Poll of the Day > Where is the "None, buying digital games is dumb" option in the poll?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Just bought GTAV DIGITALLY on sale!
---

Blaqthourne posted...

Since they're handy, I just looked through the manuals for Persona 3 Portable (PSP) and Star Wars Arcade (32X) and failed to find any license agreement in either. Please post this license agreement that apparently can be found in all physical releases for any Atari 2600, 5200, 7800, NES, SMS, SNES, Genesis, Sega CD, TG-16, Saturn, PS, N64, etc. game that you are referring to.

http://www.sega.com/EULA
https://www.take2games.com/eula/

Two examples, both opening with a clear "this is licensed, not sold." It's mostly modern games that make such claims, since the mechanisms by which the publishers can do anything about them are relatively new. Now, are those enforceable? That's another question, especially where they tend to be hidden behind the point of sale or otherwise not made clear to the customer before the publisher already has your money. That makes it hard to actually paint it as being a legitimate contract, meaning it probably wouldn't hold up in court, but that's still what the publishers push for.

Dr_Kain posted...

No they can't. Even if they could, if you disconnect your machine from the internet, problem solved.

Which wouldn't revert any patches that were downloaded to your system to lock you out of playing the game, plus it would prevent you from ever taking advantage of any features that require an Internet connection, including patches, downloadable content, and multiplayer. It'd work, provided you saw the license revocation coming, but you'd be pretty limited.
---

adjl posted...

Which wouldn't revert any patches that were downloaded to your system to lock you out of playing the game, plus it would prevent you from ever taking advantage of any features that require an Internet connection, including patches, downloadable content, and multiplayer. It'd work, provided you saw the license revocation coming, but you'd be pretty limited.

This never has happened anyway so it's a moot point. Not counting games where multiplayer servers are shut down.
---

Revelation34 posted...

This never has happened anyway so it's a moot point.

Hasn't happened =/= Can't/Won't happen

It also hasn't happened that a digital platform has revoked access to all of somebody's games for no reason, so it looks like that point's equally moot.
---

adjl posted...

Now, are those enforceable?

Ah, and that's the important thing. You can say anything you want in them, but if they aren't enforcable, that basically means they aren't actually true.
---