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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

#371
post #329
post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody gives a flying fuck whether the terms are legally accurate. This distinction is entirely already covered in the existing terms of service. People are annoyed that they can pay for something (sometimes an essential identity service), be arbitrarily denied it, and have no recourse other than maybe getting lucky by writing a complaint post that gets traction and read by some human who can tell the abuse departmen…

I am not saying people give a fuck it is legally accurate. But since nobody ever reads the terms and conditions this could help to give a quick understanding of what you are paying for. Everybody knows that renting a car is different than buying a car.

You're spot on, it might not fix the entire problem but it's a good start and can help waking people up.

This rent economy is horseshit. "You will own nothing and be happy". In reality we keep paying for things we never get to own, then one day have them arbitrarily taken away from us if the company feels like it. Remember how we used to buy things and then they were ours? Like the music we paid for. Now people have a subscription and when it ends your entire library gets deleted. I still don't understand how the majority of people actually signed up for this, it's a horrible deal that doesn't benefit them one bit.

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

#372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but his account will still be closed. That wouldn't be a problem with NFTs as they could just go to another game provider, show their proof-of-ownership and download their games from there. Such import functionality already exist to some limited degree right now with GoG, Steam and Co., but all of them require that your account with Ubisoft is still working. NFTs would work even if Ubisoft disappeared completely. F…

Why would one store honour an NFT issued by another one?

It's a quick and easy way to dramatically increase their user base.

At the moment nobody can complete with Steam because Steam has most of their games. If there would be a way to transfer games between services, services would have to compete and what services they offer instead of just relying on user lock-in.

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

#373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>no technological problem // What about proving ownership, on the balance of probabilities, to show tortuous damages in a court? Seems like a list of receipts that's somehow certified would be beneficial to that end? Probably first we need legislation to make digital purchases resalable, and to require DRM free versions to be made available if a product is EOL-ed. Companies world copyright against the populous who ar…

NFT's are not a source of truth. It's an illusion to think that they are, but they aren't. The stolen art that is put on NFT's from artists is still the artists one and not from the NFT creator. Eg. https://opensea.io/DisneyCollectibles Ontopic: the company that creates the software/game owns your account, there is literally 0 benefit for them to use a NFT.

If they wanted to allow an open second hand market for nonphysical game copies, where you can separate out single games from your account, I'd say that the NFT approach might be one of the easier ways to do it. Downright practical. I'd even go so far as suggesting that this could be one of the least nonsensical NFT use cases.

But all that does not change the fact that they can't possibly want a second hand market. Leaving the old licence to whoever paid full price and selling anothor copy at long tail volume rebate is what pays the server bill.

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

#375
Intellectual property does not make sense on theory or in real life.

When you "buy" a game you are paying for convenience, for server access, for updates & support, and for other platform services like storing saves at cloud. You don't own a thing and pirating a game while illegal is trivial.

The issue here was putting money on a shitty service that does not care about it's customers experience. I have spent thousands of dollars on Steam. I don't expect my account to be terminated after 1 year of activity but I also don't expect it to last forever and to be able to pass it to descendants.

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

#376
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…

I have a feeling that "it's perfectly legal" doesn't work in every country.

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

#377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No, that would require the other game provider to accept your Ubisoft-minted token. Game providers already accept games from other shops. I can import my Steam games into GoG right now. That feature exists. The issue is that it's very limited due to digital game ownership being a mess. > having an intermediate token adds _more_ friction. It adds no friction at all, as you could hide it completely within the client.…

If the publisher who provides the game downloads doesn't honour your store account, why would they honour your text file?

Game services aren't allowed to give away games for free. The game you own on Steam is a different one than the one you own on GoG. So it requires the publisher's permission to allow this kind of import which in turn means it's rarely available. Also this kind of import essentially allows you to duplicate games, as you can import a Steam game into a GoG account and than sell the GoG account while still keeping the game on Steam. Without proper tracking of ownership it's a mess.

With NFTs you have a framework of ownership and both the entry on Steam and the one on GoG become the same thing. If you sell or refund your game-NFT it disappears from both services.

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

#378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would one store honour an NFT issued by another one?

It's a quick and easy way to dramatically increase their user base. At the moment nobody can complete with Steam because Steam has most of their games. If there would be a way to transfer games between services, services would have to compete and what services they offer instead of just relying on user lock-in.

> At the moment nobody can complete with Steam because Steam has most of their games.

Exactly? You're right. Which is why Steam will never allow this from their side.

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

#379
post #38
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.

Because laws are not about justice. If you get something stolen you need to go to a judge to get a sentence that gives it back to you. You cannot take justice on your hands and expect to not be punished.

In many jurisdictions it's not a legal infraction to steal back some property since it was legally yours.

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

#380
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.

It's definitely fine morally, but unfortunately it's illegal anyway.

Who cares if it's illegal? It's not like you're gonna get caught. Just use a VPN.
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