[pitched]

We rent time at a football field. We buy tickets to watch a single match. There are parallels here to not owning video games. I don’t really understand why one is so heinous.

Let’s say there’s a new rule implemented by the NBA that no one likes (similar to a fear of live service games changing). How is that resolved there and why can’t that solution work for video games?

I think a big thing we’re currently missing here is something like a community field or park. Why are there no open-source, community-run Diablo projects for example? If no one cares enough to do that, maybe this isn’t so big of an issue.

[xp84]

1. Video games are not a spectator sport. You buy tickets for a match to pay the players to perform for you. You can buy a football and goals and play with your family until the equipment itself literally wears out (which is a very, very long time - functionally near infinite if you take care of it).

2. Video games (especially console) don't, as a rule, receive important major updates, nor do gamers expect and demand that. This means that charging over and over again for 'access to them' every month is transparent greed, as opposed to a mobile game which has to keep being updated to keep up with iOS's yearly breaking releases, where you can argue very fairly that someone has to be paying developers to maintain those games, and the library of games to update would be too big if they had to keep updating all games written from 2008-2026 when 99% of them were no longer bringing in any sales revenue.

> Let’s say there’s a new rule implemented by the NBA that no one likes (similar to a fear of live service games changing).

Personally, the games where they charge for the MMO aspect (even if that comprises the entire game, e.g. WoW), I'm honestly ok with. It's a gamble to invest your time in something like that, but the alternative, where paying for a WoW client once legally obligates them to run the server without ANY rule/gameplay changes, for eternity, seems completely unfair and unsustainable. Though I think it's a moderate position to argue that if Blizzard wants to cancel WoW's servers, making the server specs open source and enabling the client to connect to community-run servers should maybe be incentivized somehow, though mandating as much seems a bit extreme.

[pitched]

It sounds like your opinion is that status quo is ok when: there is a spectator mode, it’s on a mobile device, there is multiplayer.

I still don’t quite understand in which cases the status quo is not ok though.

[traverseda]

With a video game it's not clear that you're purchasing a revocable license. That's why it's called "buying" a video game. If online stores were clear that you were actually leasing a game, I don't think this would be a problem.

Publishers and storefronts need to be clear that what you're doing isn't buying, or start selling tickets (season passes) that have a clear end date, or use some other mechanism that isn't "buying".

The fundamental problem is that it's unclear what you're buying, and the contract can change at any time. Are you buying an item, a ticket, leasing, a subscription like an MMO, etc. These are all different things, and it misleads consumers when they're conflated.

The terms are also very one-sided, and your "purchase" can be ended by one party at will with very limited notice. Even basic consumer protection like requiring six months notice before ending your software lease would help.

[nfw2]

If someone goes to the playstation store to buy a playstation game, you don't think it's clear that they can only play the game on playstation? I think consumers understand what they are buying even if they don't think in terms like revocable licenses and drm. They aren't ignorant just because they don't care about these abstract issues that don't affect their lives at all, practically speaking.

[fragmede]

Yes, but first sale doctrine on physical goods means that I can take my Playstation game, which only works on Playstations, and sell it to.a friend after I'm done playing it, or pick up a copy 5-10 years after the game was originally published for cheap from a second hand store like Goodwill. People do understand that, and are understandably pissed off that those same rights don't transfer to the digital realm. If I paid $60 for a copy of GTA IV when it was new but now I can buy a copy for $5 from the used bin, why shouldn't that be true for GTA VI in 15 years after it comes out?

[nfw2]

I am understandably pissed that Apple no longer makes small 5-inch iphones because I like them. But other consumers like the bigger phones, so Apple discontinued the mini line.

Is Apple doing me an injustice by not selling me the good that I want?

Is this a question of rights or consumer preferences?

[wsve]

Geez man. I've seen your replies in this thread multiple times. At this point, I have to wonder: why are you so against legislating the actual sale of ownership of video games? How could enacting this theoretical legislation, that you believe is a consumer "preference" (hard disagree, but I'll allow for argument) be in any way detrimental to you? What compels you to lick the boot to a polished shine?

[pitched]

Sort of like how Diary Queen aren’t allowed to call their desserts “Ice Cream” because there isn’t enough dairy, we need to force retailers to start calling them game-licenses? This feels like a whole lot of a big fuss over something like that. I really feel like there must be something deeper going on.

[traverseda]

Well the goal is to stop killing games, to make it possible for people to run their own games indefinitely. That's a lot harder than baseline consumer protections though.

[xp84]

Agree. The only way "buying" is understood in English to mean a temporary entitlement is when combined with those terms like "ticket" or "pass."

The choice of language is deliberately made to deceive. If an auto manufacturer tried that, offering to "sell you" a car but the 3-page "Sales contract" had a clause buried in there that said "We can come to your house with 30 days' notice and just take the car back and you have no recourse besides stopping your payments" this would be ruled as grand theft auto (no pun intended) not "the terms and conditions allow it"

[nfw2]

There is no perfect word. Ticket and pass imply a fixed duration lease, not an indefinite one. Membership implies continual payments.

[Giefo6ah]

You don't rent your football field from FIFA. You can, if you wish, own the field you play at.

You may have heard of football clubs: If it's too expensive you can pool resources with your friends.

[pitched]

Back in the old days, we would be pooling resources like that to host a server for the clan. And I wonder if the reason those games are less popular has more to do with marketers being good at their job than a change in the base gameplay.

There are local clubs available but everyone wants to play on the nice FIFA field, which is the one that has to be rented.

[chacham15]

There is a difference between a service and a good.

It doesnt make sense to "own" a massage just the same way it doesnt make sense to "own" spectating a game in person. The video recording of people playing a sport is a good that you can own however. This is why an online/multiplayer game is harder to separate because it straddles the line of both a service and a good, but other cases are much more clear cut. (also, a quick google does reveal multipke open source diablo projects fyi)

[garciansmith]

Video games are far more alike to other media like books, not live sports.

[pitched]

For single-player games, those are definitely media. For multiplayer games, that feels a lot closer to a sport.

[krzyk]

Video games ar software, this has only digital form.

And AFAIR all software is sold as a license since way back.