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CA law means stores can't say you're buying a game if you're merely licensing it
- stewx 2y agoWilling to bet that the retailers will opt to change the button label rather than change business practices.
- KMnO4 2y agoI actually don’t even see the word “buy” currently. I see “add to cart” and “checkout”. That said, I doubt it has any real impact on sales. It’s like “Beef chili” vs “Chili with beef”. The average consumer wouldn’t know the difference.
- drdaeman 2y ago> It’s like “Beef chili” vs “Chili with beef”. The average consumer wouldn’t know the difference. Idk, but where I lived before, at some point virtually everyone knew the difference between e.g. "cheese" and "cheese[-like] product", because it quite mattered - one is real cheese made with real milk, another is typically a plant-based substitute with quite different properties (and typically of much worse quality). Average consumers aren't exactly dumb (at least, not at the individual level) when things actually matter to them. They're just uninformed and don't actively express the desire to learn (so they remain uninformed), so they can act not in their best interest because they aren't aware about something. But when we know, when the information gap closes - we act differently, and that's not going back. Education is important. So it may impact licensing of digital media where user intent was specifically focused on indefinite access. E.g. movie or music sales when people had incorrectly assumed that "buying" means they can rewatch/relisten it whenever they like, no matter what (and then their "purchased" content disappears because licensing deal wasn't renewed or something).
- jolmg 2y agoI see "Buy now" on Amazon kindle book product pages. Your point is true, though. It's not all that common to use those words. I thought at least the checkout page would, but I'm seeing "Place your order", which is pretty apt for both purchasing and licensing.
- SG- 2y agoRetailers will not be selling physical games for much longer tho. Walmart US has already started phasing them months ago. Game shops like EB are likely going to stop soon too I imagine which also conincides with all their gaming merch and toys thats taking up the majority of their store space these days.
- DaiPlusPlus 2y agoWith limited exceptions, “physical games” for PCs today are just an alternative delivery mechanism vs. using one’s own Internet connection: you still end-up going through Steam, Epic’s store, or whatever - which means mandatory online activation - which means physical media is no guarantee of irrevocable use. Methinks we need something like a Criterion Collection but for games… which I suppose would be GOG.com - but if they carried triple-A games from day 1, instead of having to wait a decade first.
- jolmg 2y agoIs that also the case with physical games for consoles? You can't take your disc and play at your friend's house anymore without reactivating and linking your account on their console?
- Dagonfly 2y agoGenerally, you can just give the disk to someone else. The physical disk contains the license key for the game. The issue is that all modern games need to be installed on the internal SSD. So you're not playing of the disk, you're just copying the files from it. And many games require a day-1 patch to work properly. Some even require a constant online connection. doesitplay.org is a useful database for that information.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- NewJazz 2y agoNot just games. The law applies to any copyrightable work, afaict.
- drdaeman 2y agoSo, cannot use "buy" for modern phones and cars either? ;-)
- ang_cire 2y agoUh, there is not any car that the manufacturer can take away from you at-will, only in-car "services".
- hedora 2y agoMany cars have remote immobilizers and gazillion page license agreements that boil down to “we are liable for nothing, but you still agree to binding arbitration, and we can change the terms of this agreement at any time”. Also, some companies (like Tesla) designed the cars so they can control the resale process by remotely dropping it into various limp modes.
- ang_cire 2y agoNote that nothing you listed contradicts what I said.
- deely3 2y ago"Tesla repossessed my car due to an extreme oversight on their end" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37189216 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37189216
- ang_cire 2y agoYes, anyone can steal a car, including a car company. It was not legal for them to do so.
- dmoy 2y agoI like the idea of reclaiming the word "buy" to only be the traditional type of ownership transfer (first sale doctrine or whatever if it's a copyrighted thing). Mandate the use of the word "license" or "rent" if it's something else
- ravenstine 2y agoExactly. Conflating buying with renting indefinitely, without resale ability, is a deliberate way of confusing people for profit. My younger, more naive self, might have been surprised at just how long society has allowed this to slide.
- lotsofpulp 2y agoKeep it simple and just use the word rent. No need to complicate it. “Rent until we choose to not allow you to access it for a one time payment of $x”.
- falcolas 2y agoI'm afraid that the connotations around rent (namely monthly payments) would only encourage the worst publishers to only go further.
- ronsor 2y agoNo one is renting a game for $70/month.
- warkdarrior 2y agoNot yet!
- rvnx 2y agoAbsolutely! Markets evolve, see, for example, nobody was willing to pay on things like Siri, and now millions of folks are spending 25 USD/month on Siri+. EDIT: sorry, just came from the future.
- tantalor 2y agoAre they going to require refunds when the license is revoked?
- Alupis 2y agoThat's not how any license agreement works. ie. Your money is not collateral. You are paying for a license to use the software (game) for a period of time.
- eldaisfish 2y agoWhat about physical game disks? I own the disk and can play the game as long as I have the disk. I can also resell or share the disk. Sony once demonstrated this on stage during the PS4 launch. Digital licenses take away all of this and add the possibility that your licence can disappear at any time.
- sickofparadox 2y agoPhysical game disks have maybe one console generation left. Nintendo might keep cartridges around for two tops. The future is basically all digital. When doing his Mea Culpa rounds about Xbox losing the console wars, Phil Spencer talked about how being second in the generation where gamers built up digital libraries was likely too much to overcome.[1] Most game sales already happen digitally[2], and the number continues to rise. [1] https://www.trueachievements.com/n53706/phil-spencer-interview#:~:text=Phil%20Spencer%20on%20the%20Xbox%20ecosystem&text=It's%20just%20not%20true%20that,their%20digital%20library%20of%20games https://www.trueachievements.com/n53706/phil-spencer-intervi.... [2] https://academyofanimatedart.com/gaming-statistics/#:~:text=83%25%20of%20video%20game%20sales%20happen%20digitally.&text=Less%20than%20two%20decades%20ago,purchases%20were%20made%20in%2Dstore https://academyofanimatedart.com/gaming-statistics/#:~:text=....
- hurrdurr7 2y ago[dead]
- WalterSear 2y ago
- Sniffnoy 2y agoFeel like it's worth linking to the Stop Killing Games campaign (https://www.stopkillinggames.com/ https://www.stopkillinggames.com/) here! See also other recent thread on this story (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41665593 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41665593) where one of the organizers commented on the relevance (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41666381 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41666381). :)
- ChrisArchitect 2y ago[dupe] More discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41665593 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41665593
- bena 2y agoI don't think people really want "buy" either. Not deep down. For instance, I bought Super Mario World for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. That game is locked in. No fixes, no additions, no nothing. What is on the cart is what you get. Nintendo has no more obligation to me and I have no more obligation to them. But people expect updates and changes. Let's not talk about "incomplete games being finished through updates", games get updated all the time now. Even for physical copies. Games now often install on the hardware and check for updates on first run. So if we go to "buy", if you get a broken game, that's on you. Don't buy from them anymore. You don't get to hound the developers to "fix" the game. You paid for the thing, they gave you the thing. If you want a refund, return the thing. I think we still haven't quite figured out how to work with ephemeral goods like software. It's kind of like a performance, kind of like a physical item, etc. It requires far more effort to generate than it does to copy. And buyers want to buy on the value of the copying, but sellers want to sell on the value of generation.
- OptionOfT 2y agoEven when you license a game on say Steam the developers have no obligation to fix any problems. You get to self-refund a game on Steam within a certain timeframe, after that it's on you. Game breaking bug? Eh, they got their money.
- falcolas 2y agoI'm fine with the buy terminology. When I buy a car, I get fixes for manufacturing defects for free. Day 1 bugs are similar defects.
- bena 2y agoBut if you go to a shitty concert, you don't get your money back. If you buy a shitty album, you can't get your money back. And you can't get the band to "make it better" for you. Is software a thing? A performance? A recording? It has elements of each. And despite people saying "we've solved this issue", we haven't. We keep slapping on different metaphors and complaining when that metaphor inevitably fails. That and no one really wants to pay the actual price for complete, error-free software. What they want is to get complete, error-free software for the price they've paid. Which is different.
- smeej 2y agoIt makes me wonder about the meta question about how to stop whatever the next iteration of this will be. Like, if we look back at this, surely there were people saying, "Hey, things have changed. You don't actually 'own' the thing you think you're buying anymore. This could come back to bite you," but on the whole, not nearly enough people cared for it to shape the market. There is sure to be another thing like this, some other movement where yet another owner of something finds a way to sell you access to it in a way that makes you think it's "yours," but actually all you have is permission to use it as long as they remain happy with you and happy to continue allowing you access. How do we make sure people know and care next time? And what about the fact that, on the whole, most people are apparently fine with having access to things rather than ownership of them? How do you make the distinction when it matters, but allow both types of transactions? (For example, I'm glad I don't have to buy, and then sell, even a single room in a house to stay in when I'm traveling; paying to use it for a limited period is preferable to me in that situation.) We know putting the information in the terms of use won't help, but what would?
- wizzwizz4 2y ago> And what about the fact that, on the whole, most people are apparently fine with having access to things rather than ownership of them? How do you make the distinction when it matters, but allow both types of transactions? We could engorge the commons. If people are okay with mere access, then (for easy-to-distribute things, like books and videogames) free culture should naturally outcompete comparable proprietary works. Promote DRM-free cultural artefacts. If you'd drop $70 on a AAA title, drop $70 on a DRM-free game you like, and then tell your friends about it. (Try-before-you-buy is a feature, not a bug, though don't be stingy about this if you can afford not to.) This isn't generally-applicable, of course, but deconstructing the "everything is property" schema might make it easier to get another angle on it.
- smeej 2y ago"Intellectual property" almost seems like a contradiction in terms. Like, I can't arrange the bits on my own computer hardware in a specific order because someone else arranged the bits on their own, separate computer in that order first? What? Or better yet, ideas. I can't think things in my own brain, arguably the thing that is most obviously mine, and then talk about what I think about those things, because someone else thought them first and I didn't come up with them on my own? I get why it's not cool to pretend I did come up with them. It's cooler if I can remember where I heard them first and give credit for them. But if I don't remember? If I connect two ideas I heard about ten years apart only once I hear the second one and I can't remember where the first one came from? How did that idea not become "also mine" after being stored and then recalled from my own brain for ten years? I don't know how to solve the admittedly hard problem of allowing people to profit from the hard work it takes to come up with original ideas. But the "intellectual property" concept doesn't make a lick of sense to me as the way to do it.
- teeray 2y agoI have faith that the marketing department can spin this. "Why just BUY a game when you can get A LICENSE TO GAME. Show you friends how much of a badass you are with ALL YOUR GAME LICENSES"
- Workaccount2 2y ago"By purchasing the Terrasault Start Menu Launcher, you will be granted a FREE perpetual license to play Terrasault!"
- Manchit 2y agoIn this case, licensing should be more affordable than the physical sale given its ownership cannot be transferred.
- dang 2y agoRecent and related: Sony, Ubisoft scandals lead to California ban on deceptive digital goods sales - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41665593 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41665593 - Sept 2024 (100 comments)
- WCSTombs 2y agoThis is the bill itself, which is pretty short and understandable: https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240AB2426 https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtm... I think it's pretty sensible. For any digital good (including books and movies etc., not just games), if you're supposedly buying the thing, it can't be given to you in a form in which your ownership can be unilaterally revoked later.
- paxys 2y agoPlus you should be able to sell it to someone else.
- jolmg 2y ago> (4) This section does not apply to any of the following: > (C) Any digital good that is advertised or offered to a person that the seller cannot revoke access to after the transaction, which includes making the digital good available at the time of purchase for permanent offline download to an external storage source to be used without a connection to the internet. I can imagine e.g. Amazon arguing that kindle books can be downloaded to kindle devices and phones, and so they apply to this exemption. However, the downloads are only usable through their software, so they technically maintain their ability to revoke access because of that. Wonder if they'll keep their "Buy now" button on kindle books product pages.
- jbpnoy6fifty 2y agoI wonder if this trend will expand to other goods, like when you "purchase" a car. You might be licensed to operate the vehicle but restricted in specific interactions with it. It seems the industry is moving in this direction, which is concerning due to the cost structure. It shifts control away from consumers and toward the IP owners of these products. Tesla may be a notable example, where you're unable to make modifications or repairs to the car without a proper license.
- tshaddox 2y agoWhat are you referring to with the car? Of course there are traffic laws. Similarly there are lots of physical objects you “buy” yet are restricted from using them to bludgeon someone.
- WalterSear 2y agoThey are referring to no-resale and no-third party repair clauses, and the like.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- octacat 2y ago"Pay for a temporary access" instead of "buy". For people who do not like "rent".
- hedora 2y agoI wish they’d take the next obvious step, and say that if you get a license that lasts for more than N months without recurring payments, then the license is actually a sale.
- copperx 2y agoI love the idea of reclaiming the meaning of "buy." However, after 70+ years of music recordings being "sold," we're all used to the concept of buying = licencing.
- Ferret7446 2y agoWell, that's troublesome. Because you can't buy a game or any other digital good, due to copyright law. The concept does not exist. I mean, I guess you could theoretically buy a physical medium that contains the data for a game, explicitly without a license to use the data in any way. But at the end of the day, you will always be licensing it, until the government abolishes the artificial enforced monopoly called copyright.
- nioj 2y agoRelated discussion from two days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41663432 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41663432
- h_tbob 2y agoHonestly they’ll probably just say “buy a game license”… feels pretty similar prolly no one will notice