Upon termination for any reason, You must immediately uninstall the Product and destroy all copies of the Product in Your possession.
Even though this clause seems to be in most EULA I’ve never heard of it actually being enforced. I’m guessing it’s to prevent some kind of loophole where you can agree to an EULA, install a game, and then terminate your agreement in order to use the game without needing to follow any rules. If you can terminate the agreement at any time without needing to delete the game, then why not always do that?
Upon termination all licenses granted to you in this Pact shall immediately terminate and you must immediately and permanently remove the Game from your device and destroy all copies of the Game in your possession.
10.2.3 you must immediately delete or remove the Game from all computer equipment in your possession and immediately destroy or return to us (at our option) all copies of the Game then in your possession, custody or control and, in the case of destruction, certify to us that you have done so.
So why Ubisoft? It’s common in lots of games. Do people want to change EULAs in general or just want to hate on Ubisoft for doing something that’s common?
I get that they say this in interviews, but that is not what their user agreement says. They can remove games from your library and revoke access to your account. To my knowledge, they’ve never abused this power but it’s still in their agreement. My point is nearly every company has agreements like Ubisoft has. There’s no reason to single out theirs.
You become a subscriber of Steam (“Subscriber”) by completing the registration of a Steam user account.
TERM AND TERMINATION
A. Term
The term of this Agreement (the “Term”) commences on the date you first indicate your acceptance of these terms, and will continue in effect until otherwise terminated in accordance with this Agreement.
B. Termination by You
You may cancel your Account at any time. You may cease use of a Subscription at any time or, if you choose, you may request that Valve terminate your access to a Subscription. However, Subscriptions are not transferable, and even if your access to a Subscription for a particular game or application is terminated, the original activation key will not be able to be registered to any other account, even if the Subscription was obtained in a retail store. Access to Subscriptions ordered as a part of a pack or bundle cannot be terminated individually, termination of access to one game within the bundle will result in termination of access to all games ordered in the pack. Your cancellation of an Account, or your cessation of use of any Subscription or request that access to a Subscription be terminated, will not entitle you to any refund, including of any Subscription fees. Valve reserves the right to collect fees, surcharges or costs incurred prior to the cancellation of your Account or termination of your access to a particular Subscription. In addition, you are responsible for any charges incurred to third-party vendors or content providers before your cancellation.
C. Termination by Valve
Valve may restrict or cancel your Account or any particular Subscription(s) at any time in the event that (a) Valve ceases providing such Subscriptions to similarly situated Subscribers generally, or (b) you breach any terms of this Agreement (including any Subscription Terms or Rules of Use). In the event that your Account or a particular Subscription is restricted or terminated or cancelled by Valve for a violation of this Agreement or improper or illegal activity, no refund, including of any Subscription fees or of any unused funds in your Steam Wallet, will be granted.
If you search “EULA deleting all copies of any materials or software in your possession” you’ll see this shows up in pretty much every EULA for every piece of software, including most games. Phasmophobia, Baldur’s Gate 3, Risk of Rain 2, and Steam itself show up on that list.
I can’t find it on GOG’s but I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s in most EULAs. I’ve seen emails saying “confidential, if you are not the intended recipient of this email you must delete it.” There’s no way to enforce that. Ubisoft isn’t coming to your house to review the contents of your drives. I’m guessing it’s to stop some loophole like “you said I can’t resell your game so instead I sold my hard drive (that has the game installed on it)”.
Interesting. It seems to be one of those live action dating sim games where hot actresses play your secretary or childhood best friend or whatever and you click through dialog options in an attempt to marry them at the end.
Except the theme of this one isn’t to marry your favourite girl but to get revenge on a group of relationship swindlers. It doesn’t say what they mean by “revenge” but it seems like a game directed at incels.
Rocket League. I find myself going back to it because I like the concept but you need to have chat turned off completely and even then the games usually devolve into one or more players throwing a hissy fit a minute into any match because something didn’t go perfectly.
Or are people just venting because the initiative is struggling to succeed
It’s this one. He lives rent free in people’s minds because he made a video 9 months ago that has 1 million views where he says he doesn’t support it because it would cause undue burden on developers. Focusing on YouTuber drama is really taking away from the message of consumer rights.
Interesting video. For people who can’t tell from the title alone, this is Chet Faliszek, who worked for Valve on titles like Left 4 Dead, talking about making the game Anacrusis playable after his company shuts down. The game was meant to be a spiritual successor to Left 4 Dead, but was dead on arrival with player counts at all time lows after leaving early access.
I knew game companies license stuff but had no idea just how much content in a game can be licensed. In-game voice chat, art assets, music, and matchmaking all done by third-parties under licensed agreements that were really difficult to work around.
If his company stops paying their subscriptions, then the in-game voice chat and matchmaking stops working. The art assets and music he licensed can only be used in very specific ways and prevent handing over raw files.
It seems like he was able to get past most things by having Steam host everything as well as handle the matchmaking. His company can go out of business but players can still play through Steam (with some stuff removed like the in-game voice chat). Of course if Steam shuts down then the game truly does stop working.
The only way around these issue were if he never licensed anything and did absolutely everything in-house, which would be a huge burden. He just wants to make a game, not worry about load balancing matchmaking servers. That’s why he got another company to handle that part. Making development easier seems to also make end-of-life accessibility harder.
I’m concerned that some of the petty drama is poisoning the well and nobody will take this seriously in a long time because of it, because I do think action is needed and is urgent.
Me too. Any post about this petition instantly gets filled with toxic comments like “fuck that cunt piratesoftware!” and it seems to have overshadowed everything else. I initially approved of the movement until I saw all the cult-like zealousy surrounding it. Hopefully other consumer protection movements like right to repair can make ground without devoling into internet shitflinging between youtubers.
I think this whole conversation is mixing two types of disagreements and is going to end poorly for that reason.
Absolutely! People who support it because of philosophical reasons are getting very upset over people giving practical criticism. Portability and maintainability of software are complex issues people make entire careers out of solving. You can’t just make it illegal for software to stop working.
That doesn’t mean companies should be allowed to purposefully brick your games for no reason, but there are cases where ensuring a game works forever would be a huge burden. The petition offers no exceptions, no practical guidelines, and no suggested punishment. It’s just “If you sell a game, that game must work forever, or else”. I see that affecting more small indie devs than large greedy corporations.