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It's not about physical vs. digital games, it's about ownership

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Re: It's not about physical vs. digital games, it's about ownership

#341

Post by psp99 »

kiddico wrote: post #277
matthewfcarlson wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was actually a funny question at work over lunch. A few of us have kids and like most tech guys over 30, our steam accounts have turned into collections. So I asked, who gets your steam account when you kick it. It’s difficult to think about and seems baffling to spend thousands of dollars and hours assembling a collection only for it to poof away into nothing.

Who says anyone needs to inform Valve of your passing? Make sure your children have access to the email backing the account and they're good to go.

What happens if Valve don't exist?

Re: It's not about physical vs. digital games, it's about ownership

#342

Post by scott_w »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #338
scott_w wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're completely misreading regulations. "Materially affect" does not cover things like "puts a unit outside" because otherwise putting a satellite does would "materially affect the appearance of the building from outside," yet millions of people get Sky TV. > If planning permission for aircon was denied Again, this is not part of the article because it literally says you don't need planning permission! There are re…

> "Materially affect" does not cover things like "puts a unit outside" because otherwise putting a satellite does would "materially affect the appearance of the building from outside," yet millions of people get Sky TV. They're referring to regulations by the local council. All of them are different. Millions of people being able to install a satellite dish is entirely compatible with any number of different people i…

> the condenser is "ugly".

"Ugly" is not part of planning regs. Local council planning regs cannot override statute and they don't deviate that much. You'd know this if you lived in the UK (which you don't).

> Which strongly implies both that there are cases when it's required anyway

I explained why you might need planning permission: because your planned work sits outside of building regs.

> there are cases when it would "materially affect the appearance of the building from outside"

Yes, those are things like "it's too big" or "it's a listed building." Instead of hand-waving about things you don't understand, put some fucking effort in and show these cases that are obviously reasonable but still being blocked.

Here, let me add yet more research since you won't do it yourself: https://www.checkatrade.com/blog/expert-advice/air-condition...

A list of reasons air-conditioning might require planning permission. Are you telling me that you, Anthony, know more about building regs in the UK than:

* Residents of the UK who have to work with them when they want to building work on their home.

* Companies who work with building contractors in the UK.

* The UK Government.

Re: It's not about physical vs. digital games, it's about ownership

#343

Post by zahlman »

feoren wrote: post #103
jbombadil wrote: post #39

I am generally not in favor of adding regulation, but this is a place where I would support it. Anything that you BUY needs to be your property. This means you must have the ability to: 1. Transfer ownership of it (either temporarily as a loan or permanently as a sale). Digital-only doesn't preclude this: the store can have a "transfer" functionality. 2. (Within reason) use it at your discretion at any point after th…

You're not in favor of adding regulation, except when it comes to issues you understand and care about. All the oversight and regulation about everything you don't care and/or know about is big bad government overreach. Every government agency is a useless waste of your tax dollars, except the ones you rely on and the ones where you have friends that work there. Do I have that right?

This is an impressively uncharitable read of GP, and in my view totally uncalled for.

People who "generally" oppose "regulation", in my experience, very often have very good reasons for having adopted that stance, that are rooted in examination (or at least knowledge) of several actually existing regulations. And I would hope we all agree that there are plenty of really bad regulations out there. (If not: I invite you to check out the book https://www.amazon.com/Three-Felonies-Day-Target-Innocent/dp... , and consider how this legal state of affairs could come about.)

The entirely unfounded allegation of cronyism ("and the ones where you have friends that work there") is especially absurd. Where the guidelines say

> Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity.

this is the exact mechanism for "trampling curiousity" I imagine the site staff have in mind. Why would anyone who can offer you an alternative point of view, want to participate in an environment where responses read like this?

Re: It's not about physical vs. digital games, it's about ownership

#344

Post by zahlman »

homer456 wrote: post #236
datsci_est_2015 wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> being against dumb regulation that only ads unnecessary bureaucracy or stops/limits progress Does such strawman regulation even exist? Some regulation is intentionally designed to limit “progress”, where “progress” happens to have negative externalities. It’s kind of a self-legitimizing opinion. Of course anyone would be against unnecessary regulations. I think the real world is not arguing about whether a regulati…

It takes a minimum of 600 hours of training to get licensed to cut hair in California. Pex plumbing is banned in Chicago as a union protectionist regulation. The "chicken tax" regulation scheme has screwed up the US truck market for decades. Electrical code requirements for the wiring of kitchen islands have changed drastically with very small justification within a short span of time. To this day it is illegal to tr…

> decades ago(probably over a century can't be bothered to check).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onion_Futures_Act passed in 1958, just FYI.

Re: It's not about physical vs. digital games, it's about ownership

#345

Post by zahlman »

nfw2 wrote: post #114
vanviegen wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Though your point may have some value, your comment comes across as meanspirited and ad hominem. Also, regulation is not universally supported by knowledgeable consumers. Often quite the opposite, in fact.

Mean spirited sure, ad hominem, no. It's satirizing the argument, not personal traits unrelated to the argument

No, satire would involve an attempt to pretend to make the same argument while exposing flaws. This was just a bunch of uncharitable strawmen.

Re: It's not about physical vs. digital games, it's about ownership

#346

Post by zahlman »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #300
feoren wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not in favor of adding regulation, except when it comes to issues you understand and care about. All the oversight and regulation about everything you don't care and/or know about is big bad government overreach. Every government agency is a useless waste of your tax dollars, except the ones you rely on and the ones where you have friends that work there. Do I have that right?

> You're not in favor of adding regulation, except when it comes to issues you understand and care about. That's not really it. The main case against regulation is that it shouldn't be used when competition would do it better, which is most of the time. The trouble in this case is that copyright is a government-granted monopoly, which means this isn't one of those times, because competition is being foreclosed by sta…

I genuinely can't understand why this comment was downvoted.

Re: It's not about physical vs. digital games, it's about ownership

#347

Post by Asmod4n »

homer456 wrote: post #236
datsci_est_2015 wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> being against dumb regulation that only ads unnecessary bureaucracy or stops/limits progress Does such strawman regulation even exist? Some regulation is intentionally designed to limit “progress”, where “progress” happens to have negative externalities. It’s kind of a self-legitimizing opinion. Of course anyone would be against unnecessary regulations. I think the real world is not arguing about whether a regulati…

It takes a minimum of 600 hours of training to get licensed to cut hair in California. Pex plumbing is banned in Chicago as a union protectionist regulation. The "chicken tax" regulation scheme has screwed up the US truck market for decades. Electrical code requirements for the wiring of kitchen islands have changed drastically with very small justification within a short span of time. To this day it is illegal to tr…

> Many European countries have draconian laws about air conditioning that are killing people this summer.

There are very few laws which can say what you are allowed to do with your owned house. One of them is when it is of historical value. Then you aren’t allowed to change pretty much anything.

The rest are just landlords who want to fuck you over.

Re: It's not about physical vs. digital games, it's about ownership

#348

Post by zahlman »

limagnolia wrote: post #176
jbombadil wrote: post #39

I am generally not in favor of adding regulation, but this is a place where I would support it. Anything that you BUY needs to be your property. This means you must have the ability to: 1. Transfer ownership of it (either temporarily as a loan or permanently as a sale). Digital-only doesn't preclude this: the store can have a "transfer" functionality. 2. (Within reason) use it at your discretion at any point after th…

I would argue that we don't need new regulations, we need to enforce existing laws against fraud. It is fraudulent to sell something and then later disable ones access to the thing you sold them access to.

Which is exactly why Sony claims not to "sell" you the game but only to license it.

Re: It's not about physical vs. digital games, it's about ownership

#349

Post by _davide_ »

pseudocomposer wrote: post #222
feoren wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not in favor of adding regulation, except when it comes to issues you understand and care about. All the oversight and regulation about everything you don't care and/or know about is big bad government overreach. Every government agency is a useless waste of your tax dollars, except the ones you rely on and the ones where you have friends that work there. Do I have that right?

I think “when you buy a product, be it a game, a house, a car, a computer, a tractor, washer, TV, it should continue to operate without rent-seeking behavior” is the best type of straightforward, uniformly-applicable pattern of regulation one could hope for. Opposing rent-seeking is literally why we have American democracy, which paved the way for French, Brazilian, Canadian, Indian, Mexican and so many other democra…

A simple law: everything the customer buys must always behave *in favor of the customer over anything else*. If the product/service contradicts this, it must be fully stated before the purchase and cannot be updated. <= This would be a sane balance.

Re: It's not about physical vs. digital games, it's about ownership

#350

Post by kombookcha »

jbombadil wrote: post #39

I am generally not in favor of adding regulation, but this is a place where I would support it. Anything that you BUY needs to be your property. This means you must have the ability to: 1. Transfer ownership of it (either temporarily as a loan or permanently as a sale). Digital-only doesn't preclude this: the store can have a "transfer" functionality. 2. (Within reason) use it at your discretion at any point after th…

It's really cocky of them to do this immediately after deleting everyone's purchased movies from their accounts. Nobody should have any illusions about what "buying" a game means when they can do this at will.

https://www.playstation.com/en-gb/legal/psvideocontent/

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