California law to force digital storefronts to say people aren't buying games there, only the license to play them.

[ToTTenTranz]

If you're paying 80 euro or even 40-50 Ina sale... That should always be owned by you. Nobody should ever be able to take it away.

The language needs to make it clear, so I agree with the principles.

PSN and Xbox's terms are much more aggressive and asinine than Steam's, though.

In the instance of you saying the wrong thing in a group chat or forum, during in-game chat or even a comment in the official blog (i.e. getting a ban from community guidelines):

On Steam, you can have your account banned and still access your games and buy new ones. You only lose access to community features.
On Xbox and PSN, Sony and Microsoft say fuck you and your money and your games because you just lose access to everything.
On the Xbox you can still access your previously downloaded single player games so I guess if you have all your games backed up on an external drive you can still play them forever.

Can I have a link? Is this an actual law or just a bill or referendum (most of which fail?)

It has passed already.

AB 2426: Consumer protection: false advertising: digital goods. | Digital Democracy

Digital Democracy overview of bill AB 2426: Consumer protection: false advertising: digital goods.

digitaldemocracy.calmatters.org

What's the difference? Even buying physical it's a license.

People are acting like something changed. How gullible.

Even banned devices (e.g. tampered with piracy chips, etc.) are allowed to play physical games. Microsoft and Sony can't do shit to you if you only use physical single-player games. They can't remote kill consoles.

The gullibles are the ones believing it's the same thing between paying for owning a disc with the game and paying the same amount for the license to play a game as long as Microsoft and Sony let you.
The difference is actually huge in what concerns your right to play the game.

 

[On Demand]

Good. Digital is a poor distribution method and it should be known.

 

[TrishaCat]

 

[ToTTenTranz]

Good. Digital is a poor distribution method and it should be known.

They're poor because Sony and Microsoft swept predatory and authoritarian terms of service without proper coverage from access media (because they're corrupt sellouts).

All they have to do is get community managers that behave like reddit admins who do permabans for stuff like "men aren't women", and a lot of people will lose access to all their games.

They can even get as predatory as they want, like banning accounts who are critical of their games within their communities. They can call "harassment" to anything they want, really.

 

[Alabtrosmyster]

I can't say I fault that kind of change, people will get them anyway, but at least even those who aren't tech savvy will know what they are getting into.

(yes, they will all close at some point, and it means you will lose access to all your games, be it on PS, xbox, Steam or Epic).

Same for iPhone and Android.

 

[ToTTenTranz]

I can't say I fault that kind of change, people will get them anyway, but at least even those who aren't tech savvy will know what they are getting into.

(yes, they will all close at some point, and it means you will lose access to all your games, be it on PS, xbox, Steam or Epic).

Same for iPhone and Android.

On Android and PC you can always find official or unofficial ways to sideload the games through an offline installer that you keep in internal or external storage.

On consoles you have no such way. Which is why their alternative for preservation is either discs or cartridges.

 

[Alabtrosmyster]

On Android and PC you can always find official or unofficial ways to sideload the games through an offline installer that you keep in internal or external storage.

On consoles you have no such way. Which is why their alternative for preservation is either discs or cartridges.

Preservation is a big problem with the digital age, we have tablets from the Egyptians, the Sumerians and other antique civilizations, nothing will survive of our age.

Try to get anything working on a first gen iPad or iPhone.

Now fast forward 100 years from now, assuming you find an old device... Where will the knowledge be to even run any software on it (turn on a Commodore 64 emulator and try to figure it out)? At this point in time we still have people alive who know how these old machines were operated, what the character maps were, how sound and images were generated (if you want to make a PC interpreter to read files).

It will be much harder to get information on the current period in a not so distand future.

Also, all online information can be modified, even the internet archive is modified from time to time.

Games are the least of my concerns when it comes to preservation, we have emulators, even for the newer consoles (PS4 and xbone are coming along).... Like on other platforms, you can DL pirate copies of the games.

 

[Ghaleon]

Good start.. though i fear that without any other action this will just make it easier for big business and market forces to normalize the concept in a negative way. This should be moved forward with a legal extension of digital ownership rights. Of course until we do something about current extraordinary criminal law protections granted to DRM, not much can be done with digital or physical rights.

 

[Yurinka]

I think it's fair to demand the stores to don't use the word 'buy' or 'purchase' if you aren't really buying the stuff, and to inform better that what you are buying is a license that they can destroy and not the game itself.

This would help customers be more aware about it. And since pretty likely may cause a big controversy or debate, maybe -even I think won't happen- the stores change their policies at least letting you to continue having access to what you purchased even if retired from the store, if the game servers are down or if your account gets banned.

In any case, somewhere in the future these storefronts will shut down, so we'll lose our content there. I think they should make a law there before shutting down they should at least try to sell their storefront and database to someone in the competition who would integrade store these libraries and catalogs in other storefront.

 

[Boswollox]

If buying isn't ownership, privacy isn't stealing. You will own nothing and be happy.
At least they're (forced to be) honest about it