I even take issue with "Purchase license". Shouldn't it be "Lease License"? Purchase implies that it can't be revoked, no?
Or, just flip the tables and say the historical meaning of buy implies transfer of ownership in exchange for some trade. Since the seller no longer owns the items that was sold in the transaction, they have no additional rights that are covered by other areas of the law (such as copyright). First sale applies and if the seller doesn’t provide a mechanism to facilitate that sale, the buyer is free to exercise that right in whatever way they see fit.
I get that people want to be able to purchase games forever, but this linguistic argument seems tortured concern trolling. maybe Im wrong, but are there even people confused by what they are getting when they pay for a modern online game? It seems like the bigger issues is people know, but dont like those terms.
There is some string of terms that accurately describes the state of current game sales. Even if it is used, most of the people upset by the issue will not be happy.
I'd also be fairly surprised if that average buyer cared all that much. For many the life cycle of any random game is short enough that it doesn't matter whether or not it gets revoked, just so long as that's far enough into the future (and Sony probably knows that). So long as the average buyer doesn't have to think about it, since any revocation is so far into the future as to probably not matter, the average buyer won't care.
There's some media attention from the people who do care and want Sony et al. to do better, but they alone don't have the power to fight back against Sony, since even though the rest of the market might even agree that the current situation is bad, it's very difficult to mobilise people into actually doing anything (and what are you even supposed to to beyond 'voting with your wallet'?).
I personally think it is hard to mobilize people because the overwhelming majority simply dont care. If they did, yes, they could vote with their wallets. Nobody will die without Call of Shooty 10.
We are in this weird twilight zone where some people say they dont like products, but keep buying them.
Is not having to get up to change a disc worth giving up libraries, resale, lending, and not having stuff taken away at the whim of the publisher?
revokable means that it's fine until the evil megacorp says it isn't.
to steal from an earlier thread -- my hunting license is temporary: I know it is only good for this year. No ambiguity there, no surprises, and everyone agreed on this upfront.
Are you suggesting that "Purchase license" is somehow unclear and "Pay a fee and we will issue you a license" is clearer?
99.99% of people say "buy" a hunting license and 0% are confused about the duration.
It's a completely different thing, it's like comparing buying a "license" (ticket) to ride a roller coaster and taking a driving license, they're obviously different things, not exactly pedantic, imo.
Agreed! :)
With video games it is often for some unknown amount of time, and of course they don't tell you that.