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PlayStation can delete all your digital games after 3 years of inactivity (EU)

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Re: PlayStation can delete all your digital games after 3 years of inactivity (EU)

#11

You know, all those people making new n64, playstation, and gameboy titles might be onto something. Apart from steam, I don't think I've heard anything but bad news from modern consoles.

Huge capital overhead. Exhausting mid-lifecycle crunch that makes or breaks the next gen. Multiple giants.

Meanwhile Steam just casually absorbing everything. It doesn't matter that it's porous.

And now suddenly - hardware costs you can't tip toe schedule around.

The console business is shitty.

Re: PlayStation can delete all your digital games after 3 years of inactivity (EU)

#13

You know, all those people making new n64, playstation, and gameboy titles might be onto something. Apart from steam, I don't think I've heard anything but bad news from modern consoles.

Honestly, there's never been a better time to be writing games for those platforms. The SDK's are much improved from the proprietary stuff available at the time and the hardware is very well understood. People have been pulling off some utter witchcraft on the N64.

Kaze and James Lambert are amazing. Kaze's new Mario game looks better than a first party Nintendo title, and James's engines pushes the console to its absolute limits.

I've been thinking about giving it a go myself. It's such a fun and nostalgic console, and the limitations are fun constraints.

The code archeology is really cool too. Seeing Rare's Dinosaur Planet boot up and play after being a lost title. Decompiling all the original titles. Building sequels to Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask. It's such a fun scene.

Then there's Analogue 3D and ModRetro too, which make it fun to play as physical hardware.

Re: PlayStation can delete all your digital games after 3 years of inactivity (EU)

#14
post #5
post #4

"Sony correctly implements GDPR requirements in the EU" is a less exciting headline I guess.

That is not how gdpr works. If you have a legitimate reason to hold the data. You can. Ensuring people have access to purchases is a very legitimate reason.

And that data must be held for a limited amount of time under GDPR article 5(1)e. Sony’s policy is very much a consequence of this.

Re: PlayStation can delete all your digital games after 3 years of inactivity (EU)

#15
While Microsoft may not be as bad on this as Sony so far, they have certainly shown a willingness to revoke access to digital games. For example- in an effort to push users to the newer fifa titles with microtransactions, they quietly removed the ability to redownload purchased digital copies of older fifa games. For anyone who might've temporarily uninstalled the game to free up space, there was suddenly no way to get the game on your machine again.

Re: PlayStation can delete all your digital games after 3 years of inactivity (EU)

#16
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is not how gdpr works. If you have a legitimate reason to hold the data. You can. Ensuring people have access to purchases is a very legitimate reason.

Is there evidence that European courts have sided with that? “We’re holding onto all your data indefinitely just in case you log in again several years from now” seems to be the antithesis of GDPR and I can’t discern the difference between that and what you’re suggesting. I believe EU has dug their own hole here. And the best move would be to pass more legislation to explicitly require the retention (and transfer, id…

> Is there evidence that European courts have sided with that?

Is there evidence of the contrary? Maybe any store can just delete your personal data right after charging your card and claim GDPR prevents them from shipping your product.

Silly arguments work both ways. You just picked the one that confirms your bias.

GDPR under no circumstances forces processors to delete everything, it defines legitimate interest. Retaining a person's purchases is as legitimate as it gets so the data can be retained for as long as the purchase is valid. And the license itself isn't even the user's personal data, it's just a license, so Sony could give the option to export that license to be used later - even in a cryptographically secure format that can only work if e.g. the account is created with the same email address. If they delete the personal data and throw out the baby with the water, it's not GDPR forcing them to do it.

Re: PlayStation can delete all your digital games after 3 years of inactivity (EU)

#17
And consumers will cry about it for about 5 minutes, then go back to reward the company.

When HP started making printer cartridges that expired even when they were still full, people complained—then bought more.

When Microsoft let the web stagnate with IE6, people complained, then turned around and did the same thing with Chrome.

When Apple deliberately put a bug in the iPhone that caused the Home button to fail, pushing people to buy the next model, people got upset—and then bought the next one anyway. I'm amazed nobody remembers that one; it was such a huge deal at the time. And there is not a single link to articles about it anymore.

When Adobe switched to mandatory Creative Cloud subscriptions, plenty of users protested, but most professionals stayed.

When Amazon remotely deleted books from people's Kindles (including 1984), it was a scandal for a month, and then... nothing.

When we found out PRISM existed, users were worried for a few months, then went right back to filling those platforms with their personal data.

When Google allowed fraudulent DMCA takedowns, shut down accounts with no appeal, and censored its search engine, there was a brief outcry, then it was back to business as usual.

When Sony put a bloody ROOTKIT on its music CDs (!!!!), people grumbled for five minutes and kept giving them money.

These companies have no reason to stop. We never make them regret anything.

I should make a website to save those for posterity, so that at least we have a track record of all the things they get away with because we let them.

We're screwed—and we deserve it.

Re: PlayStation can delete all your digital games after 3 years of inactivity (EU)

#18

You know, all those people making new n64, playstation, and gameboy titles might be onto something. Apart from steam, I don't think I've heard anything but bad news from modern consoles.

Honestly, there's never been a better time to be writing games for those platforms. The SDK's are much improved from the proprietary stuff available at the time and the hardware is very well understood. People have been pulling off some utter witchcraft on the N64.

Best of all: there's no hardware rat race.

The N64 is never going to get any faster, and emulators can run on just about any potato these days. People have realistic expectations of what the platform can do, so there's no need to spend insane effort making the graphics look better. It's always going to look kinda crappy, and that is Just Fine.

This lets game developers focus on the actual gameplay itself. No "Generic Shooter vol. 26 - now with slightly prettier water!", but innovative stuff focusing on the narrative and on novel gameplay elements.

Re: PlayStation can delete all your digital games after 3 years of inactivity (EU)

#19
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is not how gdpr works. If you have a legitimate reason to hold the data. You can. Ensuring people have access to purchases is a very legitimate reason.

Is there evidence that European courts have sided with that? “We’re holding onto all your data indefinitely just in case you log in again several years from now” seems to be the antithesis of GDPR and I can’t discern the difference between that and what you’re suggesting. I believe EU has dug their own hole here. And the best move would be to pass more legislation to explicitly require the retention (and transfer, id…

The GDPR does not say that controllers must always delete personal data on request. Article 17(1)(a) — erasure is required only when:

"the personal data are no longer necessary in relation to the purposes for which they were collected or otherwise processed"

https://gdpr-info.eu/art-17-gdpr

It's like the cookie banner all over again. This law never, ever required a cookie banner.

The big companies are master in malicious compliance that benefit them, and let them blame the EU for it.

Rules of thumbs, international billion dollars company should be assumed to be the ones being the bad guys until proven otherwise. They have lost the benefit of the doubt decades ago.

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