- cross-posted to:
- gaming@lemmy.ml
- cross-posted to:
- gaming@lemmy.ml
Ubisoft has updated its End User License Agreement, and it’s instructing its users to remove and destroy their games completely should the title be taken offline.
Essentially, the EULA has given Ubisoft free rein on its ability to stop supporting a game, writing: “You and Ubisoft may terminate this EULA at any time, for any reason. Termination by Ubisoft will be effective upon notice to you or termination of your Ubisoft account, or at the time of Ubisoft’s decision to discontinue offering and/or supporting the Product.”
Interestingly, this isn’t the only company that has the same terms in its EULA. The likes of Capcom, Sega, and even the Oblivion Remaster have the same clause in their terms and conditions, meaning the stipulation isn’t unique to Ubisoft.
Where does this say you keep your games? Steam can revoke access to your account, and if they do, you lose your games and receive no refunds.
STEAM SUBSCRIBER AGREEMENT
You lose the license to use steam services to continue to download them. They still say if Steam goes under the games you own are still yours.
Where does it say you own your games?
Where does it say Steam content or services are the games themselves?
It’s in the quoted text: “Including third-party games”. I’ll bold it.
Every time Valve has brought it up before, it’s been in interviews where they have mentioned they have contingency plans to make your library available somehow if they ever have to close up shop. Though, originally Steam had a way of creating physical backups in the program itself. If it still does, it’s been moved somewhere in the UI I don’t know about. But you may not need it anyway, because back then games were stored in their own proprietary containers (GFC files). These days, it’s the same structure as any other installation and you can often just copy that to something and not even need cracks for it to run.
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.
What’s attempted to be singled out isn’t the “we can terminate your access at any time.” They are claiming that Ubisoft’s suggests you need to destroy the copies you already have if they stop supporting it.
Though it doesn’t even look like that is actually the case looking at the very clause the article is quoting. It’s the standard “we can revoke your ability to download this thing at any time” shit. Where the fuck does it suggest users have to destroy their copies?
Fucking modern “journalism…” 😑
But it is in Larian’s EULA
And in Phasmophobia’s EULA
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?
Ubisoft is generally shit all around so maybe it’s just bias. Or maybe they do have such a clause in something, they just didn’t quote the actual relevant bits in this article.
It’s pretty common to say “hey we can turn this off at any time and you will not be entitled to a refund and won’t be able to access anything via our online services” but this “hey if we decide to shut down the online services, you need to delete everything related to it you have on your device too” is new. And even more consumer hostile.
If Larian goes belly up, they can suck my left nut if they think I am gonna delete BG3 off my hard-drive.
It’s in Ubisoft’s EULA as well
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?
You probably could. Buy game, download game, make backup of game, refund game, maybe crack the game you now have backed up, play game basically for free. But it’s just piracy with extra steps. And if you do it enough, they probably will ban your account from even making purchases.