, real customers who actually legally buy their games don’t have to suffer because of GOG policies, but they do need to suffer because of Steam policies. For those who illegally download their games, there is hardly any difference.
Even if a game on Steam is cracked and downloadable through other websites, it still isn’t the same as having Steam acknowledge the ownership and give access to achievements and all the other Steam system features. I don’t think that such features would be able to be replicated by a pirated version, I don’t think it would be possible to have the Steam overlay either (I don’t know much about it, though it is nice to access the web browser without going off of a fullscreen game, especially if the screen resolution causes a delay in exiting the game)
It is also worth mentioning that Steam can, even according to their end-user legalese, pull a game from distribution at any time. Admittedly, they have almost never done that, but if they do, you lose all access to that game.
With GOG, as long as you keep even one copy of the game in your backup files, you will always have access to that game.Compare all this to DotEmu: they closed down their store and shut down their servers and deleted all user accounts. But, they were DRM-free, and they gave a fair warning about store closing. All customers needed to do was download their games, and properly back them up, and the games they once paid for will remain playable for the rest of their lives.
I can play “Tony Tough and the Night of Roasted Moths” anytime I choose to, because I bought it from DotEmu. Had I bought it from a store with DRM, and had that store later closed, I would have absolutely no access to that game. Well, except for pirate copies of it, which will always be available…
While this is of course a real issue, I don’t think either individual game removals or Steam shutting down are likely to be an issue. Though while the likelihood of a game being properly removed from Steam (rather than just being removed from the Store for purchase) is extremely low, it would be so negatively thought upon that it would be avoided if at all possible. From what I could tell from a quick Google search, it seems like some online-only game may have been removed from Steam (I didn’t see a name for it), but such a game that needs to access such servers would be unplayable even if it had no other DRM on it.
Also, I don’t think that it is likely that Steam will go out of business anytime soon, personally I probably won’t have an interest in the games by the time that that could happen anyway. But yeah, that will definitely cause issues when the time comes. 
Steam is better in a lot of ways and gog also has it’s advantages. Gog also likes to keep shouting that DRM stuff (and it works) because it’s their big advantage and good PR.
Thay also had no regional pricing, no early access and ditched that when they started missing a lot of games, so who knows if the DRM stance won’t change.
GOG gives us money in our wallets for future purchases to offset regional pricing - Steam doesn’t. So I think GOG still wins that one.
Also you people have just made me consider that my games libraries might be the most valuable thing I have to will. 
Also, Star Trek: The Next Generation - A Final Unity. It’s greatness depends on how much you love Star Trek though… If you like the series, you most likely will like the game too. For non-fans, I don’t know how moving the game experience will be.
I already really liked this game too. As well as the 25th anniversary game.
Also, Star Trek: The Next Generation - A Final Unity. It’s greatness depends on how much you love Star Trek though… If you like the series, you most likely will like the game too. For non-fans, I don’t know how moving the game experience will be.
I already really liked this game too. As well as the 25th anniversary game.
Indeed, 25th Anniversary and Judgment Rites were, and still are, excellent games.
For those who have missed it, there’s a series of very interesting blog posts about trying to make 25th Anniversary to run on ScummVM.
But neither of those Interplay games actually qualifies for the question by the OP, as they are both available digitally.
I guess it should be worth mentioning that it is thanks to GOG, not Steam, that these brilliant classics were released in downloadable format for the first time ever.
http://www.gog.com/news/star_trek_premieres_on_gogcom
http://www.gog.com/news/release_star_trek_25th_anniversary
http://www.gog.com/news/release_star_trek_judgement_rites_en
Going back to the OP’s original post.
You have original discs for The Feeble Files (as do I). Do you intend to try to play the game? If so, be warned that it won’t run natively on modern PCs.
However.
It will run via SCUMMVM
But.
If you don’t want to go through setting that up (actually it’s not particularly difficult) sadly it’s not available via Steam 
But it is available via GoG
On a more constructive note.
You say further on that you’re not keen to play AGs where you can die, that have dead ends or are “difficult” (this is rather subjective of course).
Be warned that, in my opinion, The Feeble Files, whilst not being THE most difficult of games it is very far from being the easiest. In terms of difficulty I’d probably rate it somewhere in my top ten and possibly in the all time top twenty although others may well disagree.
Life is what it is.
Going back to the OP’s original post.
You have original discs for The Feeble Files (as do I). Do you intend to try to play the game? If so, be warned that it won’t run natively on modern PCs.
However.
It will run via SCUMMVM
But.
If you don’t want to go through setting that up (actually it’s not particularly difficult) sadly it’s not available via Steam
On a more constructive note.
You say further on that you’re not keen to play AGs where you can die, that have dead ends or are “difficult” (this is rather subjective of course).
Be warned that, in my opinion, The Feeble Files, whilst not being THE most difficult of games it is very far from being the easiest. In terms of difficulty I’d probably rate it somewhere in my top ten and possibly in the all time top twenty although others may well disagree.
I’ve already set up the Feeble Files on ScummVM, I think seeing it on the list of applicable games probably made it stand out more to me as being a major well-known game.
And yeah, I heard it was extremely hard, so I haven’t played it yet, I guess I might actually end up using a walkthrough for it (which is not something I would ever do outside of looking up solutions to individual points that I get stuck at, from time to time). I hear it is supposed to be really good outside of its difficulty. And the fun is probably brought down a bit more by the slow walking speed.
I actually got the copy of it for only £0.10 at CeX, which was a very nice deal 
The Feeble Files is a tough game, but I loved it even while pulling handfuls of hair out of my head in frustration. It has one of the best (and funniest) endings in any game I’ve ever played.
“Rainy days should be spent at home with a cup of tea and a good book.” -Bill Watterson
Gobliiins 4 never had a digital release either. It’s not that good but it’s still interesting since it’s part of a well known series. There’s probably a lot of games released around 2005-2009 that haven’t been rereleased on digital.
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