[noirbot]

Honest curiosity, has that actually been proven in EU court? The sort of "licensing as a service" that Stadia did doesn't seem that different from the business models of something like Audible, or even iTunes in the DRM era. I totally agree that it's a predatory and anti-consumer model, but I wasn't aware that anywhere in the EU had successfully argued that removing access to something you were essentially "renting" access to was a violation of consumer protection laws.

These sorts of EULA arrangements are essentially the foundation of almost all modern media consumption - if anything Stadia is on better ground than most since it's not just a DRM layer like Steam or iTunes. If Steam disappears, I have a bunch of entirely playable game files on my computer that I can't use. When Stadia shuts down, you have a client for nothing. You're not paying $60 to own a copy of a game, you're paying $60 for an unlimited term license to play the game on Stadia's servers. Legally, it feels odd to claim in court that that should be the same as a purchase of the game in some other method. If Google had turned off Stadia, but transferred everyone's purchases to Steam or EGS, that wouldn't be providing the same service you purchased from Stadia.