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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

#211

Post by Freak_NL »

ummonk wrote: post #95
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?

Copyright violation is a tort, not a crime. If you were sued for it, they'd have a hard time proving damages given that you have paid for a valid license.

You would have to stick exclusively to downloading though. As soon as you upload as well (e.g., torrents) the defence that you have a valid licence for your personal use no longer suffices. And even if you are fine from a legal standpoint (which I fear may not be the case in every jurisdiction), there is still the financial risk of getting sued by someone with much bigger pockets.

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

#212

Post by throwawaylinux »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #152
throwawaylinux wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is nothing unfair about licensing. I contribute to FOSS software, I expect that an individual or company abide by the terms of the license I grant them and that license is terminated if they fail to meet various conditions. That seems fair to me, it wouldn't become unfair if a payment was required either. But I think you have got it right with the rest of your comments. There has to be a meeting of the minds in…

In FOSS, the conditions and possible termination are usually centered around redistribution. You can do whatever you want on your own computer, with no restrictions placed upon you, and those restrictions are the "unfair" part of licensing. (AGPL is a little different, but that's an issue for another discussion.)

Yes they often are.

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

#213

Post by tdrdt »

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 think one simple legislation could help a lot: forbid to use the word 'buy' in this context. Instead it should be 'hire' or 'lease' or something.

Once I 'bought' an e-book that was copy protected by Adobe (my fault I didn't read the specs before buying). But because you can only read it when Adobe's servers are online no ownership is transferred to you as buyer. You buy rights to read the book on their terms.

'Hire this book' would be fair to use in this context.

(Afterwards I successfully converted to book to an e-book format that I owned with some Calibre plugins).

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

#214

Post by forgotmyoldname »

basch wrote: post #185
forgotmyoldname wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the same time, there are people who lost their wallet and RIP to all that potential wealth. And then there are people who had their computer stolen/broken and then just downloaded Steam on a new device and had their games and saves ready to go. Not that I'm defending centralized services like Steam, because I'm very well aware that companies have happily wielded their power to randomly lock people out of their acc…

>At the same time, there are people who lost their wallet and RIP to all that potential wealth. Back up your password, in a safe deposit box, at a bank. >And then there are people who had their computer stolen/broken and then just downloaded Steam on a new device and had their games and saves ready to go. Back up your password, in a safe deposit box, at a bank. >But crypto isn't solving anything either (or at least n…

A license key alone is about as useful as a key in real life. If someone decides to change the locks, you're out.

Decentralizing that doesn't change anything. Crypto is once again just trying to solve something through burning coal and oil that was solved decades ago far more efficiently. Want to reclaim your game? Fire up a torrent. No need for a ponzi scheme.

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

#215

Post by RealStickman_ »

kranner wrote: post #78
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.

I do the same thing for my Kindle purchases. Luckily I have a Paperwhite whose serial number works with DeDRM to strip DRM for all my Kindle purchases (except Hindi books which are not downloadable for some reason).

You could also use the PC kindle app to download books and strip their DRM. That might be easier than transferring every book back and forth. (I use the kindle 1.26 version. It requires an additional plugin to convert the new amazon format, but works with DeDRM after that.)

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

#216

Post by pjerem »

endisneigh wrote: post #177
okwubodu wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tokenized game licenses could presumably be transferred to a different wallet without depending on whatever game company to do the right thing.

OK, but where do you download the game? Even with licensing, you couldn't play offline? If so, what's stopping someone from just keeping the state of the blockchain such that the offline client thinks you own the games but you actually don't. Doesn't seem like it'd work to me without a central authority.

Disclaimer : I don’t believe that licence tokenization is a solution to the issue of game ownership. But what I’ll said also applies to DRM-free games.

> OK, but where do you download the game?

You download it once you buy it. After that it’s your responsibility to backup it like it would be with a physical medium. Of course, sellers would probably allow you to download it again if you have an account.

On your other points, I just don’t believe (and don’t want either) that good anti-piracy protection will exist as long as the game can be run on a platform you control.

I just hope that someday the industry finally gives up on this shit.

Platforms like GOG already sell DRM-Free backupable games. It just works. They are not on the edge of bankruptcy because of the piracy. All their games are available on Steam with the Steam DRM and still, the universe is not collapsing.

Games like The Witcher 3 or Cyberpunk 2077 are available on GOG without DRM and are still hugely profitable. It’s a win-win situation. As long as you backup your games and keep a compatible computer somewhere, Cyberpunk 2077 will be playable in 2077 without a hack.

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

#217

Post by philliphaydon »

For auditing purposes these companies have to keep records of transactions. So I don’t understand the need to delete accounts and digital items. Sure they could delete non essential data like activity, game saves, screenshots etc. but how difficult is it to keep a login and list of owned games. It’s prob a few kb of data…

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

#218

Post by siva7 »

ipaddr wrote: post #168
Jach wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 be…

Those services existed only for a few years before fb, google etc took over

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

#220

Post by EMIRELADERO »

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.

The general consensus for some of the people commenting here (one that I absolutely despise to be clear) is that nobody is entitled to any ownership of anything and should have zero expectations of it, even when spending money on things. Be thankful for what little you get, don't ask for more, and either make your own or shut up. When you start reading these comments with that "lens" you can suddenly understand the logic.
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