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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

#101

Post by vorpalhex »

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.

I also have the right to petition my local congress critters to crack down on whatever hairbrained schemes publishers are pulling like cutting off access to something I bought to save a kilobyte in a postgres database somewhere.

> you don't have the right to insist that they change the terms you signed up to

Oddly enough, publishers DO have the right to change ToS and frequently do, and "your silence is considered consent".

This reminds me quite a bit of the gift card nonsense where you'd be charged for not using a gift card, for using it, using it too soon, letting it get too old, etc. Now the rules around gift cards are extremely strict because it was abused by merchants. It sounds like we need something similar for digital items - if you yank my ownership, you owe me back my money and in whatever currency I paid you in, not your store funny money.

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

#102

Post by boring_twenties »

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.

I hate to defend Sony in any way, but I can still download my PS3 games, that system is 15 years old now.

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

#103

Post by vmception »

anamexis wrote: post #85
vmception wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the games wouldn't be released on exclusively on a closed system because they have other paths to monetize the games you possess and the digital items you possess would have an independent record of your possession and continued access if you did use a company's platform because of its convenient UI, even if you lost access to that company's platform you should still be able to access all of your games and items in t…

In the NFT scenario , what would prevent people from sharing licenses?

address signing. if you give someone your address in order to access the game, they are also accessing all of your digital items and can transfer them to their own address. this is risky enough for the user that they won't do that, or learn not to. there won't be a customer support to help them, you can try to build that kind of customer support if you want though.

the system would check your signature and/or check for current possession of the necessary NFT.

trusting a friend to experience that is up to the user at their own risk.

the game producer's goals are not really about preventing shared access any longer, as they are still selling items and doing things for creation of items (engagement), just like the most lucrative games already do now.

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

#104

Post by [deleted] »

iamthirsty wrote: post #99
tombert wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is that? If you buy the game off Steam or something, this implies that the creators/publishers/platforms have gotten their due compensation. The cracks and files on ThePirateBay are done on a volunteer basis, meaning that it’s not costing the game developers any money.

It is costing a developer money — someone who downloads the pirated game would’ve otherwise bought it. Game devs make money on sales. However if you have already bought the game, and then download a pirated version, it isn’t.

[deleted]

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

#105

Post by MattGaiser »

xhrpost wrote: post #62
MattGaiser wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I remember a story a while back of a gentleman who had a house fire and then went and later pirated all the music CDs he had lost. I think they interviewed a copyright lawyer who basically says that the law doesn't permit that, I remember the quote that buying a copy entitles you to a copy and that "there is no such thing as a listening right".

But is it that particular copy? If I backup a digital file that I buy and it gets deleted and I have to restore from the backup, is that offside?

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

#106

Post by jbay808 »

pdonis wrote: post #58
josephcsible wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Don't copyrights preclude meaningful competition here? No. The game developer, who owns the copyright, decides what channels it gets sold through. If game developers knew that people wouldn't buy their games through channels that didn't give good guarantees of ownership and access, they wouldn't sell through those channels.

This sounds great on paper but I really don't think that feedback channel is effective in practice.

First of all, when a game or a platform does poorly, the reason for that can be very hard to discern (unless there's some kind of coordinated vocal protest). "The customers are disagreeing with the fine print of our end-user license agreement" usually isn't high up on the list of reasons.

Secondly, there are many degrees of incentive separation between the game developer and the customer. If the distributor offers the game developer a good lump-sum payment for a platform exclusive, they might not care about the EULA. The distributor might also own the developer.

IP isn't fungible, so competition in the space is subject to much more inefficiency than a market for, say, wheat.

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

#107

Post by pdonis »

boring_twenties wrote: post #92
pdonis wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't think of any "digital good" where there is a risk of losing access in this way that isn't recreational in a similar way to games. So my comments would apply equally well to any such goods.

Kindle books?

Those are recreation. (Except for edge cases like online textbooks, which another poster just upthread mentioned.)

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

#108

Post by wildpeaks »

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…

That's exactly why it's safer to buy DRM-free from GOG because you can keep a backup of your purchases without having to worry the service might lock you out or remove a product.

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

#109

Post by amarshall »

When possible, try to prefer DRM-free versions of games. If there's DRM, then one doesn't really own it. PCGamingWiki [1] is a great resource that will list the DRM status of a given game for different distributors (yes, some stores may have DRM while others do not). In general, GOG [2] is all DRM-free games.

[1]: https://www.pcgamingwiki.com [2]: https://www.gog.com

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

#110

Post by causi »

firecall wrote: post #93
causi wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These days I generally pirate the single-player content I purchase anyway. Anything that requires Origin, Epic, uPlay, or any other cancerous software to be installed gets paid for and promptly pirated. I trust the Pirate Bay more than I trust Ubisoft.

Dont you worry about Malware, Viruses and suchlike?

Not from reputable uploaders. It's about reputation, and people like, say, Fitgirl have a hell of a lot better reputation than Ubisoft or EA.
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