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Comment by emsy | Hacker News Reader

> At the time of writing the Rockstar Games Launcher has been down for 24 hours.

I wondered why I couldn’t start GTA 5 yesterday after finally finding some time to play PC again. So yeah not only fuck DRM, but ban it. Why is punishing honest customers allowed?

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>Why is punishing honest customers allowed?

I'll go further, why is it punishing customers allowed? What authority does a company hold to punish anyone?

Companies are not forced to provide service, even if the customer """bought""" something that requires that service to function. If it weren't "honest customers" being punished, but rather people being banned from accessing an online game for hacking or racism, we wouldn't see nearly as much concern for this being allowed.

The problem is that the only reason that something requires the service to function is so that the company can control how you use it. So, they are effectively stopping you from using a product you bought, because they can't keep tabs on you at that particular time. Some people consider that abusive.

My point is that there's nuance in it, given this same "feature" of licenses (remember, you generally don't "buy" these games, you're granted an indefinite license to use them) allows game developers to even operate online PvP games at all. Without it, developers would legally be unable to ban people, even if they're vulgarly racist against other players, or if they're cheating and auto-snapping to people's heads to achieve high-kill count games unfairly.

That is not true. They can have an EULA governing their online services, while allowing you to play offline to your heart's content. There is no nuance.

> I'll go further, why is it punishing customers allowed?

Because it isn't disallowed.

With those big titles I always treat them as something I can only reliably play for a while after I get them on Steam. This is also why I won't ever buy them at anywhere near the full price. I think I got GTA 5 for €15 in a sale.

The whole notion that if I install that game in five years time and half the music is gone due to licensing issues is just absurd. I have no expectations that I'll be able to (legally) play such games five or ten years down the road when I buy them today.

I'm looking forward to playing Hitman 3 eventually (if the previous two instalments are anything to go buy it will work flawlessly on Linux too), but I'm not getting it until its on sale (I guess Christmas 2022?); it seems like a game that is way too dependant on the parent company's servers to run as well, even though I only play the single player content.

I miss the days when even the big titles just booted up without phoning home for permission to run.

I some wargames like indie game but required an online ping to even play. Their previous title they did the same but not required a connection for it. They said just for their other title, over 90% of them were pirated copies. So that is why they mandated DRM.

I wouldnr have so much of an issue wirh online DRM if I got a guarantee of X years to play it. Some of these devs could just drop support or Windows messes with it that ita unplayable. So at that point I just want support.

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