Not exactly accurate. The button can still say Buy. The law says that they have to get extra acknowledgment from the buyer that they actually mean license. So it will say buy, and then it will pop up and say you aren’t buying the game, only a license, and then you have to click ok I understand. More nags. What we really need is another license agreement to pop up that nobody reads.
So it must be “Rent” now? Logically you still purchase a subscription. So this is a very weird solution.
A better solution would be that it has information on what you’re buying. “You can use this even if the game is removed”, “You can play this online and even without starting up Steam”, “Dedicated servers will be released when the game is stopped”, etc etc
Your counterexample, “purchase a subscription”, actually undercuts the point you’re trying to make. The goal is honesty here. If you are renting or subscribing, you want to know that up front, in big text, using the simplest possible word. That word is “RENT”.
The issue about the lease business model being bad for society and consumers is also important, but it’s complicated and different from basic truth in advertising.
I think (see: hope) this is a stop-gap solution. It’s at least better than the current implication of buying something and being able to keep it despite these companies knowing full well that the game will be gone in a much more permanent way the moment they flick the switch on the servers.
To paraphrase Ross Scott, it may be a bare minimum but it’s at least nice to have it in writing just how fucked we consumers are.
Except you can’t make Steam offer their content offline like that. By altering the language they use it effectively makes them more transparent about what you are really paying for. So, in order to use the word “buy” or “purchase” they would have to make the content available offline, or they have to use a different word that essentially means “rent” or “subscribe” cause that is what is actually happening.
they would have to make the content available offline
Well did they confirm that something you buy isn’t? It’s only a platform and It’s more about the developers that should be doing that.
Funny how you’re only using positive examples and not the reality for the majority of games…
A while back I was discussing Ross Scott’s ‘Stop Killing Games’ proposal in the EU, in some other lemmy thread.
If passed, that law would make it so you cannot make and sell a game that becomes unplayable after a person buys the game, or you have to refund the purchase of the game itself as well as all ingame purchases.
If gameplay itself is dependant on online servers, the game has to release a working version of the server code so it at least could be run by fans, or be refunded.
If it uses some kind of DRM that no longer works, it has to be stripped of this, or properly refunded.
Someone popped in and said ‘well I think they should just make it more obvious that you’re not buying a game, you’re buying a temporary license.’
To which I said something like ‘But all that does is highlight the problem without actually changing the situation.’
So, here we are with the American version of consumer protection: We’re not actually doing any kind of regulation that would actually prevent the problem, we’re just requiring some wordplay and allowing the problem to exist and proliferate.
All this does is make it so you can’t say ‘Buy’ or ‘Purchase’ and probably have a red box somewhere that says something like ‘You are acquiring a TEMPORARY license that may be revoked at any time for any reason.’
US gets a new content warning. EU is working toward actually stopping the bullshit.
To which I said something like ‘But all that does is highlight the problem without actually changing the situation.’
I think the idea is, that the minimally invasive regulation only has to fix the information imbalance between producer and consumer. Then, once the consumer has all the information, they can make an informed racional market actor descision. That’s supposed to price shitty rip offs out of the market eventually.
… yeah I don’t believe it works either.
It doesn’t make any sense if the whole market is shitty rip offs.
In this case I’m not saying all games are bad, shitty games, but they are all shitty rip offs in the sense that they all legally can, and many do just suddenly deactivate, and you’re not even compensated for this.
The whole fundamental legal trick the software industry has pulled is making everything into a license for an ongoing service, as opposed to a consumer good.
And the problem is that this is now infecting everything, expanding as much as possible into anything with a chip in it.
Even if the consumer is perfectly informed, it doesn’t matter if the entire market is full of fundamentally unjust bullshit, as there aren’t any alternatives.
All you get is consumers who are now informed that their digital goods can poof out of existence with no recourse.
Honestly, that really does track with how shit works in here.
“The orphan crushing machine may contain components known to the state of California to cause cancer”
And we’re done! Fixed all the problems!
At the same time, both need to be done, your solution doesn’t solve the fact that it’s only a license you’re purchasing and you depend on a third party service to download the game in most cases.
They’ll just change the button from “Buy $59.99” to just “$59.99”.
As much as I lament the fact that we can’t just own things anymore, it’s not like this legislation will change anything. Storefronts aren’t going to drop their DRM just so they can use the word ‘buy’ again.
Essentially, the new law will mean that storefronts like Steam will no longer be able to use terms such as “buy” or “purchase” when advertising a game that always requires an online connection. Since you won’t technically own the product and servers being taken offline would render the product useless, a different word will have to be used.
The official phrasing in the bill’s summary reads, it will “prohibit a seller of a digital good from advertising or offering for sale a digital good, as defined, to a purchaser with the terms buy, purchase, or any other term which a reasonable person would understand.”
That’s actually a very good reason IMO.
Wait so if a game doesn’t not need online connection it can say buy?
That is such a huuuge advantage to indie devs that can let you own things.
I’m waiting for something like this since forever. I hope other states and countries will follow. This is huge.
It’s not only steam, but also Amazon, Apple, you name it.
Buy means buy, not “rent until we decide to render your product useless”!
Can’t wait to see what marketing BS replaces it.
My money is on Experience!
Or Activate!
Or Join!
Or Unlock!
You know something with an Explanation mark.
“Add to your library” is my guess.
To long and no explanation mark, it would never work.
Hopefully “license”, since that’s what it actually is
It doesn’t fix anything however
I wonder if even without this law, one could claim false advertising against any subscription service that looks like a bit to own service.
I don’t see why there’s a distinction for always online games. You don’t “own” any game you buy off steam. All you get is a license to play the game off steam. You can’t sell or trade them.
Support GOG! Fuck DRM! Own your shit!
Even if you buy a DVD, the only thing you are “buying” is the physical media and a license to operate the softwate. You don’t own the software stored on the media, you must use it in accordance with the license agreement or potentially face legal action. The main thing about digital storefronts is that it’s easier to revoke the license.
If you buy a movie, you are buying the rights to private use of the movie, you aren’t buying the copyright. You can sell a DVD movie to someone else and it’s not illegal and doesn’t subject you to copyright law.
If you buy a game that has a license key, then yeah, you are buying a license to the game even if it has physical media, but buying a physical copy of an Xbox game doesn’t have a license key (well, more recently they do, the box contains a store key instead of a disc, but before that was common practice)
There should be an exception: If they want to still say “buy” or fail to comply, they will need to refund the full original purchase price if they ever shut down the server.
Next do planned obsolescence and products that are designed to break a week after the warranty expires.
Then they would need to pay everything back they ever earned if the company ever goes bankrupt. I imagine a bankrupt company doesn’t have much to pay back.
I think they’d do two things if they want to keep the buy button. 1) Not require always online connections to play, or properly remove the online requirement or convert to P2P in the case of multiplayer games if they want to end support, or 2) sell their server infrastructure to a third party.
I assume this law is to preempt demand for something similar to the EU’s “stop killing games” petition. It’s a way to say that consumers were made aware and agreed that their games are only temporary licenses, so they can’t demand refunds or continued support when the company wants to stop.
The 2 reasons you provide are actually why games that offer an offline mode functionality (more specifically that the seller cannot revoke access to after the transaction, which includes making the digital good available at the time of purchase for permanent offline download to an external storage source to be used without a connection to the internet) are exempted from needing to follow this law.
I don’t think this is a preemption of the SKG campaign but actually one of the realistic goals of that campaign. I don’t think the ability to rent software for a limited time is an issue, but tricking people into thinking they can use something they purchased forever, to have it unilaterally taken away due to 3rd party licensing, decommissioning servers or other excuse is the problem.
The rise of the “acquire” button.
Finally my years of learning to play Tongo pay off!
Full Consortium 😎
Evade!
“Get”
“Install”
prohibit a seller of a digital good from advertising or offering for sale a digital good, as defined, to a purchaser with the terms buy, purchase, or any other term which a reasonable person would understand
I think ‘acquire’ definitely falls in this category
Hopefully this pushes Valve to include drm free copies of games
Drm free doesn’t necessarily change the license attached to it.
“Subscribe”
Fits well. Everything is a subscription nowadays.
“Rent”
As a purchaser of many games online, that makes sense to me. Especially for younger people growing up with this kinda stuff it would be nice to differentiate the two.
If you change what it is called, you dont have to change whats wrong with it.
True but the point is honesty here… people should know they are not buying. if they chose to license, that’s on them. at some point, people need to make decisions as long as they are not lied to, they have to own them.
“Get” “Get now” “Aquire” “Access now” “Add to account” “license now”
This doesn’t make any difference.
“Add to cart”
“Check out”
“Pay”
Probably not.
If https://www.stopkillinggames.com/ gets to go before the EU commission, this might even go much further.
I imagine GOG is exempt?
Probably not, sounds like it would apply to all digital store fronts. And a game from GOG could still become unavailable if it relies on game servers that are taken down.
If they did make an exception for stores like GOG, then some steam games would theoretically also be exempt because they don’t use steam drm. So you could have some guys labelled “buy” and others labelled “get”.
then some steam games would theoretically also be exempt because they don’t use steam drm.
I think the main difference that would arise between these and GOG would be the provision of installers. Even though some Steam games don’t use its DRM, they’re still reliant on Valve’s servers and an online connection for installation. GOG games are reliant on CD Projekt’s servers and an online connection for installer downloads, but upon download completion, one may install and reinstall games even while offline.
That’s a critical difference in digital distribution, in my opinion.
That’s true. The drm-free steam games can usually have their install directories moved around freely between computers, but it’s true there isn’t an installer program provided outside of the steam client itself.
Why would they be? They sell games, and have a storefront and launcher.
Because I can download and save installers for GOG games and install them without needing to connect to GOG at all. It’s more akin to buying physical media than it is to Steam or other storefronts.
It’s talking about games that require an always on connection. You can save the installer for games like that, but the game still won’t work if it can’t phone home.
I’m well aware — that’s the whole point of DRM-free games.
You still need your gog account to download games though. And they have multiplayer games anyways.
It’s far better that it applies to everyone.
You still need your gog account to download games though.
I need an account to make the purchase and download, but I can then delete my account and keep the installers on a hard drive.
And you can delete steam and still play the games on your computer.
But there’s no installer, so I can’t reinstall it on another device. With GOG I have an installer just like I’d have with physical media.
GOG guarantees that every game is DRM free and can be offline. Steam makes no such guarantees, and most games there will ship with some form of DRM.
No most games do not have drm. You can play most games on steam without launching steam.
I don’t even understand why you guys are trying to argue. This new law should absolutely include every game store on the Internet.
You dont need an account to launch the game, so you own it.
