3 ms·
"Pretty much any digital good you buy cannot be resold. Usually reselling your account under which you made such purchases is also not allowed. All in all its a
by nekojima 14y ago
"Pretty much any digital good you buy cannot be resold. Usually reselling your account under which you made such purchases is also not allowed. All in all its a shitty deal for anyone buying digital goods."
You aren't buying digital goods, you are either renting or buying a lease on those digital goods. The terms and conditions of those purchases of leases or by paying rent do not provide you with the same rights and obligations as a hard copy or un-DRM version would normally provide (either through terms and conditions or various national legislation & regulations). That is part of the agreement you make when you pay for digital goods.
It is for these reasons why I have stopped spending on large priced digital items and only buy a lease when the items are on significant discount, such as costing less than $10, or rent when substantially discounted. There are few things, including hot new games which I'd normally want to buy, that I'm willing to pay for a virtual copy. I have close to zero trust these services will be around in a few years, or that their servers are sufficient to not lose my purchase record in the coming year or two. While I'm sure I would get my $20-80 worth of use out of the game or book, the concept of the inevitable loss of the item is more important as an influence to me, than the utility & pleasure of the use of the item now.
- pyrocat 14y agoSo... what about GOG.com? And Kickstarter games? There are plenty of "digital goods" out there that don't have shitty DRM or require company servers to be online to access the content you paid for. Let's not talk about DRM like it's the only option.
- toki5 14y agoWhat about them? Maybe I'm dense today, but I don't see how what you said relates to what he said. His mentioning DRM was ancillary to the main point, that you don't buy digital goods in the classical sense, but instead lease the right to use/play them. This applies to every form of software that has paid-for licensing, even those that don't have DRM attached to try and protect it.
- charonn0 14y agoGames from GoG are provided as unencumbered, fully offline installers with no DRM whatsoever. So long as you have the installer you can install the game on any compatible system. There are no mechanisms for GoG to clawback the installer or to prevent the game from running.
- interpol_p 14y agoYes but I think that is a bit besides the point. You are still buying a "lease" to use the software from GoG. I'm not completely familiar with their license agreement, but I suspect it allows you to install the software on all computers you use/own. If you were to give it to a friend, that would be violating the terms of the agreement (even though GoG could not stop you). The agreement may allow you to resell your license, provided you stop using your existing copies. (Again, GoG would have no way of knowing.)
- officemonkey 14y agoYou are of course complaining about all software. You can't resell Microsoft Office or Photoshop either. So don't pretend that only games have this issue.
- interpol_p 14y agoI'm not pretending that games only have this issue. It's not even an issue to me. I'm not sure what your point is. I was just trying to clarify that game purchases are still essentially software licenses, even from the least restrictive providers (GoG).
- Anderkent 14y ago>While I'm sure I would get my $20-80 worth of use out of the game or book, the concept of the inevitable loss of the item is more important as an influence to me, than the utility & pleasure of the use of the item now. I don't get it. If you believe the experience of playing the game is worth than the cost of the game, why do you care you may lose access to it later on? It's like not going to cinema because you won't have the movie recorded afterwards.