Down Steam
Well, I guess that’s one way to highlight the fact that maybe multiple launchers are necessary.
While Steam being down has obviously happened in the past – maintenance or not – this is the first time I have actually sat down ready to play something and… not being able to. Wife and baby are sleeping, I have probably ~30 minutes of free time, and I wanted to get in some quick Kingdom Come: Deliverance action. “Oh. Maybe I’ll play Slay the Spire… err… Oxygen Not Included… uh… oh.”
Steam came back up before this got posted, but something to think about for the future.
Posted on September 28, 2019, in Miscellany and tagged Downtime Management, Epic Store, Steam. Bookmark the permalink. 3 Comments.
In An Age 
“something to think about for the future”? The warning about software-as-service are as old as the GNU movement. Richard Stallman may be a madman, but it’s scary to see that what he predicted keeps turning out right. The initial warning was about books becoming “service” instead of objects. Check. Then there was the loss of ownership for software, converting sales into rental, which means complete dependence on the continued existence of the company providing it. Check.
This is one of the reasons I NEVER EVER buy steam games at full price. I’m not buying the game, I’m only buying the possibility of playing it as long as Valve allows me to, so the price should be way lower. -33%, I’m listening, -50%, ok this is going the right direction, -75% or more, time to buy.
Ah, and obviously….I’m on linux.
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Well, theoretically this is why offline mode exists. The problem of course is, while going into offline mode works perfectly fine when you’re online, if you aren’t (or Steam is down) it’s still basically a coin toss. It’s been like this for ages so I guess Valve isn’t interested in fixing this.
BTW, some games on Steam don’t use DRM so you can just run the exe without Steam running. Pretty sure Slay the Spire is one of them.
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It is not about launchers. It is about usage rights. Sellers must be forced to make software usable offline at any time. Gog also sells kingdom come and you can play it at any time. This should be the default.
You don’t need a launcher. You need fair sellers.
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