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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

#161

Post by onion2k »

jackson1442 wrote: post #57
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.

Ugh Xbox drives me up the wall with their "ownership" scheme. A disc doesn't actually contain the game, It's a _license_ for the game. When you insert the disc, your Xbox downloads the entire game to its drive, but the game won't launch without the disc inserted. It's the worst of both worlds. After the Xbox store shuts down, none of your discs will work because they don't _do_ anything. And you can't even launch the…

I don't think that's correct. If you disconnect your xbox from the net, the game will still be installed (from the disc), and you'll be able to play it. Everything will still work after the Xbox store shuts down. You just won't get any updates or DLC.

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

#162

Post by 3np »

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?

TEE (Intel SGX; AMD will have to follow suite to keep up). It’s unfortunate that this will most likely reverse the current trend of increased cross-architecture compatibility and ARM64 will probably get the short end of the stick unless something unexpected happens.

I’m not a fan at all of that kind of DRM. Cryptographically prohibiting the owner of the machine from inspecting what code is running on their machine is a different league than obfuscation but I’m pretty sure that’s where we’re heading regardless with DRM. PCs will become more like video game consoles in that sense.

Or of course, streaming cloud gaming, where your local machine is more of a thin client. In this case the NFT is really just a token you present to the proverbial gatekeeper every time you want to play. So you can still be blocked, but at least you’ll have irrefutable proof of which games you paid for and have an obvious case in small-claims court.

Especially the former will probably mean I’ll just completely quit gaming altogether.

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

#163

Post by vmception »

ipaddr wrote: post #157
vmception wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 f…

People would have separate accounts for each game to prevent losing everything. It becomes a long serial number that anyone who knows can transfer to another account. But it wouldn't make sense to pay to transfer it over ($60-$300 gas fees) on an under $60 game. I can see some real issues with your approach. NFTs can't be used for products under a few hundred if you want to leverage the value as insurance.

only Ethereum mainnet has "$60-$300 gas fees", which is multiple orders of magnitude higher than everything else. there are a couple of networks that would maintain their low transaction fees even at the same transaction size as Ethereum and marketcap.

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

#164

Post by NeoVeles »

Jach wrote: post #91
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.

Steam is already 18 years old, where is your confidence they won't make it another 20 coming from?

In that sense, Steam is not tied to a single hardware platform. They are a bit more platform agnostic and that means they can keep moving with the times. Steam doesn't require a custom steam PC using proprietary hardware.

A good example of these online store going down would be the Wii and Wii U/3DS stores. The Wii store is already gone - it lasted 13 years.

The Wii U/3DS stores will no longer accept any payments starting 18th January 2022 as a first step towards shutting the services down. Wii U is 9 years old, 3DS is 10 years old.

Only yesterday a friend of mine fired up his Xbox 360. While the online system is still running it is a question of how long until MS will simply drop the entire thing even if it is a very minor thing to run.

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

#165

Post by conradludgate »

pdonis wrote: post #97
josephcsible wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two that immediately come to mind are online textbooks and Adobe Creative Cloud.

Hm. I agree online textbooks are different because you're not just paying for the textbook, you're also paying a school tuition, and the school isn't going to refund your tuition just because the textbook provider made a mistake. I asked another poster just upthread about the software (such as Creative Cloud) case.

You can buy text books outside of school. Let's say I buy some OReilly or Manning e-books, and then they take them away from me. Whereas the physical copy for just a little bit extra remains mine for as long as the copy stays readable (centuries if given care)

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

#166

Post by legulere »

westoque wrote: post #159
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…

This makes a good case for decentralization no? Imagine all those items in the blockchain, you can leave for years knowing you can retrieve them anytime. The only con at the point is if you lose your keys. Reminds me of some friends who had Bitcoin and “forgot” about it and only to come back with massive profits.

Trustless trust doesn’t solve any problems here. Having your ownership of games notarized without someone central, does not mean you can access them. You need someone to enforce that.

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

#167

Post by irl_chad »

pdonis wrote: post #54
Hokusai wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> I have way more rights than that. Or if not I will fight to get them. So let me get this straight: companies are offering a recreational product, games, on terms you don't like. But instead of not paying them money, so they will be forced to either change their business model or go out of business, you want to get the government involved? For games ? > I do not want to depend on the good will of corporations. Good…

I really don’t understand libertarians. You hate the idea of a government having any power that could theoretically/historically be used to oppress you, but when corporations do it, it should be celebrated.

Thank God it was IRS LLC that put me in their private prison for not paying my Land Ownership Subscription instead of the government.

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

#168

Post by ipaddr »

Jach wrote: post #91
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.

Steam is already 18 years old, where is your confidence they won't make it another 20 coming from?

That's a good point but odds are gmail won't be around in 20 years. The most popular email 20 years ago was aol later hotmail. Most popular search yahoo, altavista are gone. ICQ is mostly gone.

Myspace is gone. Facebook is dying slowly hopefully to be replaced with some form in the meta world.

To make it 18 years is special but it's going to take a lot of reinvention to keep up for the next 20 years. They have the best odds but so did myspace

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

#169

Post by EMIRELADERO »

ipaddr wrote: post #135
pdonis wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The terms are not a negotiated contract That doesn't mean they aren't a contract. They're simply a contract where your only options as the buyer are to buy or not to buy. That said, a unilateral contract like this can be treated somewhat differently by courts. See below. > removing the right to play a game you have bought with money because you haven’t played it “enough” (according to the vendor) may also be consid…

Terms are not a contract or a type of contract. Were you instructed to consult your legal team before signing the contract? What you never signed with a witness and a notary? So if they put in a term that said you agree to give them your house or 500 you would have to? Terms of service are the rules outlined by the service provider. Breaking these could get your service cut and you would have a hard time finding a le…

I agree with your whole opinion on T&C's and abuse by companies, but they are still a contract, mostly because there is no "hard standard" in how a contract can be formed between two parties. Even a verbal agreement can be seen as a "contract" as much as a signed paper.

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

#170

Post by hanniabu »

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…

> It's a shame that we are going to fight for our digital rights because currently we have almost none because justice does not understand technology.

Reminds me of NFTs and people here arguing against what they don't understand.

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