KingT33
LWO, Raider Nation, Univ of South Central Trojans
Never thought of this.Link
Microsoft hasn't 'stolen' your games from you. And here's why. | T3
The reality is, in order for Microsoft and most likely Sony too to "kill game ownership", we would have had to owned the games in the first place.
Only for the last two decades at least, we haven't.
The first point is nothing new despite what a vocal minority of gamers and some quarters of the media would have you believe.
Open up any game from the last 20 years and you'll see a little white slip. It's usually the one that on one side has warning about epilepsy and on the other the game's controls.
On the inside though is the legal bit that evidently nobody reads.
I picked one title up at random from my collection. It just happened to be Call of Duty: Black Ops 2.
The point is, take a look at that white slip of paper that comes with the game and it will say exactly the same as this; it might just be phrased differently.
PRODUCT LICENSE AGREEMENT
IMPORTANT - PLEASE READ CAREFULLY: Use of this product is subject to the software license terms set forth below. "Product" includes the software included with this agreement...
LIMITED USE LICENSE. Activision grants you the non-exclusive, non-transferable, limited right and license to use one copy of this Product solely and exclusively for your personal use...This Product is licensed, not sold. Your license confers no title or ownership in the Product and should not be contrused as a sale of any rights in this Product.
...
YOU SHALL NOT:
Sell, rent, lease, license, distribute or otherwise transfer this Product, or any copies of this Product, without the express prior written consent of Activision.
...
So as you can see, we gamers don't own the game. We don't own the software. We merely pay our money to procure one licence of the game a licence we agree by using the software we have no right to resell or lend. And we have for the last 20 or so years.
All Microsoft's system is doing is simply giving publishers a way to enforce the terms of the licence agreements we've been agreeing to for at least two decades.
This isn't new. It's been happening in the software industry in general for years and no one kicks up a fuss.
Some gamers have pointed to the court case between Oracle and UsedSoft as a legal precedent of why Microsoft will eventually have to back down.
Only they're wrong. They're reading it in a way that backs up their own position, rather than from a neutral position as a judge would.
That court case found that Oracle a maker of high-end business hardware and software could not prevent the resale of used software.
EU law stipulates that the sale of "used" software is permissible in the European Union.
The fact is, Microsoft is not preventing the sale of used games. At no point, has Microsoft explicitly said it is blocking the sale and purchase of "used" games. Even the point about publishers deciding whether games can be traded in will be mute in the UK because of the way laws work in the EU. They will legally have to allow games to be resold.
The reality is the Xbox One is the first time gamers will not be breaking the End User Licence Agreement (EULA) when selling on their used games.
By playing a title, the gamer agrees to the terms of the EULA. There are no if, buts, or maybes. You want to play the game? You agree to be bound by it. You don't want to agree? Then don't play the game. There's nothing overly draconian about that. You want to drive a car in the UK? You have to pass your test first. You have to agree to drive under the speed limit, or you are punished. And so on...
Indeed, the Xbox One complies with the EU ruling down to the letter. The online requirement could even be a result of the EU's ruling that the original owner must render the original copy of the software that has been resold "unusable".
The simple fact is yes. Things have changed, but not in the way that a vocal minority would have you believe.
Want proof? Let's go back to the earlier summary of last night's announcement:
"In addition, ten people can be authorised to play the copy of that game via the cloud, but not at the same time. Think of how iTunes' authorised devices work."
The reality is whether you like it or not previously you were breaking the contract between you and the publisher if you lent or sold your game to a friend.
Now, you have a legal recourse to 'lend' the game to up to ten friends. The requirement that no more than one copy can be played at a time is no different to you lending the disk out in the past it isn't like you would have been able to continue playing on it while your friend had it.
In other words, Microsoft and most likely Sony too hasn't taken our games away from us.
We never owned them in the first place.
