Federated replacement for Steam
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While watching https://taler.net/en/news/2024-18.html, I came to the idea to build a federated replacement for Steam, where uses can buy games (and pay with GNU Taler).
Hopefully all games there will be freedom-to-play, which does not mean gratis-to-start. It also might be possible to age restrict games when required.
I don't know what freedom-to-play is. Is that another movement? I like Taler though.
As far as the idea of age restriction is concerned, would it be moderated by the user? That's what I understood from the video. I don't know how else that would work along with the 4 software freedoms.
Why would people use this service to pay for FOSS games when pretty much any FOSS game is available gratis from the likes of Itch.io, Flathub, distro repos, or a website ? I'm all for donating to FOSS games and I do but I guess I don't undertsand who this is aimed at or what void it fills.
I like the idea. Makes a nice and easy way to tip creators without having to track down their donation links. Pretty much like itch.io, but without the proprietary-ness.
Any time I get the "itch" to buy a new game, movie, book, etc. I instead pirate the proprietary/DRM version and donate the money I would have spent on it to a FOSS project.
Still not sure, most of my ideas come from https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/nonfree-games.html
Now my thaugt was to enforce the LGPL against Valve. I know that steamwebhelper has some free components.
megurineturilli:
> I came to the idea to build a federated replacement for Steam, where uses can buy games
Cool idea! The way I would describe this is; a protocol that allows people to search and make purchases across a range of game stores, without needing an account on more than one.
Such a protocol requires two things; 1) allowing a search to be initiated on one game store but search all participating stores, and 2) allowing a purchase initiated on one game store to be completed by the payment system of another store, if the game isn't being sold on the local store.
> and pay with GNU Taler
I'd see this as an optional extra, rather than a requirement of the system. Established companies would be understandably hesitant to swap out their entire payment system to participate. But in theory, it ought to be possible if each game store implementing the protocol ran Taler as a payment option.