Ubisoft deleted account with hundreds of dollars’ worth of games for inactivity • Hacker News Board

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

#421

Post by amarshall » Mon, Dec 27, 2021, 2:35 PM UTC

ghusbands wrote: post #345

falcor84 wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't DRM-free literally mean that you get a full local installation without any reliance on online licensing or any other digital restrictions?

You still need to download it. There are plenty of situations in which you might not have downloaded it yet or might have lost/deleted your copy, knowing you can download it again. Also, I think the DRM people are referring to here is the kind that consists of rootkits, monitoring software and similar or, in simple cases, refuses to run or gives you some kind of penalty when it detects certain other software.

Imagine if someone bought something for pickup from a store, never picked it up, and the store went out of business and liquidated. Did they ever really own it? I don’t know.

I don’t expect any guarantees from digital goods being stored for free in a digital warehouse, unfortunately many do. One doesn’t own the nebulous copy on the distributor’s server, they own whatever copies they downloaded.

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

#422

Post by bluetonium » Mon, Dec 27, 2021, 2:42 PM UTC

steelstraw wrote: post #411

Lazare wrote: post #290

I feel a bit disappointed by the number of people suggesting that an NFT would somehow help here. An NFT is just a fancy signed receipt. I can mint an NFT saying the OP owns a bunch of Ubisoft games and give it to him, but his account will still be closed. Ubisoft could mint an NFT saying he owns a bunch of games and give it to him, but his account will still be closed . (He probably still has the receipts from when…

What if it was all on chain? See https://ultra.io (a Steam competitor) for an example of this: "All the content you buy from Ultra, such as games, DLCs, and virtual items, are on-chain digital goods you truly own. On Ultra you’re in control of your assets as though they were physical items. These assets can be sold, traded and given away to your friends within Ultra, or outside of Ultra, through 3rd party marketplace…

Does Ubisoft have to honor that Blockchain though by providing you services in perpetuity?

They might if they contractually agreed to honor it. But even if they were inclined to offer such licenses (lets say consumers everywhere demanded it), there's not many meaningful enforcement advantages of shoving NFTs in the mix.

As a consumer such a contract could (including transferability) could exist without an NFT, and be just as enforced by the (centralized) judicial system or consumers voting with their feet.

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

#423

Post by qeternity » Mon, Dec 27, 2021, 2:44 PM UTC

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #313

Lazare wrote: post #290

I feel a bit disappointed by the number of people suggesting that an NFT would somehow help here. An NFT is just a fancy signed receipt. I can mint an NFT saying the OP owns a bunch of Ubisoft games and give it to him, but his account will still be closed. Ubisoft could mint an NFT saying he owns a bunch of games and give it to him, but his account will still be closed . (He probably still has the receipts from when…

>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…

You’re conflating two different things here: the user next owned the games, they owned a license to the games that Ubisoft could (and did) revoke.

NFTs aren’t magic. The issue here isn’t proving ownership, it’s that the thing that was owned (a license) is not the thing people really want to own (the game). I can deploy an NFT that replicates the current system 100%

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

#424

Post by DocTomoe » Mon, Dec 27, 2021, 2:45 PM UTC

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 generally hate getting the government involved in things

The general idea behind a protection racket is that once you paid the goons, they protect you against aggression, from themselves, and others.

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

#425

Post by TimJRobinson » Mon, Dec 27, 2021, 2:46 PM UTC

Cederfjard wrote: post #356

grumbel wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How? Which digital sales system still works when the shop I bought it from goes down (as happened with GameStopApp and Desura)? Even DRM-free doesn't work in the modern landscape where games are getting updates years down the road. Trying to sell a DRM-free game, while theoretically allowed, is also not really practical.

But do you agree that this is not a very difficult technical problem, and could be implemented with our without a blockchain, and that the real issue would be how to get all actors involved to buy in to such a system? Why would Ubisoft want this? Commercial entities are typically motivated by profit, not wanting to bring Ready Player One to life.

Why do companies do anything in the consumers interest? Competition.

You don't see it now, but once many games allow you to resell the skins or game itself, and gamers get used to that, publishers that don't allow it will look evil.

Coordination between many companies is an exceptionally difficult problem without blockchains. This is what NFTs solve in a simple way - a neutral platform that every party can easily integrate with knowing the rules, API and data integrity won't change.

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

#426

Post by cableshaft » Mon, Dec 27, 2021, 2:46 PM UTC

rowanajmarshall wrote: post #418

cableshaft wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It'll be bad PR if they don't honor it, though. Purchasers of the NFT don't know the original holder got banned, and they have every reason to assume buying the NFT from that person will give them whatever privilege or cosmetic it's supposed to grant them in-game. Enough people don't have that happen and complain about it loudly enough and Ubisoft will feel pressure to change their policies to honor it. It'd be a stu…

It's bad PR that they delete inactive account with games at all, but they did it anyway.

And according to the article they got pushback, said it was a glitch (his got deleted after a year of inactivity, they claim it's supposed to be four years, and in part to comply with data privacy laws, I'm guessing in the UK as theirs are pretty stringent), and also said they're going to more or less undo it in this instance, meanwhile Steam wasted no time announcing they don't delete inactive accounts ever, gaining some free brownie points and a decent number of people will probably avoid their store in the future so as not to risk this happening.

So yeah, I maintain my point that if they offer NFTs, allow owners to sell them to other people (which is kind of the point of NFTs), and then decide certain instances of NFTs don't have to be honored because they banned that person, they're going to get enough articles like this that they'll feel pressure to walk back such an action.

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

#427

Post by BoorishBears » Mon, Dec 27, 2021, 2:50 PM UTC

derefr wrote: post #46

caymanjim wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 W…

The problem isn't getting the media, the problem is the license.

If you get Windows and MS has blocked your key, it doesn't matter that you own the key: Windows will talk to their server and the server will say "that's not a valid license I don't care who owns it"

Likewise, it doesn't matter where you get a game from, unless you break the DCMA and modify the binary, DRM enabled games will phone home to the "game service provider" to verify your license.

It's been a long time since games locally verified licenses, that's why you don't see keygens and also why they all require launchers to function

-

If they take down the servers or block you specifically, proof of ownership does literally nothing...

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

#428

Post by TimJRobinson » Mon, Dec 27, 2021, 2:50 PM UTC

vbezhenar wrote: post #357

grumbel wrote: post #332

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…

Ubisoft could generate some XML with list of games and sign it with their private key with known certificate. This XML is proof of purchase that you can back up and import into other stores. All it takes is some cooperation between stores. You don't need blockchain, it's basic public key cryptography.

And Dropbox could be replicated with a couple of servers and rsync...

There's a lot more complexity to building a global game/item reselling marketplace than proving ownership once.

NFTs give a consistent, 100% uptime, permissionless, platform where the APIs never change and participants don't get bored and turn off their "xml signing server" because it's not profitable any more.

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

#429

Post by vmception » Mon, Dec 27, 2021, 2:50 PM UTC

nopeacefortorp wrote: post #264

vmception wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TL, must be run out of an embassy or Transnistria lol

According to https://opentrackers.org/torrentleech/ account creation on TL is currently open, but unfortunately when I try to create an account via Tor enabled Onion Browser on my phone nothing happens when I push submit. Even with most permissive JS settings in the browser. Sad times.

try a normal VPN then? I hope you are aware that bittorrent is bad for Tor, maybe they are helping you.

when you get in, you need to seed something, if you are worried about torrent activity on your network, try to seed something benign like a linux distribution.

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

#430

Post by TimJRobinson » Mon, Dec 27, 2021, 2:54 PM UTC

AOsborn wrote: post #378

grumbel wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Until someone builds a Steam that does allow it, and users start migrating over, and steam has to either allow it or keep losing market share.

Companies don't do things out of the goodness of their hearts, they do it because better, faster, more consumer friendly competitors appear.