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Sony Buys, Shuts Down OnLive
Jay Maynard writes The OnLive gaming service that rose from the dead and became an inexpensive way to get high-end performance on low-end hardware has now been purchased by Sony Entertainment. Their games, desktop, and SLGo Second Life services will all end on April 30, 2015, and be free to use until then."
Exactly my thought. This is why I buy loads of games from gog.com and will never buy a thing from Steam.
steam has already confirmed that they would allow a final local download of user's library should they go under.
On Live filed for an alternate bankruptcy protection status and as part of the process sold assets to Sony. Sony didn't come in heavy handed and Buy On Live then shut it down. The headline it inflammatory.
And you believe them? Talk about naive...
If they go under they aren't going to give a crap about you and if another company buys Valve and shuts it down they aren't going to care about you either.
The only thing that requires Steam to still be around is the multiplayer system Steamworks.
In order to play *any* game bought from Steam, the Steam client must be running and have an internet connection.
That being said, they've stated that if they ever shut down, they will remove the Steam DRM before they shut down.
HAHAHA! That's precious. If they ever shut down, they would have zero incentive to do anything like that and every incentive not to. "Offline mode" (a misnomer if ever there was one) can only work offline for a set period of time. Basically it turns your game into trialware, wherein you must then check-in with Valve to re-up every so often.
Also, what happens if Valve or the Steam service gets bought out by another company and is then shut down? What happens if individual game rights holders pull their games off of Steam? You're SOL, that's what.
Sony has always been evil. I'm always surprised when people complain about some evil sony action as if they are totally surprised by it. Don't be surprised. I stopped buying sony products before 1992 (that's about the time they bent me over and had their way with me) because they are evil and will always be evil. These stories about Sony have been around a LONG time, long before your DVR. You should have known better.
The only thing that requires Steam to still be around is the multiplayer system Steamworks.
In order to play *any* game bought from Steam, the Steam client must be running and have an internet connection.
That's not true! I have several games on Steam that will run just fine on it's own (I can even copy them to my laptop without Steam installed and they work there too).
Not all the games on steam use Steamworks or any sort of DRM...
Kerbal Space Program is one example.
In order to play *any* game bought from Steam, the Steam client must be running and have an internet connection.
This is incorrect. Please stop spreading disinformation and/or stating things as facts that you have done no research or testing on.
Yes, there are some games purchased from Steam that require the client to be running in order to load the game, even in "offline" mode. However I have multiple games in my Steam library that do not require the Steam client to be running. I manually start up the Steam client only when it is needed and leave it off the rest of the time and have no problems with certain games.
The original CEO/investor, Steve Perlman, was forced out. The company is surely being sold for a pittance and at great loss for the investors. Even if the idea didn't work out, if the investors/CEOs hadn't made the company, the engineers wouldn't have had jobs in the first place. They can make big money, and in this case they lost a large amount. The engineers just shrugged it off and got another job.
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The engineers wouldn't have jobs? Do you not have the slightest clue how this works? These were top of their field guys with tonnes of job offers who took _less_ pay in exchange for stock options in a company they believed in. They literally invested their lives in the company in place of their dollars. The through some legal slight of hand it was stolen out from under them. AOL did the same thing when they merged with Time Warner. When you have tens of thousands of dollars taken from you you don't "Just shake it off".
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Name them.
I'm not a big fan of Steam, and if I have a choice I will always prefer a completely DRM-free option, the the grandparent poster was correct. Here is the list of games that you can run without the client loaded. It only took me a second to find this list with Google. (Actually, that's a lie. I used Bing, but that sounds like something that I shouldn't admit here!)
You still need the client to install them, and if you use the Steam backup/restore facility then you also need the client to be logged in.
But why does any of that matter? The number of games I play today that I'll have the slightest interest in playing more than a couple of years form now is very small indeed. Steam has thus far proven more reliable than my aging media, as well.
I always look on GOG first, but if there's something good on Steam, I have no hesitation in buying it. If it goes tits-up, GOG will get it eventually. (OTOH, EA's system can die in a fire with EA.)
This worry about some 1% per year chance of Steam breaking, if sincere, is a sign you need to take your OCD meds. Most people just use that line as a rationalization to pirate the game, of course.
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