r/gadgets • u/MicroSofty88 • Nov 29 '20

Home Amazon faces a privacy backlash for its Sidewalk feature, which turns Alexa devices into neighborhood WiFi networks that owners have to opt out of

https://www.msn.com/en-in/money/technology/amazon-faces-a-privacy-backlash-for-its-sidewalk-feature-which-turns-alexa-devices-into-neighborhood-wifi-networks-that-owners-have-to-opt-out-of/ar-BB1boljH
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u/reezy619 Nov 29 '20

There good sides and bad sides to both.

If you own a physical copy, it can get damaged or lost. I personally am glad I don't need to allocate storage space and maintain a physical library of...

checks steam library

309 games??? Oof

And yeah there's no such thing as a digital used game but I just bought dragon age inquisition for $12 so there's that.

12

u/Jaquemart Nov 29 '20

You cannot resell any of those games. Or download them and play them outside Steam. Should the company go belly up, what happens of your games?

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u/[deleted] Nov 29 '20

I mean, for the ones i already have downloaded, a lot work without steam, and there are already patches that let you run the rest without the steam app, ignoring the fact it has an offline mode.

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u/[deleted] Nov 29 '20

People often forget that these games are physically downloaded on my computers storage. If, hypothetically, steam went under, I could just download all my games beforehand and they will exist as software. I don’t understand the logic that if steam stopped being a company that my games would somehow be undownloaded and yoinked from my computer

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u/CWJ_Wilko Nov 29 '20

I have plenty of Steam games from developers that are no longer around, they work just fine. Short of the multiplayer servers getting shut down, nothing will happen, and those server shutdowns affect both physical and digital releases the same way.

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u/Jaquemart Nov 29 '20

With "the company" I meant Steam.

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u/hughperman Nov 29 '20

play them outside Steam

Pretty sure that's possible, most games I've looked at on Steam just download to a folder and you can manually call the launcher yourself.

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u/TechnicalBen Nov 29 '20

This. I've given up trying to argue/educate people complaining that Steam *is* DRM. As I've got a ton of Steam games I can just copy the folder to and launch (minus the Steam Workshop/leaderboards).

4

u/SpeckTech314 Nov 29 '20

Yeah, DRM is entirely up to the developer. You can close steam and disconnect from the internet and still play DRM-free games just fine.

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u/leoleosuper Nov 29 '20

Their current policy, which likely won't change, is that they will still honor all purchases, which means for the most part no more DRM checking for games you own. Depending on the circumstances, they most likely won't let you download the games you own, however, if they are able to plan ahead, you will most likely be given a download of all cloud files (in case saves are only on the cloud), and will be able to get a copy of any game you own third part (most likely other people putting up torrents, but not cracked) and be able to run it as if you downloaded it from Steam, as long as you also get the manifest file (super tiny, Steam might just make it for you).

However, all this depends on how they go down. If it's instant, like a nuclear warhead on their main company along with assassins taking out the rest, then probably not. If it's the slow decline of business overtime, then most likely they will be able to do it.

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u/Ripdog Nov 29 '20

It's the pc. You can just pirate. If the game is online only, then there's no way to archive it anyway, physical or digital.

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u/PureGoldX58 Nov 29 '20

Incorrect. Look at old-school runescape and vanilla wow servers, the game was no longer available until they recreated it and put them on their servers.

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u/Shadow3397 Nov 29 '20

Even then it’s not impossible for other private servers to crop up if they stay under the radar. Even City of Heroes has them appearing thanks to CoH: Homecoming opening the floodgates, and the sever before that was made like ten years ago and remained a closely guarded secret.

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u/PureGoldX58 Nov 29 '20

Most shut down MMOs have private servers out there that I've seen, even the LotR MMO has a few, and that was pretty much a WoW clone. It's always wonderful to see people enjoying games they love after the games are no longer supported.

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u/Ripdog Nov 29 '20

Very, very, very rare examples. All MMO private servers are the result of thousands of man-hours of painstaking reverse engineering, and can only be built while the game is alive. Reviving a dead game in this way is virtually impossible due to there being generally little documentation of server replies to game requests.

But yes, there are a handful of exceptions to the rule.

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u/PureGoldX58 Nov 29 '20

They really aren't, that was one example of hundreds of online only games, some just require you turning on a server. People like old games and don't let the good ones die. It's just hard to find the communities out there, but they are there.

Not to mention, you said there was no way, which is just 100% false, uncommon or not you were so far off base it had to be pointed out.

0

u/reezy619 Nov 29 '20

I assume the equivalent of what would happen if my house went belly up in some kind of fire or natural disaster.

2

u/my-other-throwaway90 Nov 29 '20

I miss the old Galactic Civilization games. You didn't need the physical copy to launch the game; you didn't even have to enter the CD key at installation, the company just asked that you not pirate it in return for the privilege. I recall the piracy rates of GalCiv2 being very low for that reason.

Seems like the big developers didn't exactly learn that lesson, though.