Literally argued with a bunch of game-pass supporters on this very topic today, where we don’t own shit anymore and everything is rental only. Sick of people gobbling corporate cock.
No, copyleft licenses work differently. In particular, the thing that makes them valid (in contrast to EULAs, which are not) is that they actually offer consideration to the licensee.
Take the GPL v2 (which I mention because I’m most familiar with it) as an example:
Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not covered by this License; they are outside its scope. The act of running the Program is not restricted, and the output from the Program is covered only if its contents constitute a work based on the Program (independent of having been made by running the Program).
What it’s doing there is affirming the user’s ownership – not mere “licensure” – of his own copy. It’s pointing out, in contrast to the lie of EULAs, that the licensor doesn’t have any right to restrict the copy owner’s property rights. In other words, you don’t have to “accept the GPL” in order to use GPL software that somebody gives you; the license only kicks in if you want to do something with it that copyright law itself otherwise prohibits, namely, distributing copies or publishing modifications.
What EULA writers think they rely on – and what they’ve managed to bamboozle some, but not all, courts into accepting – is the notion that because computer programs require copying into RAM (if not also installation into a hard drive) to use, that that incidental act of copying somehow entitles publishers to impose additional restrictions in “consideration” for the mere use of the copy the user already bought. In reality, however, there’s an explicit carve-out in 17 U.S. Code § 117 (a) (1) that pulls the rug out of that argument and renders most shrinkwrap and clickwrap EULAs total bunk because the owner already has the right to use his property and there is therefore no consideration. (Admittedly, Steam might be an exception to this, since Valve could try to argue that keeping track of your games for you and making them available to re-download whenever you want is “valuable consideration” – but that’s the exception, not the rule.)
(Also note that there are other problems with the validity of EULAs, such as the fact that they’re contracts of adhesion, but I’m tired of writing so I’ll leave that for another time.)
TL;DR: Copyleft licenses are valid because they offer the copy owner privileges they didn’t already have: namely, permission to distribute copies under certain conditions. In contrast, EULAs are bunk because they attempt to restrict mere use of the thing the copy owner already owns while offering nothing in return.
You are wrong. If you buy a physical copy of a game, you cannot legally make further copies of that game. You can only sell the single copy you own, which is the licensed copy
You’re confusing copyright law with property law. Sure, you can’t make and sell copies (fun fact: you can make copies for certain other purposes, though), but that’s not a limitation on what you can do with your own copy, which is your property.
Ownership of the right to copy and ownership of the copy itself are entirely different things.
I’m not confusing copyright law and property law, but you are deliberately conflating them so you can say things like “That’s what the copyright cartel claims, but it’s a goddamn lie.” in response to someone saying that owning a copy of something does not give you the rights to that thing.
The copyright cartel claims you don’t own your copy. That’s a lie: you do own your copy. Owning a copy of something does, in fact, give you all the rights to that copy, so claiming it doesn’t is wrong.
Steam doeen't sell games to you, it gives you access to them in your account. Everyone hated them for it back when it first came out, twenty years ago, but it's kind of forgotten by anyone who isn't nestled deeply into the privacy/ownership/right to repair communities these days.
You can still lose access to your thousand game + account by simply updating your drivers regularly.
Oh you mean in the way the world should work. Sure, i'll agree with that.
But that's not how things actually are. Right now, you can completely lose access, and unless you're a lucky millionaire with a passion for fighting unjust laws and the luck of the gods, you can't do shit to bring that account back.
But that’s not how things actually are. Right now, you can completely lose access, and unless you’re a lucky millionaire with a passion for fighting unjust laws and the luck of the gods, you can’t do shit to bring that account back.
But even if you lose access to the Steam account, you still own your copy of the games. Valve doesn’t have the right to somehow force you to stop playing the games, assuming you still have your copy in your possession.
Remember, products (e.g. a copy of a game) and services (e.g. a Steam account itself) are two different things. I was never arguing that you owned a service, only that you own products.
Genuine question. My assumption here is that if they disable your account that you can no longer log into it to download those games. Accurate or inaccurate assumption? How does it actually work? I know I SHOULD be able to download them, but can I actually if they disable the account?
I haven’t seen a situation where they completely lock an account full of games, where the person who purchased those games can never access them again. The guy above is being overdramatic.
They CAN “VAC” ban your account, though. That does not deny you access to your account in any way, and will not prevent you from playing the games online or offline* as much as you want. The VAC part of the ban is that you cannot use any Valve run servers on games that use Valve to run their servers, like TF2, DOTA, Counterstrike, Left 4 Dead, etc.
You can still play the aforementioned games online, BUT after the ban you can only play on non-VAC secured servers (aka player servers that are more likely to have rampant cheating). The ban DOES NOT remove the game from your account, delete your account, block your access to the offline portion of the game unless, I suppose, the game has an always online element that uses VAC.
*One of the annoying DRM “features” of Steam is that you can play any of your games offline as long as you log in online at least (I think) once a week or so.
Well, that and all the games that instban you from playing if you have a vac ban on record, first example being various squad servers, and the software behind that.
Being banned from accessing services isn’t the same as being prohibited from using your property. You are still perfectly legally entitled to play your game single-player (for example) no matter how many VAC bans you get.
You have probably never ‘owned’ a computer game. Even when you had discs/cartridges you owned the disc/cartridge, but had a single license for the game.
That’s why it was technically allowed to copy the disk for your own use, but not to share - you only had one license.
Legally speaking, there is almost zero difference between a computer game disc/cartridge and a paper book. Are you so deluded as to argue that you don’t own your copies of books as well?
Let’s face it: the situation today is the way it is because some software industry shysters saw the opportunity to pull one over on the courts (with technology-illiterate judges who think “X on a computer” is somehow suddenly different than “X” because ⋆˙⟡ magic ⟡˙⋆) and took it.
Legally I think you own the book, but not it’s contents? So legally it would be the same? (The content is copyrighted so you can’t reproduce it etc)
The real difference is in usage, with a book, even an ebook, if you have it you effectively own it. They can’t stop you reading it.
Unfortunately with games nowerdays everything checks in with servers or is online only, so if the publisher or distributor say so, you lose access. The only way round that is cracked copies or DRM free games like on GoG.
Is the ownership of property in general not also just a “temporary monopoly privilege granted by Congress” or whatever the local legal authority is? If there were no laws protecting property rights, backed up by the power of some sort of government, those property rights would be meaningless.
No, it’s not. In stark and diametric contrast to copyright, ownership of actual property is a natural right.
Read the Constitution: copyright law has the express purpose “to promote the progress of science and the useful arts.” It is nothing more than a means to that end. And in particular, it is absolutely not, in any way whatsoever, some sort of entitlement for creators.
This came to be because people would hand discs to their friends who would then copy the disc and hand it back, resulting in widespread stealing of the game.
People don’t generally photocopy books to give to others
Copyright infringement and theft are not the same thing
Not exactly, but most people realize that there’s some significant overlap between the two and that distributing copies of works that you don’t have to right to is diluting something of value from the creators of those works.
the difference is as meaningful as the difference between murder and rape
I don’t know why you thought that comparison would help your stance here…I don’t know which one is murder and which one is rape, but neither one is okay.
No, this is mistaken. If a digital storefront sells their media in a DRM-free format, you receive the files in an unrestricted way, similar to if you bought a physical book, movie, or album.
Unrestricted is not to say given permission to copy and distribute as you’d like, but that’s the same as for physical media.
Okay sure, for DRM-free storefronts that’s true but I’m talking about arguing that Game Pass is somehow worse than say Steam when the reality is that you can lose all your content on both storefronts. Most aren’t DRM-free, which is the issue.
Steam’s DRM is optional for publishers at least, and many titles are DRM free. You also at least have access to the files so you can attempt to bypass it.
Fwiw I can see where you’re coming from, but I don’t really understand why/what for. Game Pass isn’t really comparable to Steam or a digital storefront anyway, which already makes the comparison kind of silly. That said, I recognize you were going off the other commenter’s framing in the argument there, so not faulting you for following along with it. I did just the same in my reply before giving it some more thought with this one.
Nevertheless, it is worse in terms of ownership, but that was never its selling point to begin with, so it’s silly to criticize it in that respect, much as it would be to criticize Netflix for not providing ownership of what it gives access to. Also regarding Steam DRM, xcjs covers that nicely in the other reply here.
I’ve saved literally thousands of dollars with gamepass. I couldn’t care less it’s a rental and you can still purchase should you want to waste money.
It’s less about corporate cock goblin and more about being able to do basic math, identify value, and not spend literal thousands of dollars sticking it to the man.
If you don’t see value in ownership, then yeah, you “saved” money. But that’s on you.
You’re also missing the part where they’re undercharging for the service in order to increase adoption, after which they will turn up the costs. So enjoy it while you can.
Sooo currently they are saving money playing multiple games that they most likely won’t replay in the future anyway.
Why the hostility if it’s a good deal for them? Just to own a game on the tiniest chance you’ll play it later? Or just rent till you find a game you like and will play multiple times, buy to own it and also play multiple other games on the pass.
Sure. Until everyone buying up the game results in $200 copies for a 5 hour game since there are no alternatives and everyone was enabling it by buying bad games.
Slippery slope is a fallacy for a reason. There is no evidence of rent only games comming anytime soon, it’s just doomsaying.
Yeah it is, you have no proof of the “rent only” future you are doomsaying about. Movies used to be mostly rented out, yet this hasn’t led to the “rent only” situation, quite the opposite.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof - you are the one claiming the “rent only” future is comming and that people should “just buy the game” instead of going for gamepass. I don’t have to debunk your insane claims, the burden of proof is on you.
You haven’t provided proof. You just repeated your claims and expected people to react differently this time. I’ll just stop replying to this thread if you don’t mind. I dislike arguing with people who don’t have anything sensible to say.
Movies used to be mostly rented out, yet this hasn’t led to the “rent only” situation, quite the opposite.
WAT? Is there some sort of massive increase in people buying blu-rays or something that I’m unaware of?
This has LITERALLY become our reality with movies. It’s not something far off in the future, it IS TODAY. Nobody buys movies or songs anymore, they have to pay for a SERVICE to listen to music, tv shows, and movies…
This sounds so slippery slope hypothetical, but this is exactly what Adobe did with Photoshop, Lightroom, and more, which shows that this is actually happening right now.
I don’t think Microsoft will do so, at least in the foreseeable future. One of their selling points to devs is that they’ll see their sales go up in addition to the GP revenue. There would be a lot of publishers who would pull out if they can’t sell their game and have it on GP.
They might do it for their own games, but even that could be a stretch. Starfield saw huge sales on both Xbox and PC in addition to those who are using GamePass.
Ohhhh scary imaginary future where valve, EA, Ubisoft, Nintendo, Sony, and the thousands of independent devs are forced to only stream in one platform 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Get real. Gaming is absurdly competitive with an absurdly low barrier to entry.
I remember a day when that list was 100x longer. Microsoft is currently in the process of trying to buy Nintendo, they’ve said so in court documents that have been uncovered.
So you’re just fine with corporate conglomeration where Microsoft turns into the publisher for all US games, kind of like Tencent in China…
You…linked me some advertising site that uses a stock image in order to try to sell you access to their data? …How dense… you know what, nevermind. You totally win! You got me! LOLOL
I don’t know why you think that’s funny. Guy gives you data, you just laugh and present zero counter-information. The video game publishing world seems to be booming:
The number of video game software publishing businesses in the United States has been increasing in the last decade, peaking at 28,052 businesses in 2023 after a dip between 2017 and 2020. In 2022, there will be an estimated 25 thousand U.S. video game software publishing businesses.
Microsoft is not in the process of trying to buy Nintendo. Did they discuss it? Yes, obviously, any company would be idiotic to not at least discuss things like opportunities from purchasing competitors, but I read the emails, at no point did they even sound like it was something they were “trying” to do.
As a matter of fact, and this is just conjecture from me, but to me it read it like, somebody not in the gaming space emailed Phil about wouldn’t it be great to buy Nintendo and Phil’s response to me read like someone who got a suggestion from a boss that’s a dumb suggestion, they know it’s a dumb suggestion, but they need to be courteous in their response by entertaining the idea.
If you don’t see value in ownership, then yeah, you “saved” money. But that’s on you.
There is little value in owning a game that you will never play again after the initial play-though, so if you get to play the game for less than it would have cost to buy, then yeah, money was “saved”. That’s why people are happy to pay for streaming services where they can watch content for significantly less money than if they went out and bought DVDs of all the movies/shows that they very likely will never watch again.
You’re also missing the part where they’re undercharging for the service in order to increase adoption, after which they will turn up the costs.
Do you really think people paying for Game Pass are unaware of the monthly cost?
I agree with you about game pass. Adobe is different though. With Game Pass you rent a whole library of software, and if you really just want to play one game you can outright buy it. With Adobe you are renting maybe a few apps, and if you only want one (like I do) you cannot pay outright for it.
Game Pass even gives you a discount if you pay for the title outright.
You already don’t own anything since PC games went digital, I pay the equivalent of 5 USD for gamepass in Brazil, while new games are reaching 80 dollars in price, I will sooner pirate everything than pay that full price.
Years ago I had been out of multiplayer gaming for a number of years and had really only had experiences with PC games, where multiplayer is/was just this standard thing. You already bought the game, playing multiplayer with other people is just a thing you can hop on and do whenever you want for free (provided there’s other people to play). I owned consoles, but never played multiplayer games on them, so never dealt with game passes or anything like that.
When my oldest son started getting into gaming, we wanted to play couch co-op on an Xbox game, but then ran into a problem with it requiring an Xbox game pass for a co-op mode (it had been couch co-op in previous games from the series; basically a horde mode where you go against bots, so no reason to go online). Requiring a game pass for that just seemed like a shit way to get more subscriptions.
When I complained about it on Reddit, people swarmed to tell me what a jackass I was and that of course you have to subscribe to play with game pass, like what kind of world was I living in where I expected free multiplayer gaming? Apparently I hadn’t realized what a golden age I had lived in when something like free multiplayer gaming was just a standard thing.
That’s been my experience as well, the dogpiling crap. I even had someone argue “How are businesses supposed to stay alive if they don’t charge monthly!” – and they couldn’t agree that the business could create new IP, or create new games, instead of sitting on the same game for 10+ years.
Apparently I hadn’t realized what a golden age I had lived in when something like free multiplayer gaming was just a standard thing
This was literally never a thing on consoles, so maybe that’s the issue?
Multiplayer gaming was and generally still is totally free on PC, but consoles don’t have the infrastructure to pull from and have charged since they launched the feature.
The issue there is that the game co-op always goes through their servers.
Games that don’t run their multiplayer that way don’t have this issue, but as multiplayer continues to transition to remote play rather than couch co-op it will likely continue to spread.
At E3 2002 Microsoft unveiled its plans to establish an online gaming service for the Xbox called Xbox Live. The membership fee was set at $49.99 a year, which is what it still costs today. Microsoft was adamant about getting users online quickly and easily
Dreamcast doesn’t really count as it was more of just a modem, and PS2 initially had no online capabilities. I still get wistful over what Dreamcast could have been.
Nevertheless, due to lack of widespread broadband adoption at the time, the Dreamcast shipped with only a dial-up modem while a later-released broadband adapter was neither widely supported nor widely available. Downloadable content was available, though limited in size due to the narrowband connection and the size limitations of a memory card.[23] The PlayStation 2 did not initially ship with built-in networking capabilities
I don’t remember basic multiplayer access was paid service for Xbox, but that maybe me confusing things with Playstation 3’s PSN not requiring it. Also, doesn’t count? Really? So if it doesn’t agree with you, it doesn’t count?
You mean there exist online game that doesn’t have any host at the end point? So games like Phatasy Star Online runs on magic? I’m genuinely asking here.
So if you connect with modem, it isn’t multiplayer? If you connect third-party servers, it isn’t multiplayer? Connection doesn’t care what hardware is present at end point - all it care is that it satisfies authentication then following byte stream is correctly formatted. The fact that it is console doesn’t magically make it require different kind of infrastructure from PC to begin with unless someone forces to.
So what is definition of console multiplayer for you anyway? It clearly seems to be not “A session of a game where multiple players are involved locally or via internet” based on what you are saying so far.
We’re discussing console play multiplayer, which generally involves things like signing into servers for matchmaking
The Dreamcast allowed point to point networking, which is radically different.
This isn’t some weird definition I made up, this is the context of the thread. I don’t know why it’s so important to you keep to flailing toward being right here but this is just a meaningless discussion at this point
I’m just baffled by someone insisting absurd definition to defend unnecessary enshittification while using all the technical terms and how they function incorrect.
Also, context of this particular thread started with initial comment that PC multiplayer is free, but Xbox online multiplayer (Not any other feature) - which is, identical in its technological basis and requirement - need payment. Then you simply asserted that such functionality was never free on consoles. I don’t remember original Xbox requiring me any payment to access XIII’s multiplayer mode, but memory is memory, so with no Xbox to test with, I will just accept that point was incorrect on my part.
Then you went off-track stating that method of connection to server or time of implementing technology makes it so that those doesn’t count as multiplayer on console. Followed by arguments that is not even possible to do.
If there is anything that I misunderstood from the context is that I just presumed that you were being careful with your claim. Upon reading again, I was indeed very wrong on that. PS3’s PSN and Nintendo exists. Consoles always had infrastructure to pull from, the very same infrastructure to PC multiplayer. Companies simply decided to charge more because they could.
That’s kind of a bad comparison…you’re continually paying Adobe for (generally) one program that you’re going to use every day for years. It would actually make sense to just pay a lump sum upfront and then again maybe a few years later for a newer version.
With Gamepass, you’re paying for access to many games, each of which you’re going to play for a relatively short time before moving on to another game. If you spend a lot of time gaming and enjoy novelty, it makes a lot of sense.