The better way to ask it is: Would you pay $80 to rent a game?

Fairly important and it’s grown with age. I wish I could get back all of the games I sold bc I was too poor to have them and newer games.

As much as I use emulators for travel, I have repurchased a bunch of old consoles and I love booting them up.

While nostalgia fuels a lot of this for me, I’m also passionate about preservation for everyone.

If I'm going to rent them, the prices should reflect that.

I'm okay with owning a license to the game, rather than physical media. But I want to own it, in the sense that the companies cannot take my license rights away and that I can resell the license. And it should even work if the company or servers go away. Funny enough NFTs (Non-fungible token: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-fungible_token ) would have solved this issue. Although it does not solve the issue with inactive servers, at least a specific license to a game could be owned.

honestly not that worried about it. if they try to fuck me with licensing nonsense i’ll just pirate it.

How important is owning your own games to you?

Let me put it this way: I have nearly 5,000 games on Steam. It's the one source of media I have no problem investing money into, because I agree with how Valve is providing the service.

It's convenient, user-friendly, and easily exportable. I can go anywhere in the world, download my games and save files, and pick up where I left off. Which has been made even more convenient with the advent of the Steam Deck.

If I paid for a game, it's in my library forever. Even if it gets removed from the Steam Store. And the regular sales/discounts ensure I can afford to have such a massive library. I would be severely in debt if I paid full price for my entire library.

If/when Valve loses Gabe Newell and the new CEO prioritizes profits over customer satisfaction, I will gladly switch to pirating and hoarding my own games.

I'm very much against subscription services and I firmly believe in owning everything I drop money on. I don't play console games anymore because they've all been pushing subscription services, and with Sony in particular trying to push for people to not own games anymore? Fuck PlayStation.

This is also why I won't use Epic Games. Their predatory business practices and poor customer service shows what a terrible company they are and I refuse to support a business that degrades and exploits the customer experience for profit. I will gladly pirate any exclusive they keep off the market, or wait until they show up on Steam in a year or so.

If everyone voted with their wallet, Epic Games would be forced to confront the fact they need to make changes to compete with the online gaming market, or go bankrupt.

Same importance as owning anything else I buy.

The important thing is that the terms are clearly defined up front, prior to the sale, not in fine print buried in some terms of service document, and not subject to change after the sale. Then I will decide if the advertised price is worth it for me in that moment.

The specifics of whether the game is for rent or for sale is not really important, nor is the price. What matters is that shady business practices end in legal consequences.

I hate paying for something to want to use it 10 years later and realizing it’s no longer there. So yeah pretty important.

Going into a used game shop and finding a classic I played 10 years ago and popping it into a console I still own is pretty cool. So yeah pretty important.

This is all about greed so fuck all these gaming companies going digital only. There are exceptions. GOG is digital only but once I download it, it’s mine. It’s on me to keep a backed up copy. That is acceptable.

Fuck them all. I want to own the media that brings me enjoyment. I want to play it on old hardware....

A lot, which is why I don't play any games from the following categories:

• Live-service forever games with cash shops

• Server-based games that become unplayable when the servers die

• anything with Denuvo

• anything that can't be played without an account

• any console game where the console has not had its DRM compromised (Switch 1 yes, Switch 2 no)

• any Steam game with DRM more secure than the screen-door Steamworks

What is completely unimportant to me is reselling my games. I don't really care if I "own" them ideologically or legally, I care about using them how I wish, when I wish, without barriers like "an account in good standing with a company that exists and operates its servers" in the way. DRM that gets removed is functionally the same as DRM-free software for my personal "ownership" requirements, though it is nice when there isn't anything to remove in the first place.

Not really important tbh. Ownership is only relevant in a society of scarcity. And games are infinitely copiable, thus the opposite of scarce.

I’m more in favor of collectivization, as in archives of games free to download, maintained by open projects and donations, stuff like that.

maybe it's just me because im old but the photo itself shows why I have zero interest in owning a game, or any physical media (a someone who had vinyl originally, then tapes, seeing the back of both those was a joy. I'm also seeing "kids" return to analog cameras but that will pass, like bell bottoms.

a physical game that needs online authentication, or a server for collaborative play are all only here for a "short time" anyway, physical media aside.

I'm a reader more than a gamer, my books are all digital with no DRM, most of my games are digital from GOG and no DRM and are all single player, my music is all MP3 or flacc , zero streaming. It's why I get pissy when phones don't have an SD card, I can throw a TB of movies, books etc on a card and have another with me if I want but you streamers have killed it :)

I send money to DE for Access to premium currency in Warframe. I don't have to. I know I don't own it and my privileges can be revoked at any time. I balance this with the free to play entry and my enjoyment of the content therin.

Pretty important. If I paid real money for the game, I want to have it to play whenever I want in the future. I try to buy on GOG whenever possible, and I keep games I particularly liked archived on my NAS. For games that I’ve bought on steam that I really liked, I download the Fitgirl repack and back that up. If you can’t legally own a copy of your game, sometimes you have to take matters into your own hands.

And I have half a mind to to get a stack of archival blu-rays to back up some of my all time favorites, kind of just for fun and bookshelf fodder.

But I’m no archivalist saint, if a game sucked I feel no need to keep those files around.

Very.

If I paid for it, I should own it.

Not that much since I rarely have any interest in replaying a game, but then again I never buy them for full price, I only buy them very cheaply on Steam sales. I have no idea why anyone would pay $60+ to “rent” a game, I’d just ISO it alongside buying it in such a case

Having no way of accessing a thing I bought because it's stored somewhere other than my own device should the entity storing my thing disappear was at release, and still is, my biggest issue with Steam (and subsequently other services/stores). Steam does give a way to backup games I buy, as does GOG so it at least solves that sorta kinda. I'd still prefer some kind of absolute guarantee that what I buy will still be accessible forever, tho.

Tough one. I've been playing video games since pong. I tossed a big stack of 5 1/4 floppies when I realized I'd never have another drive installed that could read them. Same with 3 1/2 floppies. I still have all the CD/DVD's I've ever bought but have ended up re-buying on sale through steam or GOG when I needed a nostalgia hit because they just worked on modern systems without a bunch of tinkering. I can download just about any game I once had on either sized floppy and run it in dosbox. On modern systems, I've been on playstation and steam. Bought the PS5 with a disk drive and have installed PS4 disks but have yet to buy a PS5 disk, only digital which I prefer. I hate trying to find the disk, then find the case for the disk for the game in the machine. I also question what you own on modern games. Do you really want to play some of these games without the day one patch, or even the one month patch? What to do really own with a No Mans Sky launch disk if hello games disappeared and it could not be patched?

On the other hand, though I'm too much of a data hoarder to sell games used, I understand the desire. And having a kid that always wants the newest game for birthdays/Christmas but grandma has no real way to buy him the game specifically, I get physical for something to wrap and have under the tree.

In theory, I want to own my games but the history and reality of video games makes that a much more nuanced question...

I like the idea of being able to pass down my games to my children. I had over 20 years of games for them to play. Currently, I only buy physical media if the media is present on the cartridge. I still buy Nintendo games, but I won't touch the Game Key Cards. When it comes to PC games, I go with GOG first. If it's not there (yet), I will relent and buy it on Steam.

I prefer to buy physical when possible, but that 'when possible' gets harder and harder. For the kinds of niche games I like, even when they do get physical releases some of them are just hard to find at a reasonable price. So I'll settle for digital by telling myself that if I ever lose access to my purchase, I'll pirate it guilt-free.

Piracy is preservation, which means my real concern lies with online games that can't easily be preserved.

No, I download all my N64 cartridges.

Yes.

I don't really care. Every game I care about has a few hundreds of hours already. If they were taken away from me I'd move on to the next thing. Be it another game or a different hobby.

People are totally fine paying for MMO games that eventually pull the plug. (think Asheron’s Call, Dark Age of Camelot). I don’t really see what’s different.

Not in defense of it at all, just not understanding why one is totally fine while the other is not.

Very important honestly

It is important. I don't really get the valve dick sucking why would you put your hopes in rich cunts? They were forced to implement their refund policy don't credit them for it.

It is very important especially for Valve users because when you die your licenses die with you. Those 5000s games in your library? Those tens of thousands of hours? Your whole Steam identity. Gone.... Game libraries/accounts are assets that should be left to your friends and families.

Yes if steam were to catch wind that your big brother was dying of cancer and gave you his credentials then they will delete that account. It is not excusable and it's pretty fucking hilarious to see Lemmy defend it from over the spectrum because they think Gabe is nice. It's like yous just invent your morals on the spot.

I might buy something on Steam when it's heavily discounted as far as "AAA" goes and indie games if i like them, but everything else is full sails, only sure way it won't surprisingly vanish from my library.

and now, in this corner of Heaven...

All you need now is an endless hot wing buffet, a bottomless bag of only the dankest of nugg, and a troupe of nymphomaniac nudist college cheerleaders with no gag reflex and daddy issues.