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Name's taken already.

I think they should call it "togo". Because it's a language "to go" and because it sounds sproingy (like "pogo").

That reminds me, I never did get around to finishing Psychonauts ...

... which, incidentally, has just recently become available on GOG (i.e. DRM-free), priced at 10 USD.

But why, exactly, does a consumer want Windows? For Excel? Word?

For any one of the gazillion or so home and office apps released for the MSDOS and Windows platform since 1980?

GOG.com

And only a few people even know what to do with Excel.

The reality is that training in MS Office is a marketable skill anywhere south of the Arctic Circle.

I'd take the odds that MS Office lies at or near the core of any adult education program within your reach.

That training will be free or generously subsidized for seniors, those on welfare or with disabilities.

Seems like Linux will fill the bill with a browser, maybe a PostScript app and a media player

The geek re-invents the net appliance every other year or so --- and gets his butt kicked the moment a more capable product enters the market.

The iPhone on the Internet has a 0.35% share of the market. Operating System Market Share

But it is an expensive commitment.

Whether or not it's allowed, Epic Megagames already does it. Unreal Tournament 2004 Editor's Choice Edition on GOG.com is $9.99, but $14.99 on Steam. Just one example, I'm sure there's many more.

GOG want you to own your games and play whenever you want. Steam want you to rent your games, and play when you're connected to their servers and it's economically convenient.

What you do with your dollar is up to you.

I haven't spent a dime on security software for Windows in the last ten years.

It's bundled with your cable service, a download from CNET - and soon to be a free from Microsoft itself.

Thousands of businesses, universities and even Wall Street have been using: Linux! For years. What do they know that you don't? Linux is free. It doesn't need any virus protection and 99.9% of the software you'll ever need comes free as well.

The enterprise Linux distribution comes with a service contract or a professional on-call - on-site - IT staff. Nothing of the sort is being offered in the consumer market.

"99.9%" is the language of the fraudster.

You might as well be hawking a bar of soap or a homeopathic cure for cancer for all the credibility it gives you.

The back list of home-use software for Windows is miles wide and deep. The barest hint of what is available in games alone can be seen on sites like gog.com.

It's as easy as clicking a mouse! That's it. No more crashes, no more viruses, no more blue screens of death.

"Nothing can go wrong."

With Linux, you don't have to reboot after installing new software.

Big whoop. It isn't needed that often. It won't hurt to stretch your legs. The learning curve. The configuration options. This is where you will be spending your time.

Linux runs on old hardware. No need to buy a new computer every time the industry decides to boost profits and release another buggy system.

In the consumer market, the Windows user upgrades hardware and software when he finds the attractive OEM system bundle - and, by god, there are lot of them out there.

Something like 50 with a a "Win 7" tech guarantee" available from WalMart.com alone.

Linux runs on old hardware - but who the hell cares?

Your aging Dell has the size and heft of a suitcase. It can't be economically upgraded in any significant way.

It's replacement will weigh 11 pounds.

It will ship with a 64 Bit OS. Quad Core CPU. 8 to 12 GB RAM. The 1 TB hard drive. Blu-Ray and HDMI home theater quality video and sound.

The gamer will want a heftier power supply and a more muscular video card, but that won't break the bank.

The reviews for Win 7 have been solidly supportive.

The RC has a 20% larger installed base than Linux, according to Net Applications. Half that of Linux according to the developer-oriented W3Schools.

Hardware drivers simply do not appear to be an issue.

The ONLY way your suggestion works is if you can get EVERYONE to do it, and the odds of that is pretty much zipola.

Gradual change, my friend.

I haven't bought a single CD in years, yet I don't see the music industry changing because of me, do you?

Not all CDs have copy protection. Not buying CDs at all isn't really better than buying copy protected CDs.

It is that kind of attitude that has RMS using some uber rare Loongson ARM netbook, because it was the only thing he could find that actually fit his definition of "free", but the rest of us have to live with what we have.

You don't have to go directly to an absolutely-no-DRM-acceptable state. Favour games, developers, publishers and distribution channels that use weaker DRM. I shouldn't have to tell you this, but if you don't do anything, nothing will happen. So do something.

So the rest of us have the choice of buying and cracking it, or just stealing the fucker. Which would you prefer? Because I didn't spend nearly $700 on my new gamer rig to play Tux racer pal and since there hasn't been a single player FPS released without DRM since....what? 1995?

Let's see... Pain Killer, released 2004, available DRM-free from GOG.com. Took less than a minute to find that. There are also recent games which were released straight DRM-free, such as the new Prince of Persia. Many indie games don't have DRM.

That kind of leaves the rest of us SOL. If playing the 1000th ripoff of Quake 3 deathmatch on Linux is what churns your butter, I'm happy for you. The rest of us would actually like to have something to play, okay?

If you expect to achieve a DRM-free world without making sacrifices, you're just dumb.

The missing link is the OEM's (who have all been bullied or paid into submission), because the average user won't install Linux on their machine anyway - no matter how easy it is, most users don't understand the concept because they've been taught that computers = Windows

You don't have to bully anyone into producing for the platform that has 95% of the global desktop market.

The OEM system install has been the gold standard in the consumer market for close on to thirty years.

The computer is sold under a warranty. It works as advertised or it goes back to the seller for a refund, repair or exchange.

Computers=Windows because Windows=Software.

Everything in FOSS. Everything in proprietary and closed source.

Product available at every price point.

Freeware. Shareware. Online distribution. Retail boxed.

The classics of MSDOS and Windows PC gaming at $5.99 and $10. Gog.com DRM free. Ready to run on Vista and Win 7.

You mean, in ten years from now, you want a reliable online store that would allow you to play 'Good Old Games', preferably tempered with a mind for compatibility with your contemporary technology?

The originals - Pool of Radiance, Curse of the Azure Bonds, Secret of the Silver Blades, Pools of Darkness. Wrap them in one long game. Tie them together a little more neatly. Remove the reliance on journals. (Although I will admit the translation wheel and journal were awesome in the day, now they only serve as a distraction -- dig through the box, find the manual, read the entry - and that's only if I've managed to forget what the entry was, which isn't likely.)

Remaking the games and giving PoR and CotAB the Fix command in camp would be nice. Updating the graphics would be nice. But the game play - what I refer to as fantasy based squad level combat, not role playing - could be hugely improved. You could add role playing elements by expanding the options in the games for solving the puzzles. Make the players think more in quite a few of the situations they found themselves in.

Though, SotSB could probably be left out to die. I don't have many fond memories of it. And this probably doesn't qualify as a reboot so much as a remake. And WotC, or whoever holds the AD&D license now, would insist on using 4e rules which would change the flavor of the game entirely...

Dungeon Keeper would be a fantastic game to see re-imagined. Eye of the Beholder. I'd enjoy seeing what some of the darker personalities of the world could do with the Warcraft lore, given the chance. Space simulations need to come back -- picked up FreeSpace and FreeSpace 2 at Good Old Games (http://www.gog.com) and loved 'em; they're made even better with the FreeSpace Source Code Project created by the source code release by Volition. (Hm, have they already been rebooted, or just remade? There are several new campaigns...)

Wing Commander would be awesome to see revived. Ultima would be a fantastic series to see reimagined, especially the first three (which I never liked all that much due to the space portions). RIP Origin. :|

The LAN party thing is definitely a valid point, and one where I agree that consoles tend to win by a massive margin. Heck, with many games you can't even play from two distinct user accounts on the same PC at different times. But as I (and no doubt a not insignificant segment of the market) don't tend to play games that way it doesn't make much difference to my buying decisions.

I'm not really a social gamer. For me and most of my circle gaming is a relatively solo event, or at least turn based, and we are much more likely to drink, eat, watch a movie, talk, and so on when we meet up. We might talk about games socially, passing on recommendations and swapping the odd tip and such, but we don't generally play them socially. Not that I have anything against social gaming - I know people for whom their gaming circle is their closest friends (in some cases they met through gaming, in other cases gaming is just their preferred excuse to get together for an evening's entertainment) and they seem perfectly satisfied with that too. But saying that "console gaming is cheaper than PC gaming in general because of the cost of playing as a group" implies that everyone plays games in the same way and for the same reasons which simply isn't the case.

On the neglect of older hardware, you are again generalising too far I think. While the major studios show massive bias to the bleeding edge there are also many good very recent indie games that will run on really quite old hardware perfectly well. And because of the number of games out there you can usually find something to your taste and hardware level when you are bored and want something "new", either in the cheap baskets in bricks-and-mortar retail stores or increasingly through online outlets like http://www.gog.com/ and even through bigger name outlets like Steam. Again, how significant these points are to you will vary greatly depending on your attitude to gaming and the places that it fits in your life.

The long tail for games is doing just fine, thanks. Digital distribution has cracked open the vaults, and tons of awesome games are available cheaply for your nostalgic pleasure.

Check out GOG.com, for example. Many great games at lot prices with no DRM foolishness. (Yup. I'm an affiliate.) It's a great time to game on the long tail.

Just in case you haven't found it, try http://www.gog.com/

I'm currently reliving my childhood, to the detriment of my adulthood, but ah well, plenty of time to be old later. Also Steam has a large number of smaller indie titles as well as the time-consuming AAA titles, not least of which is the old LucasArts games, with more to come.

I would gladly pay if someone was selling them for reasonable price and with instant download available.

You might want to try Good Old Games.

Maybe back in the day of brick and mortar stores, you had a point. And to the extent that some people still judge their game purchases on static imagery, sure.

However, as video games are closely tied to computers, and most computers are closely tied to the Internet, the days of screenshot judgments are numbered, if not gone already. It's just too easy to go to youtube and get a video of actual gameplay, or read in-depth interviews with developers, or download and play a demo within minutes.

Heck, even low-on-the-radar sites that offer reviews of classic games based on video footage of actual gameplay and an exploration of the gameplay involved are doing quite well, thank you. And they lead to clickthrough sales from digital distributors like GOG.com, who sell those classic games like hotcakes. Cheap, wonderful, time-tested, DRM-free hotcakes.

It's not the graphics drawing people in, let me assure you. Most of those titles are at least 5 years old. But they're DAMN FUN.

Static screenshots are outmoded and easily ignored in favor of better samples. Anyone who judges on a single frame is going to get burned more often than not.

(Yeah, I'm a GOG affiliate. It's okay.)

But for an even greater sense of "small part in a big war", I humbly direct you to Decent: Freespace and Freespace 2. It's a shame Volition went under - I'd really love another chapter in that story.

I liked them too. Good games, but just not as good as TIE Fighter (I completely agree with you X-Wing Alliance, btw). You can buy Freespace and Freespace 2 pretty cheap from Good Old Games - DRM free, and working with the newest Windows versions.

Can't say the same for Tie Fighter, unfortunately... my collector series CD (the one I bought originally is long gone... with the manual and story) doesn't install without tricks, and with tricks it's crashing when running 3D.

But for an even greater sense of "small part in a big war", I humbly direct you to Decent: Freespace and Freespace 2. It's a shame Volition went under - I'd really love another chapter in that story.

I liked them too. Good games, but just not as good as TIE Fighter (I completely agree with you X-Wing Alliance, btw). You can buy Freespace and Freespace 2 pretty cheap from Good Old Games - DRM free, and working with the newest Windows versions.

Can't say the same for Tie Fighter, unfortunately... my collector series CD (the one I bought originally is long gone... with the manual and story) doesn't install without tricks, and with tricks it's crashing when running 3D.

while everyone is feeling nostalgic about their old favorite LucasArts games i would like to point out http://www.gog.com/ for everyones old game pleasure. Lots of our old classic favorites at great prices, DRM free and even works on vista/7.

With each new generation of hardware the geek seems determined to re-invent the web appliance.

Which no one wants and no one buys.

Not in the numbers which matter to WalMart.

The Kindle stores 1500 e-books for your off-line reading pleasure.

The Atom netbook running XP or Win 7 can play hundreds of MSDOS and Windows games - available as dirt-cheep downloads from places like Gog.com ["Good Old Games"]

I believe it's a cross between a moose and a goblin.

Which pretty much sums up how this story will play out at Walmart.

The fundamental problem for OEM Linux in deep discount retail is that a competitively priced Windows product is never more than a few months down the road.

It will be a viable platform for older Windows games - and the games themselves are dirt cheap. Gog.com ["Good Old Games"]

Linux has come a long way and it is ready for the average user. Yes, Joe-six-pack can use linux with a 15 minute tutorial in the basics. I just want to scream knowing that Microsoft is still undermining the market and retarding progress!

The MSDOS and Windows PC has been in the home and SOHO markets since 1980.

Close enough to thirty years as makes no difference.

He may occasionally need an emulator like ScummVM. But, for all practical purposes, the entire MSDOS and Windows back list is available to his 64 bit Quad Core Win 7 system. Gog.com for the good old games.

The best in freeware, the best in shareware, the best in proprietary and closed-source, the best in FOSS.

No barriers. No lectures. The Windows world is a global marketplace, with the ethics and values of the thieves bazaar.

That is what makes it so much fun. The geek tends to come across as the Salvation Army Band - a self-righteous and humorless Carry A. Nation preaching outside the old-time Irish saloon.

The mass market OEM Linux PC is a bottom feeder - and a piss-poor showcase for Linux.

The refurbished $750 Vista desktop at Tiger is quad-core - perhaps a Phenom or i7.

8 GB of DDR2 or DDR3 RAM. 1 TB of primary storage on one or two drives, with front panel cartridge mounts for one or more USB drives. Entry level NVIDIA DX10 graphics or better with integrated HDMI audio and video. WiFi a given. The Blu-Ray player. Not a burner. Not quite yet.

The power supply and the video card probably not your first choice. But once the system knows your usage patterns, this bird is going to fly.

Good Old Games does brisk business in the "older but funner" game market. They're selling very, very well indeed.

They sell games that have endured because of awesome gameplay and a dedicated audience. Iron-melting graphics and questionably "next-gen experiences" are never a concern. And because the games are older, they're also cheaper.

It's a plus that the older games run fantastically well on contemporary hardware -- the best of both worlds for folks who like to stay on the cutting edge as well.

Disclaimer: I'm an affiliate.

If you're willing to wait for a few years anyway, and you're committed to running on mid-spec hardware, may I suggest GOG.com for your Good Old Gaming needs? The games are mature in years, sure. They're also sold cheaply, stripped of DRM with the publisher's blessings, supported by the community, and come with lots of extras.

Disclaimer: I'm an affiliate. An eager, appreciative, supportive affiliate. I really want these guys to be the model for how games are sold.

If netbooks are mostly for email, web, etc., who needs a particular OS?

In each hardware generation, the geek reinvents the web appliance - only to see it crash and burn at WalMart.

He never questions his basic assumptions about the home user.

While Microsoft - which has thirty five years experience in this market - rakes in the chips once again.

The Win 7 netbook with a single core CPU, ION graphics, 1 GB RAM and a 160 HDD has better specs than a first-generation XP desktop.

Plug in a USB Flash ROM. Your USB mini-mouse. Shop the Good Old Games at gog.com. Knock yourself out.

It really is funny you should say that, especially considering most Windows installations don't "just work" at all, unless you venture out onto the internet to scrounge up drivers for all the hardware Linux picks up automatically.

Fully loaded and ready to roll.

The OEM system bundle is the gold standard here - and the first place users look for updated drivers is the manufacturer's website.

The geek is deaf, dumb and blind to the realities of the market.

Then you have to install all of the various types of software in Windows that come already installed with virtually any Linux distro so that you can actually do something with your computer.

The Linux user has access to his distro's ready-to-run program library.

The Windows user has access to dozens, hundreds - perhaps even thousands - of program libraries.

He can shop Amazon or Download.com.

He can click over to gog.com. for his fill-up of classic PC games, updated for Vista - at $6 and $10.

The root-canal extraction that is Sourceforge.net will occasionally expose a gem like ScummVM.

I never buy a game in the first month, let along the first week of a release. Mostly, I'm waiting for the quality of the game to become apparent after some play in the real world, and also I don't like the bleeding-edge prices of new releases.

Avoiding weird DRM is another benefit.

After a few days or weeks, the real effects of whatever cockamamie DRM scheme the publishers crowbarred onto the game become apparent.

After a few weeks or months, applications like Alcohol 120 will adapt so that I can be assured of making backups.

After a few months to a year, the price starts to dip into my admittedly modest range. By then, I know whether I can keep the game for myself if the company goes out of business, whether I'm facing potential hassle in making my own backups, and whether the game is worth it in the first place.

After a few years, the game may re-release with digital distributors under no-DRM agreements geared toward truly enthusiastic gaming communities. Witness GOG.com.

Gaming on the long tail rules -- provided you're not desperate to get hopped up on the Newest, Shiniest Thing.

Have you tried Good Old Games? They seem to have a couple of Duke titles available.

http://www.gog.com/en/search/sort/search/duke

What is your opinion on abandonware games? A lot of people share old ROMS of games online - games just like these books, in that no one knows who owns them, or if they DO know who owns them, the owners don't support them, and have no intentions of producing them.

What once was old is new again... these companies are starting to sell old games again, through systems like Nintendo's Virtual Console (Wii), Steam (Windows), GOG (Windows), or GameTap (Windows 32-bit).

I like to mention this every time a game DRM story comes up on Slashdot: There are places out there, like GOG, where you can buy completely DRM-free games. Yes, their selection is composed of older games, but the games are good, the price is great, and it shows the game industry that DRM-free games sell. I have no connection to gog.com - I just like their ideas.

Good Old Games might be just the haven you're looking for: http://gog.com/

Not a shill, just a fan.

Believe it or not, you can still purchase it:

http://www.gog.com/en/search/sort/search/freespace

$5.99 for the game + expansions. Same for FreeSpace 2.

We do have a promise from Valve (if you care to believe them) that they'd release an unlocker for Steam if they ever looked like going bust

I've never been able to actually find that quote, which is generally attributed to Gabe. I find it hard to believe that they would actually do that however as firms go bust when they become unable to meet their financial obligations. In just about every jurisdiction ever destroying your most valuable assets before defaulting on all your debts is considered criminal and I don't think the directors of Valve would be prepared to do jail time for us.

Having said that, Steam is making Valve huge sums of money so they're not likely to go bust. Even if they do, Steam is only worth so much because it's running as a going concern, shutting it down would destroy its value.

We don't own games on Steam, we purchase subscriptions. Read the subscriber agreement. A new owner might decide to charge a pound for downloading the games more than five times, for example. Under UK (and I think EU) law if you make unfavourable changes to a contract you have to let the other party opt out. I'd take that to mean a full refund for everything I've purchased but we all know if Steam ended up with a new owner with that mindset they'd make a refund process very difficult.

So yea, short of DRM free services like GOG, Steam is one of the best solutions out there. The phone-home DRM it uses isn't even much of a pain because you need an internet connection to get the most out of Steam anyway.

Sounds like they focused mostly on the 360 version to the detriment of the other platforms.

Minor correction, the press (paid shills) focused on the Xbox 360 version. The PC version is less problematic then the Xbox version and looks a lot better. The gaming magazines were all paid to do reviews on the Xbox 360 to give people this impression. If you read independent (or even semi-independent) reviews the PC version is the better out of the two (or three if we include the PS3). In addition to this the mouse and keyboard controls are superior to the gamepad controls, so much so that an experienced FPS player has no need to use the semi-turn based combat system (called VATS).

Even if you don't have a decent gaming PC the game plays alright and looks good, my house mate has a 4 yr old gaming PC (Athlon 3800, 1.5 GB RAM, Geforce 7600gs) and it runs fine at 1024x768 with all setting set to low. My gaming box (Athlon X2 6000, 2 GB RAM, Geforce 8800GTS) can handle it at 1600x1050 with all options maxed out without any issues. Although when I upgraded to 4GB of ram I began to get a few crashes during level transitions.

I never played the old Fallouts, so no big loss for me!

Play the old fallouts, they have a sense of humour and game play that just cant be matched Fallout 3, they are truely great games to be played even if you don't enjoy RPG's that much. You can buy them from GOG for US$6 a piece. I had Fallout 2 from 10 years ago but lost it in one of my various house moves, I was going to pirate it but then found GOG. Spent A$16 on the two fallouts and haven't looked back (in fact I'm thinking about Fallout Tactics for another US$6).

Fallout 3 was not a bad game, it had a good combat mechanic, good game play, great immersion and a decent story. The open world was done perfectly, random encounters were sparse (unlike Far Cry 2, which forced you to stop and kill something every 20 seconds like they were catering to some unmedicated ADHD suffering psychotic angst ridden teen reject otherwise known as a Halo fanboy), the post apocalyptic world was very immersive and you could walk around the wasteland for hours just drinking in the scenery without getting bored. The game wasn't bad, where it falls down was living up to the expectations of its title, Fallout 1 was good, Fallout 2 was even better and unfortunately for Bethedsa this was impossible to live up to. For me the biggest thing I missed in Fallout 3 from the earlier fallout series was the humour, it was almost non-existent and often the simple jokes were overdone way too much. That being said I find that it's easier to judge Fallout 3 well when one doesn't consider it to be Fallout.

Some examples of games having patches (official ones, of course) removing cd-check, out the top of my head:
- Supreme Commander
- Blizzard entire catalog (because it is available for download on their online store)
More would probably be found by searching wine's appdb (cd checks used to be showstoppers for wine, so very often official patches removing cd check are mentioned, if there is any).

Similarly, GOG.com sells "good old games" after getting original vendor's approval, and after removing all DRMs.

See also GOG

Sure, all of this would also be possible withOUT DRM, but it wouldn't be much of a business model if everyone could just download everything to any computer and just leave it there for someone else to play.

But that is what already happens anyway! Take a look at The Pirate Bay, Mininova, Black Cats, whatever... name any game, it's probably there. DRM is a serious nuisance to legit clients, but merely a quick and fun challenge to crackers. All this DRM-mania does nothing but make piracy look more attractive!

I'm sorry, but any argument starting with "pirating it off the internet is easier than buying" is just stupid. Yeah, of course pirating it is easier, but it's also illegal and can get you caught, possibly costing you more than your house is worth. So wanna take the risk? Fine with me...I don't.

Gotta admire the GOG people... they sell some nice stuff at decent prices, and don't give you any of that DRM bullshit.

Yeah, because implementing a DRM scheme for games that old and which they don't have the source code to would certainly cost more money than ever being made off the titles.

Sure, all of this would also be possible withOUT DRM, but it wouldn't be much of a business model if everyone could just download everything to any computer and just leave it there for someone else to play.

But that is what already happens anyway! Take a look at The Pirate Bay, Mininova, Black Cats, whatever... name any game, it's probably there. DRM is a serious nuisance to legit clients, but merely a quick and fun challenge to crackers. All this DRM-mania does nothing but make piracy look more attractive!

Gotta admire the GOG people... they sell some nice stuff at decent prices, and don't give you any of that DRM bullshit.

...just like Good Old Games have done with old, possibly out-of-print, games.

In other words, create an ebook of the original treeware version and make a deal with the publisher or author of the original to sell the ebooks.

http://www.freeorion.org/
http://www.thousandparsec.net/
http://www.startreksupremacy.com/
http://abandonia.com/
http://gog.com/

services such as Steam will require you to agree to the EULA before purchasing the game?

The term "EULA" has brought much confusion to the issue. It is much simpler and clearer and more accurate to use the phrase "contract offer" instead.

do you think this would this make the agreement any more legally binding?

Yes. Someone can offer you a contract, and they can decline to do business with you unless/until you agree to be bound by that contract. That has no special connection to the software business. That is just as true for someone selling tomatoes or contracting to remodel your kitchen.

If so this would seem to be fairly feasable solution as games move out of brick and mortar stores would it not?

More legally binding. However I'm still not particularly a fan of signing a contract before buying a tomato or a typical computer game. (Service contacts for access the company servers hosting an MMORPG or somesuch are far more reasonable of course).

I also still dispute the validity of the DMCA and DRM, which I believe Steam expects to rely upon. And even if the DMCA is taken as legally valid, I still dispute the desirability of that law. And while I am not familiar with Steam's current contract terms, I suspect I may have issue with the reasonableness or even conscionablility of some of those terms. I might also question Steam's expectations in the inevitable case that some people do violate that contract. And I might also question Steam's expectations of people who have not accepted that contract.

For example lets assume someone does agree to be bound by Steam's contract, and Steam sends some game download to that person's harddrive. That person then DIES. Their heir then inherits physical ownership of that computer, and by law that person inherits physical ownership of that particular copy of that game. Yes, by copyright law you are the owner of that particular copy. That person then owns that copy of the software, no contract, no EULA, just standard copyright protection, just as if the software were sold as a naked EULA-free download.

So no. Even Steam doesn't work for completely trapping the software under the EULA scheme.

Well, I guess if you really want to get insane in pushing the EULA scheme you could try adding some clause in the Steam contract giving ownership of your computer to Steam, with Steam allowing you to use your former computer as some sort of "rental". Snicker.

I don't recall the name, but there's some other company out there selling downloads of old games. No EULAs no contracts simply selling game downloads in a plain sane manner. And then simple copyright law applies. You own that copy and can general use of it just like the games I bought years ago before they came up with the notion of adding EULAs. And you could sell someone your computer which would transfer to that person ownership of that particular copy on that harddrive. And as per standard copyright law it would be copyright infringement for you to distribute new copies of that DRM-free EULA-free software.

Ahhh... here's the website Good Old Games.
about us:
You buy it, you keep it.
DRMFREE Don't let your DRMs turn into nightmares (clever, no?). You won't find any intrusive copy protection in our games; we hate draconian DRM schemes just as much as you do, so at GOG.com you don't just buy the game, you actually own it. Once you download a game, you can install it on any PC and re-download it whenever you want, as many times as you need, and you can play it without an internet connection.

-

services such as Steam will require you to agree to the EULA before purchasing the game?

The term "EULA" has brought much confusion to the issue. It is much simpler and clearer and more accurate to use the phrase "contract offer" instead.

do you think this would this make the agreement any more legally binding?

Yes. Someone can offer you a contract, and they can decline to do business with you unless/until you agree to be bound by that contract. That has no special connection to the software business. That is just as true for someone selling tomatoes or contracting to remodel your kitchen.

If so this would seem to be fairly feasable solution as games move out of brick and mortar stores would it not?

More legally binding. However I'm still not particularly a fan of signing a contract before buying a tomato or a typical computer game. (Service contacts for access the company servers hosting an MMORPG or somesuch are far more reasonable of course).

I also still dispute the validity of the DMCA and DRM, which I believe Steam expects to rely upon. And even if the DMCA is taken as legally valid, I still dispute the desirability of that law. And while I am not familiar with Steam's current contract terms, I suspect I may have issue with the reasonableness or even conscionablility of some of those terms. I might also question Steam's expectations in the inevitable case that some people do violate that contract. And I might also question Steam's expectations of people who have not accepted that contract.

For example lets assume someone does agree to be bound by Steam's contract, and Steam sends some game download to that person's harddrive. That person then DIES. Their heir then inherits physical ownership of that computer, and by law that person inherits physical ownership of that particular copy of that game. Yes, by copyright law you are the owner of that particular copy. That person then owns that copy of the software, no contract, no EULA, just standard copyright protection, just as if the software were sold as a naked EULA-free download.

So no. Even Steam doesn't work for completely trapping the software under the EULA scheme.

Well, I guess if you really want to get insane in pushing the EULA scheme you could try adding some clause in the Steam contract giving ownership of your computer to Steam, with Steam allowing you to use your former computer as some sort of "rental". Snicker.

I don't recall the name, but there's some other company out there selling downloads of old games. No EULAs no contracts simply selling game downloads in a plain sane manner. And then simple copyright law applies. You own that copy and can general use of it just like the games I bought years ago before they came up with the notion of adding EULAs. And you could sell someone your computer which would transfer to that person ownership of that particular copy on that harddrive. And as per standard copyright law it would be copyright infringement for you to distribute new copies of that DRM-free EULA-free software.

Ahhh... here's the website Good Old Games.
about us:
You buy it, you keep it.
DRMFREE Don't let your DRMs turn into nightmares (clever, no?). You won't find any intrusive copy protection in our games; we hate draconian DRM schemes just as much as you do, so at GOG.com you don't just buy the game, you actually own it. Once you download a game, you can install it on any PC and re-download it whenever you want, as many times as you need, and you can play it without an internet connection.

-

Damn... And I was sooo looking forward to RA3.

But, I cannot in good consience support a company like this. The whole DRM thing was bad enough, I hate being told something I PURCHASED installed spyware that is phoning home to the mothership, AND I can only install it so may times before it becomes deactivated... But to now say that if I say or do something they don't like, they will cut me off?!?

Bullshit!

I don't care that they retracted their latest blunder, it's the sheer audacity that they would even consider it in the first place that pisses me off! There are plenty of other companies making games without these ridiculous rules and regulations, and I for one intend to support them, and I urge you to do the same! Fight back against tyranny with the only weapon you have - Your CASH!!

It seems that Blizzard has a clue:
http://kotaku.com/5064195/blizzard-drm-for-diablo-iii-no-thanks-we-have-battlenet

As do these guys:
http://www.gog.com/

So who are the bad guys?
EA Games for obvious reasons
UbiSoft for their use of SecuROM
BioWare for the Mass Effect Fiasco

Who else would you put on the naughty and nice list?

Where are my mod points when I need them.

Good old Games is actually a sort of museum for games. For a entry fee of $6 to $10 per title you can re-experience some of the (PC) classics on current systems (running WinXP or Vista.
Just having a digital copy of the software is sadly not enough, you need to be able to run it. DosBox helps a lot, and in some cases virtualization software can also help. But there are still quite some things very difficult like the games that used 3Dfx (or games that rely on an older version of DirectX, specially the versions prior to 7 are very incompatible).

So it's not just legal problems, but it wold help a lot of the "abandonware" concept could have some legal backing. Because technical problems are easier to solve when more people can help, instead of just the few that were lucky enough to buy a copy of the game.

Look harder. Linked from the front page and everything.

Don't hurt yourself while getting off your high horse:
http://www.gog.com/en/thanks/

Their thanks page specifically mentions DOSBox.

Are you going to part with some of those dollars now or do you just like to complain?

They apparently all run under XP and Vista:
http://www.gog.com/en/about_us/#4

4. All games are Vista and XP compatible.
Thanks to our handsome programming team, the classics are now Windows Vista and Windows XP compatible. Now you can use your lightning-fast PC to unleash the full potential of those games you just couldnâ(TM)t play properly on that busted old 386.

There's also Giants: Citizen Kabuto , which is exactly that: an action-RTS game, with an interesting story and a GREAT sense of humor! If you missed it, you can pick it up for $6.00 from Good Old Games.

Steam has its good and bad points...I enjoy the features it offers

For most people, it is a matter of trust.

And so we go directly to the heart of the DRM problem. When consumers complain about DRM, they are complaining about three things:
Lack of trust in purchase - (A lack of trust that they will own what they have purchased, and that they will not lose access to it through negligence, malice, or a critical existence failure on the part of the seller)
Lack of trust in software - (The belief that the DRM software itself will behave in a manner that is annoying, impact game or system performance, block legitimate access for dubious reasons, or worse, install something like a rootkit, causing more permanent damage to the OS or even the hardware, whether or not such a thing is *actually* possible)
Lack of comparable advantage - (The failure of the legitimately purchased software to be comparable to the pirated software. This is a *huge* problem for some software. If it has annoying intro videos, or the DRM adds several seconds of load time, or the pirated versions offer better performance, or the legitimate version has annoying crap bundled into it all over the place, or the pirated version is necessary to run mods, or you just plain need to break the DRM to back it up, or play without the CD)

Steam addresses enough of these problems for many people. Some other developers are working in similar areas, Stardock's Impulse for example, some developers are simply abandoning the whole DRM idea. Positech, GOG, and more.
Valve's Steam is also trying to capitalize on the 3rd point in particular, by offering an easy way to integrate updating, and even mods. Some people don't like it, which I certainly understand, since forced updates can and often do break third party content, but I can't deny that it's also way easier than trying to find a patch that's often not even hosted by the company that made the game, and is instead only available from some annoying third party hosting company that requires registration, or having to worry about applying three different patches in the right order to get from the retail version to the current version.

Valve Games sold through Steam are a good example of what can go right with PC gaming. I am sure they are going to do great things for the modding community as well. Oddly I initially hated Steam when they launched HL2 thanks to the bugs and speed of that product but since that time they have really improved the system. With companies like EA putting more and more DRM into games like Spore I am glad that Valve released Team Fortress with the same lax licensing that accompanied all their previous launches. I also look forward to what http://www.gog.com/ will be bringing to the table in terms of competition for Valve older release title bundles.

I've said this a few times before, but Steams' subscriber agreement says no such thing. Games on Steam are sold as single payment subscriptions. I don't own the orange box, I subscribe to it!

I'm not really worried about it though, Steam is such a valuable asset that even in the very unlikely event that Valve goes under whoever bought it would keep it running. It is a bit annoying how this'll kill off the second-hand market but I guess in future all the decent old games that today you'd get in second-hand will be available at GOG!