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Ubisoft deleted account with hundreds of dollars’ worth of games for inactivity

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Re: Ubisoft deleted account with hundreds of dollars’ worth of games for inactivity

#41

Post by alasdair_ »

endisneigh wrote: post #15

This article is a great example of why we need legislation around ownership of digital items. I generally hate getting the government involved in things, but if you're paying money for goods, there needs to be a way to be credited or receive your digital goods in a way that still works without your "account". Personally I always get kind of nervous around buying things on PSN, Xbox, Stadia, Steam, Oculus, etc. If the…

> If they ban me, do I lose my thousands of dollars of games?

Generally yes, and this is obviously bullshit.

Re: Ubisoft deleted account with hundreds of dollars’ worth of games for inactivity

#42

Post by josephcsible »

paxys wrote: post #28

I paid extra for a disc version of the PS5 for exactly this reason. If I buy a game today I want to be able to play it 20 years from now. I can bet money that none of the mainstream digital stores of today will be operational by then.

Is that even a guarantee though? In particular, I know that you could buy the Orange Box (HL2, TF2, and Portal) on DVD in retail stores, but you needed a Steam account to play anyway.

Re: Ubisoft deleted account with hundreds of dollars’ worth of games for inactivity

#43

Post by vital_beach »

endisneigh wrote: post #15

This article is a great example of why we need legislation around ownership of digital items. I generally hate getting the government involved in things, but if you're paying money for goods, there needs to be a way to be credited or receive your digital goods in a way that still works without your "account". Personally I always get kind of nervous around buying things on PSN, Xbox, Stadia, Steam, Oculus, etc. If the…

whoops! you didn't drive your car for a year during the pandemic, we own it now. /s

This type of anticonsumerism would get so much attention if it were in another field. I can only hope it happens here.

Re: Ubisoft deleted account with hundreds of dollars’ worth of games for inactivity

#44

Post by pdonis »

josephcsible wrote: post #26
pdonis wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you can't be confident of your ownership of and access to what you buy, why do you buy it?

Because people want to play the games, and there's not an alternative way to buy them that does give you that confidence.

> there's not an alternative way to buy them that does give you that confidence

That doesn't sound to me like a reason for legislation. It sounds to me like a reason for competition.

But for there to be competition, customers have to be willing to put their money where their mouth is. If there were a competitor that charged, say, 20% more for a product that included the confidence you want, would you pay it?

Re: Ubisoft deleted account with hundreds of dollars’ worth of games for inactivity

#45

Post by 10x-dev »

sefrost wrote: post #29
endisneigh wrote: post #15

This article is a great example of why we need legislation around ownership of digital items. I generally hate getting the government involved in things, but if you're paying money for goods, there needs to be a way to be credited or receive your digital goods in a way that still works without your "account". Personally I always get kind of nervous around buying things on PSN, Xbox, Stadia, Steam, Oculus, etc. If the…

I wouldn’t feel any guilt about pirating the content I bought on any of those services if my account was taken from me for inactivity. I’d be interested to hear the argument about why that would be wrong though.

It's the same argument as vigilante justice.

Re: Ubisoft deleted account with hundreds of dollars’ worth of games for inactivity

#46

Post by derefr »

caymanjim wrote: post #13
ramijames wrote: post #3

People won't like this, but we at Ultra.io are trying to tackle this exact problem by deploying certificates of ownership to a decentralized ledger as proof of your owning a game. AKA, we want to mint NFTs for each game sold, which allows a user to prove they own it. People hate those words, but we think that the tech has real value and a use-case in the market for solving inequity between publishers and users. This…

Your idea does nothing to force the service provider to retain your account, or even to provide you with access to the game media. Proof of ownership isn't the issue here. Ubisoft isn't denying that the user purchased those games. They almost certainly know exactly which games were purchased. I more or less trust the game services I use to keep a record of what I own in their central ledger. They could still deny me…

> Proof of ownership isn't the issue here.

Wouldn't having legal proof of owning a license to an IP, entitle you to then use a copy of the files covered by those IP rights, regardless of how or where you acquire them? (E.g. if you buy a license to Windows, you don't need to download the installation media for Windows from Microsoft in order for your licensed installation of Windows to be legitimate. You can get the Windows installation media from anywhere.)

You don't need a "game service provider" if you have legal dispensation to torrent the game. And, that being the case, you could replace a centralized service like Steam with the game-media equivalent of an app like PopcornTime: just a convenient way to browse for, and download, torrents of the IP you already legally own.

Re: Ubisoft deleted account with hundreds of dollars’ worth of games for inactivity

#47

Post by Hokusai »

pdonis wrote: post #30
Hokusai wrote: post #21

> We may also close long-term inactive accounts to maintain our database. How many kilobytes takes too store ownership data? I can just imagine that tracking data is thousands of times bigger. > The crazy thing about this is that it’s perfectly legal for video game companies to delete your account regardless of whether you’ve spend zero or a thousand dollars on their games It's a shame that we are going to fight for…

You have the right not to pay money to companies that won't give you the guarantee of ownership and access that you want. But if the lack of that guarantee is right there in the company's terms of service, and you pay them money anyway, you don't have the right to insist that they change the terms you signed up to when you paid them just because you don't like the consequences.

> You have the right not to pay money to companies that won't give you the guarantee of ownership and access that you want.

I have way more rights than that. Or if not I will fight to get them. I do not want to depend on the good will of corporations. I want fair laws that control their behavior like we have with physical goods.

Re: Ubisoft deleted account with hundreds of dollars’ worth of games for inactivity

#48

Post by pdonis »

chii wrote: post #31
pdonis wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you can't be confident of your ownership of and access to what you buy, why do you buy it?

to participate in the cultural works of today's digital world.

These are games we're talking about. They're recreation. For people to be demanding legislation because a recreational activity isn't set up just the way they like it, when they knew the terms perfectly well before they paid their money, is not "participating in cultural works".

Re: Ubisoft deleted account with hundreds of dollars’ worth of games for inactivity

#49

Post by josephcsible »

pdonis wrote: post #44
josephcsible wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because people want to play the games, and there's not an alternative way to buy them that does give you that confidence.

> there's not an alternative way to buy them that does give you that confidence That doesn't sound to me like a reason for legislation. It sounds to me like a reason for competition. But for there to be competition, customers have to be willing to put their money where their mouth is. If there were a competitor that charged, say, 20% more for a product that included the confidence you want, would you pay it?

Don't copyrights preclude meaningful competition here? If a game is sold through Publisher X, Publisher Y can't just unilaterally decide that they want to sell it too.

Re: Ubisoft deleted account with hundreds of dollars’ worth of games for inactivity

#50

Post by lostcolony »

MattGaiser wrote: post #36
sefrost wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn’t feel any guilt about pirating the content I bought on any of those services if my account was taken from me for inactivity. I’d be interested to hear the argument about why that would be wrong though.

I would be interested in knowing if that would be legal. As might you technically have purchased your license?

Generally speaking, it's uploading/transferring content to others that is illegal, not downloading it for yourself. At least, de facto if not de jure.
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