‘Digital ownership must be respected’: UK parliament debates Stop Killing Games campaign, but government doesn’t budge | VGC
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Politicians debate recent examples of games being “destroyed”…

Handing online servers over to consumers could carry commercial or legal risks, she said, in addition to safety concerns due to the removal of official company moderation.

  • TWeaK@lemmy.todayEnglish
    632·
    16 hours ago

    On the subject of ownership, Peacock claimed that video games being licensed to consumers, rather than sold, was not a new phenomenon, and that “in the 1980s, tearing the wrapping on a box to a games cartridge was the way that gamers agreed to licensing terms.”

    This is absolute bullshit and not at all how it works, now or back in the 1980s. You can’t agree to terms without seeing them first, and even then such agreements aren’t necessarily legally binding. For someone who is supposed to write laws, she should be removed from office for showing such gross incompetence.

    • Uriel238 [all pronouns]@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
      24·
      14 hours ago

      I’m pretty sure (not absolutely) this has appeared in court and even click-wrap licenses, where one clicks to agree to a license with a higher word count than King Lear are not valid due to the end user high administrative burden (reading 20K+ words in the middle of a software install).

      There was a period in the 1980s where end users automatically were assumed to agree to licensing, but also licenses were extremely lenient and allowed unlimited use by the licensee without any data access rights by the providing company. 21st century licenses are much more complicated and encroach a lot more on end-user privacy.

    • FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.auEnglish
      11·
      8 hours ago

      This is absolute bullshit and not at all how it works, now or back in the 1980s.

      Nah, it’s absolutely how it has worked since the 1980s. You’ve never owned the game, just the physical hardware it’s on and a license to use the game. Go read any manual or back of the box or actual cartridge or disc.