I’m not a GDPR fan at all. They put out one game I even got through and it was mediocre. I’m just not a fan of the general gaming public thinking they know more than a studio full of veterans.
Saying that GDPR doesn’t know what it’s doing is like saying MGM doesn’t know what it’s doing. They aren’t the best in the industry but they’ve still made some quality products. They know far more about what they are doing than an indie studio that hasn’t even released their first game.
No, this is not really typical for a large studio. I’ve been in the games industry for 10 years and losing your team every project is a studio killer. No one does this anymore aside from really small indie studios that can’t afford to keep the team together. This is not normal for a studio that knows what it’s doing.
Hmm yet steam has certainly banned lots of accounts, probably some of those owning games and are citizens of Australia. So clearly there is a clause around it.
Sure, “laws are threats made by the dominant socioeconomic-ethnic group in a given nation. It’s just the promise of violence that’s enacted and the police are basically an occupying army.”
I was simply talking about the current legal definition. It’s hard to call it theft or fraud when the terms are made clear before the sale. An example of this to a lesser degree would be game studios making multiplayer games. Is it theft if a studio puts a game out on Steam with the clause “We can only support multiplayer for as long as our budget allows us.” and then goes under a few years later? A lot of these multiplayer services are things someone would have to pay for like Playfab or Gamelift. Not something easily open-sourceable. You could argue “Well don’t write your game like that” but then you are essentially killing the multiplayer game service industry without consideration of its existence or benefits.
When you purchase on the Ubisoft Stores, we grant you a non-exclusive, non-transferable, non-sublicensed, non-commercial and personal license to use the Ubisoft Products.
Also note:
Ubisoft Products may also be purchased from third parties authorized by us to sell such Ubisoft Products. When you purchase Ubisoft Products from a third party, your purchase is with that third party and not Ubisoft.
So I’ll do this for ubisoft but last I checked it was in Steam, EA, Gog, and Epic’s. Itch is the only one I hold out hope to be better but this is pretty boiler plate stuff.
This license is just that, a license.
These Terms of Sale are incorporated by reference to the Terms of Use of Ubisoft available at legal.ubi.com/termsofuse (“Terms of Use”). All capitalized terms used but not defined herein shall have the meaning given to them in the Terms of Use. Certain Ubisoft Products are subject to the acceptance of an End User License Agreement (“EULA”) and any other additional terms, which will be available to you before you can access, download, install or use such Ubisoft Product. UBISOFT’s Privacy Policy is an integral part of these Terms of Sale and can be found at legal.ubi.com/privacypolicy (“Privacy Policy”). Please read it carefully to understand our views and practices regarding your personal data and how we will treat it.
So we now need to look at the EULA and Privacy Policy.
So the EULA of the store legal.ubi.com/eula/en-US Clause 1 backs of Clause 1 Scope of the Terms of Sale.
So Ubisoft reserves the right to terminate your account and thus the EULA agreement and thus your license.
For fun, lets do a bigger storefront because ubisoft is small.
Valve is smarter and calls this directly not a term of sale but a subscriber agreement. You are a subscriber to their service of steam and this is the agreement:
Steam and your Subscription(s) require the download and installation of Content and Services onto your computer. Valve hereby grants, and you accept, a non-exclusive license and right, to use the Content and Services for your personal, non-commercial use (except where commercial use is expressly allowed herein or in the applicable Subscription Terms). This license ends upon termination of (a) this Agreement or (b) a Subscription that includes the license. The Content and Services are licensed, not sold. Your license confers no title or ownership in the Content and Services. To make use of the Content and Services, you must have a Steam Account and you may be required to be running the Steam client and maintaining a connection to the Internet.
Establishes that these are licenses, not purchases and that you have to have a steam account and running the steam client.
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.
Valve reserves the right to cancel your subscription if they decide to cease providing such subscriptions to “similarly situated subscribers.” E.g. as long as they do it to everyone in your “situation” it’s legal. So Valve could very well delete inactive accounts legally without refunds. It’s in the EULA, you’ve agreed that as long as they do it without direct discrimination that it’s fine.
So again, you can go through every storefront and realize you have no ownership or right to a refund if they decide to shut down. Also don’t see this as “pro-corporation” I am not defending anyone here. I am pointing out that people have not understood the loss of ownership in the digital world we now live. I’ve been sitting here waiting for the day that people go “hey wait, they can just delete my account without anything I can do?”
It’s not. You don’t own the game you lease it with the clause that the storefront can ban/delete/deactivate your account for any reason. This is true for Steam, GOG, Itch, Epic, EA, Microsoft, etc.
It’s literally fine though because hard mode doesn’t mean anything more than you do less damage and the enemies do more in 99% of the games out there. You’re not missing extra gameplay or narrative. You just slide two real basic siders up and down.
You don’t own those games though. You can’t play them on any device you want to. I got kids so I’m wanting them to play these games in a few years. I’d rather just pick up starfield if it’s good. Forza doesn’t interest me at all.
Honestly, I think am close to done with game pass. The games on it are fine, they are acceptable. But the fact that I can’t play them on linux/steam deck and the fact they go away. I’d probably just rather sub to humble monthly or such.
The big thing for me is that if I play narrative-focused games like immersive sims, I want to dive deep into those worlds, and that takes a certain amount of brain energy.
That’s what the Ultima Underworld series was. Underworld Ascendant was supposed to be a modern revival. Sadly, the studio seemed to bite off more than it can chew.
but I do believe you will have to have a connection in order to play cause it’s made in the Unreal Engine, it’s using cross-progression, crossplay, I do believe we need you to be online," said Listo.
I’ve been using Unreal Engine 4 since 2014 and in 2020 started using EOS which I’ve shipped on a game. This is bullshit. It’s entirely bullshit that you don’t need someone 10 years into the games industry with the relevant engine experience and relevant online subsystem experience to tell you it’s bullshit. You already know it’s bullshit. But here is a random expert opinion to definitively confirm it’s bullshit.
The only thing they had to do is make it so you can store your progress locally until you connect to a server. I do that with my achievement system in an indie game I made for under 10,000 USD from my publisher. It’s insane to think this is their excuse.
In release - For the purposes of this study, a game is considered to be “in release” if the game, or a version of the game derived from its original release including emulated, modified, or reimplemented versions of the original game is reasonably, readily, and legally available from the game’s rightsholder, either in physical or digital format, for a currently produced or supported game platform.
They are expecting copyright holders of a game to indefinitely sell the game. It’s not that easy. Something like the 1999 movie Dogma would not qualify as “in release” since you can’t buy it or watch it from the copyright holder. You can however buy a DVD version on amazon from mediamaniasales legally.
Overall, the study is expecting studios to support and release classic games for current or supported game platforms. It’s a lot of work and it’s not reasonable to expect a studio to do. If people want supported classic games then they should create a system that gives money to people trying to do that. We live in a society that requires money and people work to get that money. Expecting people to put in that work for free is pretty silly.