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Valve's latest Steam Deck trailer briefly plugs a Nintendo Switch emulator

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Re: Valve's latest Steam Deck trailer briefly plugs a Nintendo Switch emulator

#151

Post by somat »

bscphil wrote: post #112
Gigachad wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Steam doesn't enforce DRM. You can usually go to the game files and just click the launcher from the file manager and the game will run without steam getting involved. Sure its not the most officially supported, but they hardly prevent you from doing it.

I think this is incorrect. I believe most Steam releases do require the Steam runtime to be present. Trying to open the game directly will "work", but that's because it's invoking the Steam runtime - just without showing the launcher. Examples: * Dead Cells has Steam DRM: https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Dead_Cells * Hollow Knight does not (will run without Steam if you copy just the game files): https://www.pcgamin…

can confirm, I was trying to set up my(is it really mine?) copy of obra dinn for my mother to play. and was unable to get it to run given the time I was willing to invest in it.

I was vaguely surprised because I figured that obra dinn being a small single player indie title would not have any drm. and I don't think it does. I think just linking it to the steam dll(for steam integration) makes the check occur. I suspect the solution is a bogus steam dll. but did not find one in the couple of minutes I was looking.

Note that you can copy a game to a friends computer then authorize them to play it, so good for valve, but I did not want to set my mother up with a steam account. so did not use this feature.

Re: Valve's latest Steam Deck trailer briefly plugs a Nintendo Switch emulator

#152

Post by CobrastanJorji »

jrm4 wrote: post #110
CobrastanJorji wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds right, and the Constitution does seem to say that, but the Sonny Bono Copyright Act, which extended the copyright protections for old, already-existing works, was found to be constitutional, and so I must conclude that you are somehow mistaken.

"Mistaken" is a weird word here, probably because we do this thing where we think of law as being etched in stone. It's not. It's 100% fluid all the time, but it's hard to see because it's slow. Disney and Sonny Bono hired some lawyers to ramrod some dumb crap through. It happens. Let's see if we can fix it.

We did see. It was the famed Eldred v. Ashcroft case. Lead counsel before the Supreme Court was Lawrence Lessig, darling of the Open Source movement. In a 7-2 ruling, the Supreme Court ruled that, so long as the time limit for copyright was in some way limited, the length of time, even if lengthened after the fact, was permissible. Justice Stephens wrote an excellent dissent, but being only one of two, was official Wrong.

Re: Valve's latest Steam Deck trailer briefly plugs a Nintendo Switch emulator

#153

Post by zamalek »

saagarjha wrote: post #5
stoplying1 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, why should Valve not have done this? I know Nintendo likes to bully smaller folks but it's not like Valve is small or that they rely on keeping good terms with Nintendo, right? Edit: I guess I didn't realize Portal was on Switch.

Because it ruins their relationship with Nintendo.

Nintendo doesn't have a relationship with anyone (content creators included), apart from their lawyers.

Despite the video being retracted the desired effect has been achieved. The flurry of news has more lay people thinking about the Steam Deck in the same class as the Switch, even if their intent is not to emulate.

Re: Valve's latest Steam Deck trailer briefly plugs a Nintendo Switch emulator

#154

Post by zamalek »

squeaky-clean wrote: post #80
Dylan16807 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm confused. Please define "emulate Steam games".

Given how Proton works, one could even make the argument that the SteamDeck's primary function is to emulate steam games.

Wine Is Not an Emulator (that's what it stands for).

Re: Valve's latest Steam Deck trailer briefly plugs a Nintendo Switch emulator

#155

Post by Gigachad »

somat wrote: post #151
bscphil wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is incorrect. I believe most Steam releases do require the Steam runtime to be present. Trying to open the game directly will "work", but that's because it's invoking the Steam runtime - just without showing the launcher. Examples: * Dead Cells has Steam DRM: https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Dead_Cells * Hollow Knight does not (will run without Steam if you copy just the game files): https://www.pcgamin…

can confirm, I was trying to set up my(is it really mine?) copy of obra dinn for my mother to play. and was unable to get it to run given the time I was willing to invest in it. I was vaguely surprised because I figured that obra dinn being a small single player indie title would not have any drm. and I don't think it does. I think just linking it to the steam dll(for steam integration) makes the check occur. I suspe…

Valve provides a way to use Steam as DRM but it's entirely optimonal. There are many games on steam where you can just run them directly or copy them on to another computer and they run fine. So its just up to the game publisher to decide what DRM they want.

Re: Valve's latest Steam Deck trailer briefly plugs a Nintendo Switch emulator

#156

Post by zamalek »

RajT88 wrote: post #51

Oddly enough, the light that Humble Bundles have shone into gaming revenue cycles has made me question our copyright system as a whole. Stay with me. In Europe during the time of Mozart, composers were incentivized to be prolific by only getting royalties off the first public performance of their works. Now that is not fair today because of course we can losslessy reproduce such things infinitely. However, Humble Bun…

> We don't know the revenue Nintendo derives from virtual console sales, but you can be assured that virtually none of it is making it to the creators which is who copyright is designed to protect.

I can almost guarantee that this isn't Nintendo's primary motivation for the behavior. There is much more money to be made with xplat games, and almost all (if not strictly all) consoles are loss-leaders.

Nintendo is ruled by dogma, nothing more, nothing less. Nintendo is much like Larry Ellison[1], don't try to make sense of them. If it wasn't for a core set of IP that their designers/developers routinely ace, they would be dead in the water.

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5170246

Re: Valve's latest Steam Deck trailer briefly plugs a Nintendo Switch emulator

#157

Post by int_19h »

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #139
beachy wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whatever the merits of your sugggestion, verifying that a company was "actually and actively be trying to make money" would be wide open to abuse and practically speaking, impossible.

This could be easily solved, if the burden of proof was on the company itself... when they report/sue you for copyright infringement, they'd just have to prove, that it's reasonably simple for the person to obtain the material legally (so, is there a (eg nintendo) distributer in the country of the accused, is there a store that sells those games there, is it possible to buy it online, etc.). If there are no reasonabl…

Simpler still, collect property taxes on copyright. Companies aren't going to pay money just to sit on something that doesn't earn more money.

Re: Valve's latest Steam Deck trailer briefly plugs a Nintendo Switch emulator

#158

Post by mmis1000 »

bscphil wrote: post #112
Gigachad wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Steam doesn't enforce DRM. You can usually go to the game files and just click the launcher from the file manager and the game will run without steam getting involved. Sure its not the most officially supported, but they hardly prevent you from doing it.

I think this is incorrect. I believe most Steam releases do require the Steam runtime to be present. Trying to open the game directly will "work", but that's because it's invoking the Steam runtime - just without showing the launcher. Examples: * Dead Cells has Steam DRM: https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Dead_Cells * Hollow Knight does not (will run without Steam if you copy just the game files): https://www.pcgamin…

I don't think it's even a requirement. Games can utilize steam apis to have a better integration with friend list / invites / drm purchasing...etc. But they are not required to. You can just upload a standalone executable without calling steam api at all, steam won't prevent you from doing so. Actually, most visual novel games is in this category. Copy the game file and run it at some other place will just work.

Another example is original sound tracks sell as game dlcs. They are simply downloaded into game directory, nothing is protected.

Re: Valve's latest Steam Deck trailer briefly plugs a Nintendo Switch emulator

#159

Post by shmerl »

saagarjha wrote: post #5
stoplying1 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, why should Valve not have done this? I know Nintendo likes to bully smaller folks but it's not like Valve is small or that they rely on keeping good terms with Nintendo, right? Edit: I guess I didn't realize Portal was on Switch.

Because it ruins their relationship with Nintendo.

Do they have a relationship? Nintendo barely cares about releasing their games for PC gamers.

Re: Valve's latest Steam Deck trailer briefly plugs a Nintendo Switch emulator

#160

Post by shmerl »

edmcnulty101 wrote: post #42

Side note, is anyone using one of these as a daily driver computer for development? The specs look decent enough and the price is cheaper than a laptop.

I think it's not very well suited for that due to their root filesystem being immutable by default. You'd need to turn that off and that's not their recommended configuration. But it's not that hard to do.
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