Sony makes bold claim about game ownership

Post by inigyou » Thu, Sep 03, 2026, 6:09 PM UTC

captainbland wrote: post #11

If we're not owning it, you're not selling it, you're leasing it. Terminology on sales pages should reflect this. "Subscribe now" "purchase license" etc. should be mandated if this is the expectation. Terms like "buy" without qualification are misleading in this context, but they won't remove them from store pages because people are more likely to pay higher rates for something if they believe they are actually ownin…

Post by inigyou » Thu, Sep 03, 2026, 6:10 PM UTC

jonhohle wrote: post #170

jtbayly wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They both communicate the same thing because they both start with “buy.” They communicate Ownership and collapse to the same thing to a normal consumer: implied ownership of the game. Insisting that the ownership is of the license and it says it on the button doesn’t really help, because no reasonable person thinks that a “purchased” license can be revoked for any reason or no reason at all. Why doesn’t anybody think…

Then maybe is should be forced to say: “Buy revocable license” and require the user to answer randomized multiple choice questions regarding the terms of the license that act in opposition to the purchaser. Collect metrics on wrong answers and if greater than say, 15% of people can’t determine what they are actually handing over money for, fine and require additional clarity. Or, just flip the tables and say the hist…

Post by inigyou » Thu, Sep 03, 2026, 6:14 PM UTC

Kinrany wrote: post #142

stetrain wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, some people are trying to achieve this by arguing that physical media should stick around forever. I think the real solution is providing the same protections and rights for digital purchases as we had with physical media. That would be a real win for consumers since we get the advantages of digital media with the ownership and transference rights of physical media. Of course this would be a great inconvenience…

As long as we're in copyright world, it ought to be structured as three separate parties: 1. Licensor, the company who makes the game. 2. Licensee, the person buying a digital copy of the game. 3. Safekeeper, Steam or another platform that stores the digital copy on behalf of Licensee. Similar to how depositories store securities and guarantee that they can be neither lost nor duplicated. For a separate fee perhaps.

Post by inigyou » Thu, Sep 03, 2026, 6:15 PM UTC

numpad0 wrote: post #175

captainbland wrote: post #11

If we're not owning it, you're not selling it, you're leasing it. Terminology on sales pages should reflect this. "Subscribe now" "purchase license" etc. should be mandated if this is the expectation. Terms like "buy" without qualification are misleading in this context, but they won't remove them from store pages because people are more likely to pay higher rates for something if they believe they are actually ownin…

Someone in past threads mentioned that many digital sales website in fact no longer use "buy" anymore, and instead deniably implicate purchases by such expressions as "Add to Cart", "Proceed to Checkout", and "Pay".

Post by megagpt1 » Thu, Sep 03, 2026, 6:18 PM UTC

aizk wrote: post #24

On this topic I'd like to give a big kudos to the devs at https://decomp.dev/ who are tirelessly working to decompile old video games for fun, preserving it for future generations.