Game Dev/Pubs - taking the piss

[kano]

https://www.polygon.com/2018/8/11/17661254/bethesda-sell-used-games-amazon-block?utm_campaign=polygon&utm_content=chorus&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter

[Bikerdude]

Yep, Bethesda taking the f**king piss yet again.

 

To quote someone online -

Games that have been sold to people are not Bethesda's for them to decide how they may or may not be sold. They are exclusively the property of whoever has bought them. Bethesda holds as much authority over an incorrectly-described resale listing for one of their published games as they do over an incorrectly-described listing of a musical instrument or some camera.

I would like to see Zenimax try this shit in the UK...

Edited August 12, 2018 by Bikerdude

[Anderson]

Yep, Bethesda taking the f**king piss yet again.

 

To quote someone online -

I would like to see Zenimax try this shit in the UK...

 

 

https://www.polygon.com/2018/8/11/17661254/bethesda-sell-used-games-amazon-block?utm_campaign=polygon&utm_content=chorus&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter

 

The whole copyright Puritanism is just depressing when taken against the right to access information for people. But it's the whole Berne Convention system being outdated. Old, imperial, colonial mindset. If they took down Pirate Bay, they can do anything unless Pirate Parties start getting more votes somehow.

 

 

After all it's just publishers with people without a soul that do this occultism against common sense. The developers/actors people who really worked on the product get nothing out of this miserable greed of the aforementioned publishers.

Edited August 12, 2018 by Anderson

[chakkman]

Yep, Bethesda taking the f**king piss yet again.

 

To quote someone online -

 

That's already wrong on a base level. You don't own games. And they're not "exclusively your property". You own a license, and you're allowed for usage under the terms you agree to, when you bought the software.

 

If games would be "your property", you could do whatever the hell you want to do with them, e.g. change the source code, sell it under a different name, or crack the software. That is all not allowed. And, TBH, the reselling of software IS a problem the software industry faces. Already simply because that case wasn't thoroughly thought through, and noone used to sell software, back in the days. Nowadays, people even want to sell Steam games. My advice would be to think through every purchase you make, instead of making insta- or impulse buys. Then you won't, or you're unlikely to face the situation that you have to resell your stuff. Frankly, i think being to able to resell a software is a luxury, and, arguing about resales is a first world problem. There are much more important topics, and, i don't get the riot like mentality about such issues either. Especially when the people frequently making it a topic are a special breed, which will literally complain about anything. Especially when big companies are in play. Often seems more like a political issue to me.

[Bikerdude]

You don't own games. And they're not "exclusively your property". You own a license, and you're allowed for usage under the terms you agree to, when you bought the software.

The issue here is your/we are failing for the cool aid trap the industry is trying to get everyone to see as the way it should be, which sets a dangerous precedent.

 

Once upon a time not very long ago we didn't need a licence(as they are now) to play the game, nor have to be concerned about licencing servers/services, or wither said servers/services would be available so we could play a legitimately purchased game later down the road, or have arsehole publishers having the outright temerity to try and dictate terms on how and where we could sell our games once we were done with them.

 

As I understand it, the seller in this instance was selling an "UnOpened" game "As New" which he or she is perfectly entitled to do. The seller was not pretending to be or selling on behalf of Zenimax/Bethesda, so they had absolutely no f**king right telling the aforementioned person what they could or could not do period. The seller was fully within their rights to tell Zenimax/Bethesda to, as I like to tell them to "F**k right off" with their cease and desist bullshit.

Edited August 12, 2018 by Bikerdude

[chakkman]

Once upon a time not very long ago we didn't need a licence(as they are now) to play the game, nor have to be concerned about licencing servers/services, or wither said servers/services would be available so we could play a legitimately purchased game later down the road, or have arsehole publishers having the outright temerity to try and dictate terms on how and where we could sell our games once we were done with them.

 

You are wrong. You ALWAYS only owned the license to use the software, according to the license terms you agreed to. Again, if you actually owned the game, you could do whatever you like to with it. Change the code, crack the copy protection, or release it as your own game. It's not there to harm the poor customer, it is there to protect intellectual property.

 

Imagine you create a map, upload it somewhere, someone takes it, calls it his own, doesn't credit you in any way, and posts it here. I doubt you'd find that very awesome.

Edited August 12, 2018 by chakkman

[kano]

I can't speak for anyone other than myself, but fuck Bethesda. Not only did they ruin id, by ceasing to provide Linux ports of games, which is something that id always did until new management took over, but they're also pulling this. Will never support them, that's for sure.

[peter_spy]

While the code and software is different case, it's not like companies selling "real" goods aren't tying to exploit that tactic. Some time ago, I saw Bose license agreement, which explicitly stated that you can't resell products you bought in USA; only Bose authorized resellers can do that. IMO that kind of attitude is a good enough reason never to touch anything they make.

Edited August 13, 2018 by Judith

[Bikerdude]

While the code and software is different case, it's not like companies selling "real" goods aren't tying to exploit that tactic. Some time ago, I saw Bose license agreement, which explicitly stated that you can't resell products you bought in USA; only Bose authorized resellers can do that. IMO that kind of attitude is a good enough reason never to touch anything they make.

 

Exactly, companies are trying to abuse the licensing system beyond what it was ever originally intended for. And Zenimax are in effect trying to do exactly the above, which is why I said I like to see them try that shit over here in the UK.

[Anderson]

 

That's already wrong on a base level. You don't own games. And they're not "exclusively your property". You own a license, and you're allowed for usage under the terms you agree to, when you bought the software.

 

If games would be "your property", you could do whatever the hell you want to do with them, e.g. change the source code, sell it under a different name, or crack the software. That is all not allowed. And, TBH, the reselling of software IS a problem the software industry faces. Already simply because that case wasn't thoroughly thought through, and noone used to sell software, back in the days. Nowadays, people even want to sell Steam games. My advice would be to think through every purchase you make, instead of making insta- or impulse buys. Then you won't, or you're unlikely to face the situation that you have to resell your stuff. Frankly, i think being to able to resell a software is a luxury, and, arguing about resales is a first world problem. There are much more important topics, and, i don't get the riot like mentality about such issues either. Especially when the people frequently making it a topic are a special breed, which will literally complain about anything. Especially when big companies are in play. Often seems more like a political issue to me.

 

All that you write is true, however first world issues are only a matter of time before they become second and third world issues. Patents and intellectual property already causes issues with corruption making victims due to important medicine rendered inaccessible for poor countries except through Red Cross/United Nations humanitarian support packages (which often get stolen).

 

Same here - when you try to regulate people reselling you will end up with sold pirated copies anyway to uninformed people who could've just downloaded the thing off of Pirate Bay but they were too poor/silly to do it. But they will once they find out about it. So what's the point of fighting it? To get some fines in some great statistic and make it to the monthly plan for the police so that they can beat their chest with it?

 

Steam is an issue of itself because every account shouldn't exist if another person except yourself uses it! So, technically if you die, they should terminate the account. There is no clause for inheritance that I saw in the legal agreement that they have there. So that's depressing.

 

Just kindly want to point out that today this is a messed up system we end up with, created by stuck up rich aristocrats back from the 19'th century. Therefore all anger against this system is justified and very moral.

Edited August 14, 2018 by Anderson

[Anderson]

 

You are wrong. You ALWAYS only owned the license to use the software, according to the license terms you agreed to. Again, if you actually owned the game, you could do whatever you like to with it. Change the code, crack the copy protection, or release it as your own game. It's not there to harm the poor customer, it is there to protect intellectual property.

 

Imagine you create a map, upload it somewhere, someone takes it, calls it his own, doesn't credit you in any way, and posts it here. I doubt you'd find that very awesome.

 

But usually developers have better things to do than persecute peasants with the ban hammer of twisted justice.

 

It's always the publishers of movies/games that get tied up in this stand off. And it harms would-be-consumers who simply prefer to try things before buying them. Actually giving away the game/movie for free on torrent sites is a popularity move that won respect for some movie makers/game developers. Helps spread the news by word of mouth. What's the harm in that?

Edited August 14, 2018 by Anderson

[stumpy]

infocom games license used to say if you resold the game then you would be liable for a $50,000 fine or 1 year in prison plus you might get a $10,000 fine as well as the imprisonment. so if you think current game licenses are a bit harsh then really they are not.

[OrbWeaver]

That's already wrong on a base level. You don't own games. And they're not "exclusively your property". You own a license

 

You don't own the music on a CD either, yet nobody (outside the recording industry, perhaps) suggests that you should automatically forfeit the right to buy and sell used CDs just because you only have a "license", not full ownership of the IP.

 

Games are of course slightly more complicated because they often have online aspects which makes resale difficult, but the issue is not as simple as "nobody should have the right to resell anything if they don't own the IP".

 

Frankly, i think being to able to resell a software is a luxury, and, arguing about resales is a first world problem. There are much more important topics, and, i don't get the riot like mentality about such issues either.

 

Literally everything related to video games is a "first world problem" by definition (there are no starving Africans complaining about video games), and there are always "more important" topics than almost any topic that you can think of, so this is a total non-argument. It's more of a thought-terminating cliche: "I don't care about X, so why don't the people who complain about X just grow up and start caring about the things I consider more important!".

 

Personally I don't care about reselling games, since I'm pretty much comfortable with the whole Steam thing and find the benefits of online delivery outweigh the minor drawback of not being able to resell a physical game. But I'm aware that it introduces a single point of failure (or control), and don't have a problem with the fact that some people dislike the loss of personal freedoms that results from essentially "buying" an account on someone else's server that can be disabled or withdrawn at any time.

[OrbWeaver]

infocom games license used to say if you resold the game then you would be liable for a $50,000 fine or 1 year in prison plus you might get a $10,000 fine as well as the imprisonment. so if you think current game licenses are a bit harsh then really they are not.

 

It is impossible for a software license to invent legally-enforceable penalties such as large fines or imprisonment. Only laws can do that.

 

Either you're misremembering what it said, or the license is just describing what a particular law (in a particular country) states as the penalties for certain types of large-scale commercial copyright infringement, which are unlikely to apply to an individual reselling a game (but might apply to a commercial company who built a business model on doing so).