this post was submitted on 16 Jun 2024
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Whenever you are afraid of the negative impact on your life of a corporation's possible failure, it means that you have become reliant on someone you can't trust. You must act accordingly.
Reject modernity, move to the woods, return to monke.
Probably not a popular view here but I've found my hobbies more fulfilling since I started doing stuff other than gaming. Native plant/food gardening, reading books, working out... all of this stuff can be affected by capitalism too of course but I'm less beholden to it. I still game a bit now and then but much less than I used to.
Even when steam is gone, we'll still have movies, books and music. Because of the analogue hole we can capture these and store these as long as unlicensed hard drive possession is allowed. Still, I don't tolerate regression from big tech and take steps to prevent them just out of shear principle. These facilitator middlemen think they can dictate how to live our lives and I think we should make them regret this position severely.
Does this mean I should buy games from GOG? Or support physical media/indies?
Yes. GOG. itch.io. Direct from some other website. That's right.
Steam is very good; but the hidden cost is that you depend on them maintaining their service. If they turn evil, you're screwed. You either have to bend to their will, or you lose your library of games.
On the other hand, GOG and itch.io are arguably not as good as Steam right now, but they don't have any kind of lock-in. So if they start to backslide, you can still walk away with your full library of games. I do think it's a good idea to 'not put all your eggs in one basket.'