It should be called renting (or something similar). But then, that would likely mean an expectation of a lower price tag and they wouldnât want that. Who would rent a game for $80? Even if the rental is a decade or longer. Probably people out there that would and currently do this.
I would agree, but most leases have stipulations that restrict voiding the contract "at any moment". You have to do something to violate the lease agreement most times so this is even worse than renting.
But then, that would likely mean an expectation of a lower price tag and they wouldnât want that.
In other words, they want to commit fraud with impunity. Because that's what lying about the difference between a sale and a rental is: fraud on Sony's part.
It should just be called License. Put that there instead of the buy button. And clearly visible the minimum expiration date for the license. Reserve the buy button for actual perpetual licenses where not having access to the licensed good is a breach of contract good for money back.
Licenses are a copyright concept, but this isn't a copyright issue. You're buying a copy of a game, and you should own the copy after the purchase (which of course, means the company who sold it to you shouldn't be able to revoke your access at will). That's the part that sony is apparently not willing to do. But copyright-wise, it would be a license either way, so I don't think it's a good idea to confuse people with only tangentially related concepts here.
No, that's just the implementation you're most familiar with. Licenses are a copyright idea that IT adopted and made digital. Every physical movie and game you own also comes with a license that authorizes your retail use of it, but forbids your commercial use of it. You can't rent your copy of Shrek out to people, nor can you charge admission to people to watch Shrek at your house, nor are you allowed to make copies of your Shrek DVD and sell them, for example.
Care to back that up? You wouldn't need a license to do something that copyright laws already allow you to do on their own. For example, making additional copies for your own personal use is perfectly legal, if allowed depends on your local fair use or private copying exemption law (provided you do it without circumventing DRM, e.g. via the analog hole), even though of course the movie studio wouldn't give you a license for that.
Of course, DRM is the real issue here, as due to anti-circumvention the movie industry controls who can legally make players for movies on DVD/Blu-Ray (unlike on VHS and CD).
I don't really see what that has to do with what I said? Unless you are saying that licenses exist for other things than copyright (in response to âlicenses are a copyright conceptâ). That's definitely true, I oversimplified to make my point, but I'm also pretty sure that copyright licenses are the only kind of license that are relevant here in the first place.
Sadly, catchy slogans don't hold up in court. Better to buy from distributors who don't try to make that claim, like GOG - even if they won't put Nine Sols on the store to avoid offending many gamers.
I've heard the argument that if you aren't pirating via torrent but simply downloading a file (no seeding), there really aren't any damages that can be claimed aside from the price of the thing you've pirated, hence completely not worth any action. The danger is if you're uploading stuff you can be on the hook based on the number of downloads of that file.
No idea if that's true, though it sounds reasonable. Thankfully, I'm in a country that could not give less of a shit about piracy... one of the few upsides here lol.
I worked for the major streaming company when the service was launched in Japan. Sony (among others) said that streaming would never take off in Japan because Japanese consumers are too tied to physical media. This was probably 2014. It's probably been the slowest place in the world to change, but it has changed. Sony understands the consumer preference for digital media as well as anyone. They just know that resistance and opposition will fade over time.
They are a fairly adaptable company (as Japanese tech companies go), and if they get it wrong, they will pivot, but there is nothing pro-consumer about the company. They didn't put Blu-ray players in PS3s because it was good for consumers, they did it because it was good for Sony's entertainment business. And people often forget that part of the Blu-ray spec was mandatory internet connectivity so that the content licensor could revoke content licenses. We haven't "owned" physical media since DVDs.
This is the company that brought you Memory Stick after all. They've been anti-consumer ever since the Walkman was a huge success. It benefits Sony by making people buy more copies of the same thing. You might not buy any, but if the optimization is right, enough people will.
in the short term? It doesnt benefit them at all. it may actually hurt them.
in the long term? Bandwidth is cheap. especially at the scale that companies like Sony, Steam, Microsoft, etc, use it. So sell 6 million copies of a game, 10 extra bucks of profit thanks to no physical media/boxes/shipping/etc, per game.. Thats 60 million dollars in free money.
Plus, because you no longer own anything, they no longer have to invest in storage to keep old games up and running. So as new games release, they delete old games from their servers and from your accounts, So thats less investment they have to make in infrastructure, which is again more free money for them.
I wager Sony would love the day when people pay 100 dollars for a game that gets deleted in 6 months, that they have to rebuy again at full price to play again.
Cause remember, with no physical media, you have nothing but sony's closed garden marketplace to buy games.. Which means no competition for sony, which means no incentive for sales, no lower prices (not that 70+ dollars is a low price for a game đ ), no nothing but take what sony offers you, and liking it.
I wager Sony would love the day when people pay 100 dollars for a game that gets deleted in 6 months, that they have to rebuy again at full price to play again.
Oh, you wanted to play [AAA game]? Too bad, it's shut down and gone. But you can buy the almost-identical sequel [AAA game 2] for just $90!
You are just a guy. There are millions more that will not care and won't even know any of this ever took place. There were leaked conversations where Sony talked about their fanbase as brainless cattle, too.
because they HAVE to have the latest shiny, because their self worth is so low and non existent the only measure of worth they have is owning the next shiny.
some consumers... maybe even most. Certainly not all.
I'm actually grateful for the enshittification of the main stream. It's an excellent incentive to carve your own path, in some small way. Hopefully that spills over to other aspects of people's lives.
"Fuck you, I won't do what you told me" is a wonderful fuel.
gamers on the whole moan and groan and whine and bitch about every misdead, but the second the new shiny comes out they are out there en-masse rewarding these companies with billions and billions and billions of dollars (a great example will be GTA6, which I almost guarantee will bring in at least 2 billion dollars within its first week)
and as long as the idiot masses keep doing that, we have no recourse and no hope.
You're not wrong... but "othering" people is no way to lift them out of the muck. Causes classic back fire effect. I say present the alternative case clearly and succinctly. If still finger in ears well, wish them luck and go separate ways.
I'm purely pulling this firmly out of my ass. While I genuinely doubt they have any intention or plans at this point, I assume being able to tell investors "oh we can pull the plug and walk away from these legacy costs at any time" is a plus in someone's column somewhere. Of course the issue is that what is possible to save money often becomes reality.
Exactly. Games are a luxury good that need to thread a very fine needle.
With roughly 50yrs of back catalog to choose from, free game dev tools and engines and other distractors, that $250 game would have to be an epoc defining master piece or have true AGI baked in to get my attention.
Itâs a bolder than usual move for Sony to announce the end of physical media prior to a new console launch, and launch this âyou donât own the digital games you buyâ campaign at the same time.
The usual easy strategy is first you end physical media sales, let people be content with the idea that they own their digital games at least so that the only thing people think about is the convenience of digital, then after you launch your new console, get everybody locked in, thatâs when you launch the âOh you donât own these digital games btwâ campaign.
The fact that theyâre just doing all of this at the same time means they know they wonât lose any money over it because weâre sheep and the consumer just doesnât care anymore
I don't need to read the article to know that they're making the same argument as Amazon and Apple. When you "buy" a show on one of the streaming platforms, you aren't actually buying anything except an extended rental.
Not quite true anymore, publishers have pretty much given up on DRM for purchased music :)
Neither Apple's iTunes store nor amazon's store (although to be fair, I haven't used amazon, so I'm not 100 % sure about them) use DRM on purchased music, so you can just take the music files and use them in any way you want.
In my personal opinion though, rather than use the iTunes store or amazon, I'd recommend you to try the qobuz store, which is DRM-free and is the only one I know of (ignoring bandcamp, which doesn't get music from regular distributors) that provides lossless audio.
MP3 is a horrible non-free (well, not anymore, because the patents expired; but still), outdated format. bandcamp also lets you download as FLAC, which is none of that and lossless.
edit: it feels this comment came off a bit aggressively, so I just wanted to say that wasn't my intention đ
HDtracs also sells some stuff losslessly. Though one thing I've noticed I've noticed on both Qobuz and HDtracs is tha, in addition to only having some stuff losslessly, the availability of lossless varies by region. The same album might be sold lossless in one region and only lossy in another region.
Didn't know about them before, thanks for sharing!
The same album might be sold lossless in one region and only lossy in another region.
That's weird, since as far as I can tell, qobuz doesn't offer lossy downloads at all (I've heard they used to, but stopped. Maybe there are some regions where they're still offering it?)
Hmm, maybe I was misremembering. On second thought I think it was actually 7digital I was thinking of that did the regional lossless, I forgot about that one. For example, the same album on Swedish and American stores:
This led to a lot of good discussion around various places to buy digital music. My comment wasn't so much drm focused as it was about licenses being removed. I've encountered that on Qobuz actually. Not many, but a few items are no longer available to be downloaded. I have already downloaded the files when I purchased the music, so that's certainly something different than a movie or game that can't be downloaded and used as such. That's all, just the fact that the license can still be removed.
But yeah, that's definitely a problem. I remember them sending the email where they announced this could happen now (although weirdly enough, they never sent an email for when purchased items were taken down any time after that again), and had it happen a few times as well. Luckily, I've also saved everything locally, so I haven't lost anything. Still annoying. Also sometimes, an album that's suddenly gone just seems to reappear a few months later, as if they were just reorganizing their library, but really, I have no idea what's going on.
Imagine how well digital games would sell if they showed up in your cart like:
1 x Revokable License for God of War $69
See Terms and Conditions*
[Confirm Payment]
Terms: we will do whatever the fuck we want. Conditions: whenever we want.
There's a reason they say "Buy" instead of "Pay".
It's been going on for generations, but it's no less dishonest for all that.
Software sellers write complex EULAs for which the only valid answer is "Agree" because the store won't take an open box back and the software won't install unless we pretend to agree, so even us legitimate software enjoyers are pirates in our hearts. Meanwhile normies don't even think about it that much. Fuck this whole system, but double fuck an online service that says "purchase" but will steal it back later. Fuck that.
With how shitty the owning and freedom situation on consoles is already, this really doesn't change much. People who are still using consoles just don't give any fucks. They happily swallowed the PSN subscription. They will happily swallow the next toad too.
Don't go there, I see a "buy license" button in our future. Right now, nothing but the string of text has to change. They have been changing what really matters, the crazy infrastructure behind that prevents downloading, and allows erasing, the content we have bought.
at this point, i have quite bleak view on anyone buying anything from sony. those people are effectively supporting this shit, which may spread elsewhere.
Frankly my dear, I donât give a damn. Linux PCs will run the vast majority of games and the handful of exclusives that donât run yet will run on an emulator at some point.
Unfortunately there are still people that will have no idea that this happened, like older people, young people telling their parents to buy them the game etc. etc. Point is that this will never hurt gamings economy not even by a small margin.
I think in terms of the subscriber access to Xbox GamePass or PlayStation Plus, this is valid. But not for game purchases.
The store purchases have always been about buying a game. If I go to Amazon and buy a thing, it gets shipped to my house and I own it - the experience of adding an item to a cart, viewing the cart, and checking out are the same across game stores, for online and brick and mortar, whether digital and physical goods are being purchased.
If I don't own the item I am buying on the PlayStation store, why the hell am I paying a premium for it? I thought it was because I will always be able to play that game without having to worry about the disc getting scratched and in both cases I would own the item.
If you buy a CD with software and it gets shipped to your house, you own the disc, not the software. It's always been this way, we are just now living in a world where the technology exists to take the software away from you after you paid.
Sony has trained me to pay my subscription fee and be extremely skeptical about âbuyingâ any games, no matter how deeply discounted they are. I donât play much on PC but I have no qualms buying a game on Steam.
Hopefully their inquiry will lead to more clear definitions in market places. It could lead to having indefinite leases. For example you will see a button that says lease and below it there will be a time period which would be indefinite. I think that would be a fair portrayal purchase agreements.
Nothing new. This is the same bullshit legal framework that underpins the entire software industry and extends back to the mid 90s. It's just front-and-center in games now because the industry has transitioned from a growth industry to a mature one wherein producers need to extract more revenue per user and predictably enshittify their platforms to do so.
I've basically decided that I will not buy any game that I cannot play offline. If I do a buy game, I will also pirate it to ensure continued access. If I can't pirate it, I won't buy it.
What even is the point in video games anymore. Many are super locked down, they die after 6 months, they spend 6 years building something and release it so buggy and broken that itâs hard to call it anything but garbage.
At this point, support your local board game store. They at least let you purchase a product.
unless it is layed out plain in their TOS it aint gonna live long. if they place a revision of the TOS to reflect that, then john q public is thoroughly screwed
@unglueclass23 Man, I really dislike how console gaming has changed... and it's even worse that PSN is going to be the only place to buy PlayStation games.
116 Comments
Zwuzelmaus@feddit.org · 193 pts · 19h
If it is that, then it may not be called a purchase. Simple.
betterdeadthanreddit@lemmy.world · 128 pts · 18h
Turns out I was granting limited access to my money that can be revoked at any moment.
arules@retrofed.com · 0 pts · 8h
threadiverse is about to learn what tickets aređ€Šââïž
n7gifmdn@lemmy.ca · 1 pts · 4h
Please don't cake it the threadaverse
EliteCloneMike@lemmy.zip · 71 pts · 18h
It should be called renting (or something similar). But then, that would likely mean an expectation of a lower price tag and they wouldnât want that. Who would rent a game for $80? Even if the rental is a decade or longer. Probably people out there that would and currently do this.
Sickday@kbin.earth · 53 pts · 18h
I would agree, but most leases have stipulations that restrict voiding the contract "at any moment". You have to do something to violate the lease agreement most times so this is even worse than renting.
grue@lemmy.world · 26 pts · 16h
In other words, they want to commit fraud with impunity. Because that's what lying about the difference between a sale and a rental is: fraud on Sony's part.
Flower@sh.itjust.works · 20 pts · 18h
It should just be called License. Put that there instead of the buy button. And clearly visible the minimum expiration date for the license. Reserve the buy button for actual perpetual licenses where not having access to the licensed good is a breach of contract good for money back.
mschae@discuss.mschae23.de · 17 pts · 17h
Licenses are a copyright concept, but this isn't a copyright issue. You're buying a copy of a game, and you should own the copy after the purchase (which of course, means the company who sold it to you shouldn't be able to revoke your access at will). That's the part that sony is apparently not willing to do. But copyright-wise, it would be a license either way, so I don't think it's a good idea to confuse people with only tangentially related concepts here.
thisbenzingring@lemmy.today · 8 pts · 17h
licenses are a very IT central idea.
I have to buy licenses of Windows, Acrobat, etc.... It lines up with what Sony is trying to say too
gastroglizzy@piefed.social · 10 pts · 17h
No, that's just the implementation you're most familiar with. Licenses are a copyright idea that IT adopted and made digital. Every physical movie and game you own also comes with a license that authorizes your retail use of it, but forbids your commercial use of it. You can't rent your copy of Shrek out to people, nor can you charge admission to people to watch Shrek at your house, nor are you allowed to make copies of your Shrek DVD and sell them, for example.
LaggyKar@programming.dev · 4 pts · 12h
Care to back that up? You wouldn't need a license to do something that copyright laws already allow you to do on their own. For example, making additional copies for your own personal use is perfectly legal, if allowed depends on your local fair use or private copying exemption law (provided you do it without circumventing DRM, e.g. via the analog hole), even though of course the movie studio wouldn't give you a license for that.
Of course, DRM is the real issue here, as due to anti-circumvention the movie industry controls who can legally make players for movies on DVD/Blu-Ray (unlike on VHS and CD).
That's literally how Netflix got started.
atomicbocks@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 14h
Yeah⊠I donât think you are right about thatâŠ
mschae@discuss.mschae23.de · 1 pts · 14h
I don't really see what that has to do with what I said? Unless you are saying that licenses exist for other things than copyright (in response to âlicenses are a copyright conceptâ). That's definitely true, I oversimplified to make my point, but I'm also pretty sure that copyright licenses are the only kind of license that are relevant here in the first place.
atomicbocks@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 14h
Copyrights are a type of license not the other way around.
mschae@discuss.mschae23.de · 1 pts · 14h
Copyrights are rights. A license grants others (parts of) that right. A copyright isn't a license.
gastroglizzy@piefed.social · 3 pts · 17h
Physical media also comes with a license.
thenoirwolfess@fedinsfw.app · 2 pts · 8h
Silly consumer. The subscription is for the software's lifetime, not yours.
EliteCloneMike@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 5h
đ€Ł Well Iâm a vampire so jokes on them.
Malica@lemmy.zip · 3 pts · 12h
Rent. It's rent.
micgerne@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 157 pts · 18h
if buying isn't owning, piracy isn't stealing.
Kaligalis@lemmy.world · 41 pts · 15h
Piracy isn't stealing either way. It's just copyright infringement.
TheObviousSolution@thebrainbin.org · 28 pts · 17h
Sadly, catchy slogans don't hold up in court. Better to buy from distributors who don't try to make that claim, like GOG - even if they won't put Nine Sols on the store to avoid offending many gamers.
qarbone@lemmy.world · 33 pts · 16h
Idk, OJ floated by on his.
MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip · 12 pts · 17h
No crime where's no judge.
huey_m@piefed.social · 6 pts · 16h
I've heard the argument that if you aren't pirating via torrent but simply downloading a file (no seeding), there really aren't any damages that can be claimed aside from the price of the thing you've pirated, hence completely not worth any action. The danger is if you're uploading stuff you can be on the hook based on the number of downloads of that file.
No idea if that's true, though it sounds reasonable. Thankfully, I'm in a country that could not give less of a shit about piracy... one of the few upsides here lol.
chunes@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 12h
There's a technical aspect to it too. Downloading over HTTPS covers your butt in a way that you need a good VPN for if torrenting.
AHemlocksLie@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 13h
I think that's largely true in the US, at least.
tf1@sopuli.xyz · -2 pts · 16h
we don't need to resolt to piracy just to have our digital ownership
mrgoosmoos@lemmy.ca · 12 pts · 14h
no, but it's morally acceptable to pirate things released by hostile corporations
tf1@sopuli.xyz · 1 pts · 8h
I suppose, but I don't think that piracy is the true answer, and we should instead be fighting more for digital independence instead of piracy
danielfm123@lemmy.zip · 80 pts · 17h
If I don't own, I won't buy. Good luck.
Already lost my PS4 collection for not logging in 3 years.
kaitco@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 15h
Weâre going to need the full story here. What the heck man?? They just delete you if youâre offline for a couple years?
lemmyng@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 16h
Wait, seriously?! Damn, that sucks. What kept you off PSN for three years?
Holytimes@sh.itjust.works · 36 pts · 14h
The fact you even have to ask that is fucking wild. It shouldn't matter in the first fucking place.
usualsuspect191@lemmy.ca · 8 pts · 13h
I think they're just curious, not implying it makes a difference
abfarid@startrek.website · 1 pts · 14h
How? I didn't use it for years and it's fine.
AviAdi@lemmy.world · 55 pts · 18h
đ¶đ¶oh, the pirate's life's for međ¶đ¶
mrgoosmoos@lemmy.ca · 50 pts · 14h
does anyone know why Sony is so intent on ensuring that I never become a console gamer and give them money?
like how does this benefit them?
chillpanzee@lemmy.ml · 21 pts · 13h
I worked for the major streaming company when the service was launched in Japan. Sony (among others) said that streaming would never take off in Japan because Japanese consumers are too tied to physical media. This was probably 2014. It's probably been the slowest place in the world to change, but it has changed. Sony understands the consumer preference for digital media as well as anyone. They just know that resistance and opposition will fade over time.
They are a fairly adaptable company (as Japanese tech companies go), and if they get it wrong, they will pivot, but there is nothing pro-consumer about the company. They didn't put Blu-ray players in PS3s because it was good for consumers, they did it because it was good for Sony's entertainment business. And people often forget that part of the Blu-ray spec was mandatory internet connectivity so that the content licensor could revoke content licenses. We haven't "owned" physical media since DVDs.
This is the company that brought you Memory Stick after all. They've been anti-consumer ever since the Walkman was a huge success. It benefits Sony by making people buy more copies of the same thing. You might not buy any, but if the optimization is right, enough people will.
A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world · 13 pts · 9h
in the short term? It doesnt benefit them at all. it may actually hurt them.
in the long term? Bandwidth is cheap. especially at the scale that companies like Sony, Steam, Microsoft, etc, use it. So sell 6 million copies of a game, 10 extra bucks of profit thanks to no physical media/boxes/shipping/etc, per game.. Thats 60 million dollars in free money.
Plus, because you no longer own anything, they no longer have to invest in storage to keep old games up and running. So as new games release, they delete old games from their servers and from your accounts, So thats less investment they have to make in infrastructure, which is again more free money for them.
I wager Sony would love the day when people pay 100 dollars for a game that gets deleted in 6 months, that they have to rebuy again at full price to play again.
Cause remember, with no physical media, you have nothing but sony's closed garden marketplace to buy games.. Which means no competition for sony, which means no incentive for sales, no lower prices (not that 70+ dollars is a low price for a game đ ), no nothing but take what sony offers you, and liking it.
OwOarchist@pawb.social · 2 pts · 4h
Oh, you wanted to play [AAA game]? Too bad, it's shut down and gone. But you can buy the almost-identical sequel [AAA game 2] for just $90!
WorldsDumbestMan@lemmy.today · 1 pts · 3h
This will also affect history badly. Entire games will be lost to history forever.
alakey@piefed.social · 9 pts · 13h
You are just a guy. There are millions more that will not care and won't even know any of this ever took place. There were leaked conversations where Sony talked about their fanbase as brainless cattle, too.
SaharaMaleikuhm@feddit.org · 3 pts · 9h
Well, they are not wrong. Consumers will really put up with anything
A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 5h
because they HAVE to have the latest shiny, because their self worth is so low and non existent the only measure of worth they have is owning the next shiny.
SuspiciousCarrot78@aussie.zone · 1 pts · 4h
some consumers... maybe even most. Certainly not all.
I'm actually grateful for the enshittification of the main stream. It's an excellent incentive to carve your own path, in some small way. Hopefully that spills over to other aspects of people's lives.
"Fuck you, I won't do what you told me" is a wonderful fuel.
A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 9h
because their fanbase are brainless cattle.
because gamers are brainless myopic cattle.
gamers on the whole moan and groan and whine and bitch about every misdead, but the second the new shiny comes out they are out there en-masse rewarding these companies with billions and billions and billions of dollars (a great example will be GTA6, which I almost guarantee will bring in at least 2 billion dollars within its first week)
and as long as the idiot masses keep doing that, we have no recourse and no hope.
SuspiciousCarrot78@aussie.zone · 1 pts · 4h
You're not wrong... but "othering" people is no way to lift them out of the muck. Causes classic back fire effect. I say present the alternative case clearly and succinctly. If still finger in ears well, wish them luck and go separate ways.
Jeffool@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 14h
I'm purely pulling this firmly out of my ass. While I genuinely doubt they have any intention or plans at this point, I assume being able to tell investors "oh we can pull the plug and walk away from these legacy costs at any time" is a plus in someone's column somewhere. Of course the issue is that what is possible to save money often becomes reality.
SuspiciousCarrot78@aussie.zone · 3 pts · 4h
... For everyone one of "us" on this thread, there's 10,000 that will shrug and conform.
You and I are not the target demographic. Clearly - look at where we're having this conversation :)
Ipso facto we need to make sure that we support those that support us (Indie devs, FOSS etc). Let Sony do Sony things.
Napster153@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 26m
Untio the first 250 USD game hits the market and it's a choice between homelesness, starving and getting a digital product you don't own.
The smaller the customer base, the less money they rake in.
Sony's history of security breaches also doesn't give much confidence. Games like Concord and Marathon also prove nobody is too big to fail.
SuspiciousCarrot78@aussie.zone · 1 pts · 1m
Exactly. Games are a luxury good that need to thread a very fine needle.
With roughly 50yrs of back catalog to choose from, free game dev tools and engines and other distractors, that $250 game would have to be an epoc defining master piece or have true AGI baked in to get my attention.
EncryptKeeper@lemmy.world · 34 pts · 10h
Itâs a bolder than usual move for Sony to announce the end of physical media prior to a new console launch, and launch this âyou donât own the digital games you buyâ campaign at the same time.
The usual easy strategy is first you end physical media sales, let people be content with the idea that they own their digital games at least so that the only thing people think about is the convenience of digital, then after you launch your new console, get everybody locked in, thatâs when you launch the âOh you donât own these digital games btwâ campaign.
The fact that theyâre just doing all of this at the same time means they know they wonât lose any money over it because weâre sheep and the consumer just doesnât care anymore
Blackmist@feddit.uk · 30 pts · 14h
Going to court to prove they're arseholes. Nice.
If you want to stop it, write to your representatives. EULAs do not override local laws.
NauticalNoodle@lemmy.ml · 30 pts · 5h
If buying isn't owning, then piracy isn't stealing.
tourist@lemmy.world · 26 pts · 12h
um yeah, that's not hard to prove, you can check my torrent history
kuiskaaja@lemmy.ml · 11 pts · 12h
you still own them more than a psn store enjoyer owns their games
kboos1@lemmy.world · 18 pts · 18h
I don't need to read the article to know that they're making the same argument as Amazon and Apple. When you "buy" a show on one of the streaming platforms, you aren't actually buying anything except an extended rental.
artyom@piefed.social · 35 pts · 18h
Then the button should say "rent" and not "buy"
kboos1@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 17h
Consumer protections are for the weak. /s
Bonesince1997@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 18h
Digital music for purchase as well.
mschae@discuss.mschae23.de · 13 pts · 17h
Not quite true anymore, publishers have pretty much given up on DRM for purchased music :)
Neither Apple's iTunes store nor amazon's store (although to be fair, I haven't used amazon, so I'm not 100 % sure about them) use DRM on purchased music, so you can just take the music files and use them in any way you want. In my personal opinion though, rather than use the iTunes store or amazon, I'd recommend you to try the qobuz store, which is DRM-free and is the only one I know of (ignoring bandcamp, which doesn't get music from regular distributors) that provides lossless audio.
thisbenzingring@lemmy.today · 8 pts · 17h
Bandcamp lets you download .mp3 which are DRM free. They probably are tagged in the info but its just a text field
mschae@discuss.mschae23.de · 10 pts · 17h
MP3 is a horrible non-free (well, not anymore, because the patents expired; but still), outdated format. bandcamp also lets you download as FLAC, which is none of that and lossless.
edit: it feels this comment came off a bit aggressively, so I just wanted to say that wasn't my intention đ
thisbenzingring@lemmy.today · 3 pts · 17h
FLAC does not work with alot of devices
grue@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 16h
Then transcode it to whatever other format you need yourself. Point is, the thing being sold ought to be the highest quality possible.
LaggyKar@programming.dev · 1 pts · 12h
AAC-LC though works just about anywhere, and AFAIK is also patent free by now.
LaggyKar@programming.dev · 3 pts · 12h
HDtracs also sells some stuff losslessly. Though one thing I've noticed I've noticed on both Qobuz and HDtracs is tha, in addition to only having some stuff losslessly, the availability of lossless varies by region. The same album might be sold lossless in one region and only lossy in another region.
mschae@discuss.mschae23.de · 2 pts · 12h
Didn't know about them before, thanks for sharing!
That's weird, since as far as I can tell, qobuz doesn't offer lossy downloads at all (I've heard they used to, but stopped. Maybe there are some regions where they're still offering it?)
LaggyKar@programming.dev · 2 pts · 10h
Hmm, maybe I was misremembering. On second thought I think it was actually 7digital I was thinking of that did the regional lossless, I forgot about that one. For example, the same album on Swedish and American stores:
https://se.7digital.com/artist/taylor-swift/release/the-life-of-a-showgirl-explicit-60581637?f=20%2C19%2C12%2C16%2C17%2C9%2C2
https://us.7digital.com/artist/taylor-swift/release/the-life-of-a-showgirl-explicit-60581637?f=20%2C19%2C12%2C16%2C17%2C9%2C2
Bonesince1997@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 10h
This led to a lot of good discussion around various places to buy digital music. My comment wasn't so much drm focused as it was about licenses being removed. I've encountered that on Qobuz actually. Not many, but a few items are no longer available to be downloaded. I have already downloaded the files when I purchased the music, so that's certainly something different than a movie or game that can't be downloaded and used as such. That's all, just the fact that the license can still be removed.
mschae@discuss.mschae23.de · 2 pts · 9h
Ah, didn't expect you to already know qobuz đ
But yeah, that's definitely a problem. I remember them sending the email where they announced this could happen now (although weirdly enough, they never sent an email for when purchased items were taken down any time after that again), and had it happen a few times as well. Luckily, I've also saved everything locally, so I haven't lost anything. Still annoying. Also sometimes, an album that's suddenly gone just seems to reappear a few months later, as if they were just reorganizing their library, but really, I have no idea what's going on.
Bonesince1997@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 9h
That's good to hear some items have returned. I also wonder about things like relistings, if items have or will get moved around. Good discussion!
postman@literature.cafe · 15 pts · 17h
Like when you purchase books for 2 weeks at the library. Simple!
WorldsDumbestMan@lemmy.today · 15 pts · 3h
If I don't own them, no reason to pay for them ever.
Strider@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 17h
Ah I see Playstation seems out of its wild teenage years and is now so overconfident it's poke the bear time!
This should be fun.
deathbird@mander.xyz · 11 pts · 2h
Imagine how well digital games would sell if they showed up in your cart like: 1 x Revokable License for God of War $69 See Terms and Conditions* [Confirm Payment]
There's a reason they say "Buy" instead of "Pay".
It's been going on for generations, but it's no less dishonest for all that. Software sellers write complex EULAs for which the only valid answer is "Agree" because the store won't take an open box back and the software won't install unless we pretend to agree, so even us legitimate software enjoyers are pirates in our hearts. Meanwhile normies don't even think about it that much. Fuck this whole system, but double fuck an online service that says "purchase" but will steal it back later. Fuck that.
Kaligalis@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 15h
With how shitty the owning and freedom situation on consoles is already, this really doesn't change much. People who are still using consoles just don't give any fucks. They happily swallowed the PSN subscription. They will happily swallow the next toad too.
kolle@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 14h
Well it says BUY in the store
dustyData@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 12h
Don't go there, I see a "buy license" button in our future. Right now, nothing but the string of text has to change. They have been changing what really matters, the crazy infrastructure behind that prevents downloading, and allows erasing, the content we have bought.
reksas@sopuli.xyz · 10 pts · 9h
at this point, i have quite bleak view on anyone buying anything from sony. those people are effectively supporting this shit, which may spread elsewhere.
melfie@lemmy.zip · 10 pts · 6h
Frankly my dear, I donât give a damn. Linux PCs will run the vast majority of games and the handful of exclusives that donât run yet will run on an emulator at some point.
ksh@aussie.zone · 3 pts · 4h
Iâm so old school I still prefer OpenTTD and OpenRCT2
tryagain@sopuli.xyz · 10 pts · 18h
You know what? Let them. Normalise the idea and watch how the market speaks (yo ho ho).
username_1@discuss.tchncs.de · 26 pts · 18h
The market will answer with pathetic mumbling, as always :)
But that might help small studios that don't use DRMs anyway.
the_q@piefed.social · 18 pts · 18h
I appreciate the spirit, but the average person will keep giving their money to these shitty companies.
makou@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 6h
Unfortunately there are still people that will have no idea that this happened, like older people, young people telling their parents to buy them the game etc. etc. Point is that this will never hurt gamings economy not even by a small margin.
bad1080@piefed.social · 9 pts · 16h
right, just before going digital only. it's a bold move cotton...
DrStanleyGoodspeed@lemmy.zip · 9 pts · 5h
Prove deez nuts biatchhhh
jsnfwlr@lemmy.ml · 8 pts · 5h
I think in terms of the subscriber access to Xbox GamePass or PlayStation Plus, this is valid. But not for game purchases.
The store purchases have always been about buying a game. If I go to Amazon and buy a thing, it gets shipped to my house and I own it - the experience of adding an item to a cart, viewing the cart, and checking out are the same across game stores, for online and brick and mortar, whether digital and physical goods are being purchased.
If I don't own the item I am buying on the PlayStation store, why the hell am I paying a premium for it? I thought it was because I will always be able to play that game without having to worry about the disc getting scratched and in both cases I would own the item.
halezinflames@lemmus.org · 2 pts · 5h
This is true.
If it's a subscription, sure. But if I literally paid to own the game? What the fuck is the point?
Couldbealeotard@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 1h
If you buy a CD with software and it gets shipped to your house, you own the disc, not the software. It's always been this way, we are just now living in a world where the technology exists to take the software away from you after you paid.
matmyfta@mastodon.uno · 1 pts · 1h
@Couldbealeotard @jsnfwlr sure, but you were also able to sell it eventually.
olympicyes@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 4h
Sony has trained me to pay my subscription fee and be extremely skeptical about âbuyingâ any games, no matter how deeply discounted they are. I donât play much on PC but I have no qualms buying a game on Steam.
charles@lemmy.charles.wiki · 1 pts · 4h
Hopefully their inquiry will lead to more clear definitions in market places. It could lead to having indefinite leases. For example you will see a button that says lease and below it there will be a time period which would be indefinite. I think that would be a fair portrayal purchase agreements.
filister@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 1h
That's why you should buy physical disks. In the worst case you can re-sell them to someone else.
ragas@lemmy.ml · 4 pts · 44m
Or buy games without DRM. Like on GOG.
Also wait until development of the game is really done. That way the game is better and cheaper and works on cheaper hardware.
VirtuePacket@lemmy.zip · 6 pts · 2h
Nothing new. This is the same bullshit legal framework that underpins the entire software industry and extends back to the mid 90s. It's just front-and-center in games now because the industry has transitioned from a growth industry to a mature one wherein producers need to extract more revenue per user and predictably enshittify their platforms to do so.
I've basically decided that I will not buy any game that I cannot play offline. If I do a buy game, I will also pirate it to ensure continued access. If I can't pirate it, I won't buy it.
Fuck em.
halezinflames@lemmus.org · 5 pts · 5h
Lol Sony gonna Sony
If buying isn't owning... (just be careful not to get hit with malware if you do sail)
GreenKnight23@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 3h
I wish them luck, because if you can't buy it, you can't steal it.
bowsertattoo@piefed.social · 4 pts · 13h
i hope theyre ready to give a ton of refunds for digital "purchases"
tehn00bi@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 16h
What even is the point in video games anymore. Many are super locked down, they die after 6 months, they spend 6 years building something and release it so buggy and broken that itâs hard to call it anything but garbage.
At this point, support your local board game store. They at least let you purchase a product.
VivianRixia@piefed.social · 11 pts · 16h
Easy, don't buy games that do that. Plenty of games come out feature complete with no expectations of taking more money from you.
tehn00bi@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 16h
There are some. Bless super giant games. But I have found myself spending more time on 20 year old games than anything else.
Sam_Bass@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 5h
unless it is layed out plain in their TOS it aint gonna live long. if they place a revision of the TOS to reflect that, then john q public is thoroughly screwed
matmyfta@mastodon.uno · 1 pts · 17h
@unglueclass23 Man, I really dislike how console gaming has changed... and it's even worse that PSN is going to be the only place to buy PlayStation games.
GeneralEmergency@lemmy.world · -10 pts · 17h
Seeing G*mers get upset and try to boycott Sony for this.
Then go on to pump money into Helldivers and Palworld on Steam.
Absolutely brain rotted.
Kolanaki@pawb.social · 7 pts · 17h
wtf does Palworld have to do with Sony?
ParlimentOfDoom@piefed.zip · 5 pts · 17h
Apparently they've signed a deal with Sony to help them expand the franchise
GeneralEmergency@lemmy.world · -2 pts · 15h
Nothing "apparently" about it.
There was a lot of coverage about it.
ParlimentOfDoom@piefed.zip · 5 pts · 14h
Apparently is used when the person speaking wasn't previously aware of something, regardless of how much coverage it received within it's own niche.
So yes, it was. You can now go find something else to uselessly and incorrectly pedant over.
GeneralEmergency@lemmy.world · -3 pts · 13h
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/apparently
According to this that definition only applies to simplified American English.
Sorry the world doesn't all follow your backwards country. Go cry in Lake America
ParlimentOfDoom@piefed.zip · 2 pts · 9h
Your source.
Do they not teach reading comprehension in whatever country you hail from?
Kolanaki@pawb.social · 0 pts · 7h
GeneralEmergency@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 15h
2024 around the time of the game's release. It was announced that the Devs and Sony formed a joint venture.
https://www.ign.com/articles/palworld-dev-signs-deal-with-sony-to-form-palworld-entertainment-and-expand-the-ip
gastroglizzy@piefed.social · 3 pts · 17h
Don't forget glazing the GTA 6 trailer