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"Pretty much any digital good you buy cannot be resold. Usually reselling your account under which you made such purchases is also not allowed. All in all its a shitty deal for anyone buying digital goods."

You aren't buying digital goods, you are either renting or buying a lease on those digital goods. The terms and conditions of those purchases of leases or by paying rent do not provide you with the same rights and obligations as a hard copy or un-DRM version would normally provide (either through terms and conditions or various national legislation & regulations). That is part of the agreement you make when you pay for digital goods.

It is for these reasons why I have stopped spending on large priced digital items and only buy a lease when the items are on significant discount, such as costing less than $10, or rent when substantially discounted. There are few things, including hot new games which I'd normally want to buy, that I'm willing to pay for a virtual copy. I have close to zero trust these services will be around in a few years, or that their servers are sufficient to not lose my purchase record in the coming year or two. While I'm sure I would get my $20-80 worth of use out of the game or book, the concept of the inevitable loss of the item is more important as an influence to me, than the utility & pleasure of the use of the item now.

So... what about GOG.com? And Kickstarter games? There are plenty of "digital goods" out there that don't have shitty DRM or require company servers to be online to access the content you paid for. Let's not talk about DRM like it's the only option.

What about them? Maybe I'm dense today, but I don't see how what you said relates to what he said.

His mentioning DRM was ancillary to the main point, that you don't buy digital goods in the classical sense, but instead lease the right to use/play them. This applies to every form of software that has paid-for licensing, even those that don't have DRM attached to try and protect it.

Games from GoG are provided as unencumbered, fully offline installers with no DRM whatsoever. So long as you have the installer you can install the game on any compatible system. There are no mechanisms for GoG to clawback the installer or to prevent the game from running.

Yes but I think that is a bit besides the point.

You are still buying a "lease" to use the software from GoG. I'm not completely familiar with their license agreement, but I suspect it allows you to install the software on all computers you use/own. If you were to give it to a friend, that would be violating the terms of the agreement (even though GoG could not stop you).

The agreement may allow you to resell your license, provided you stop using your existing copies. (Again, GoG would have no way of knowing.)

You are of course complaining about all software. You can't resell Microsoft Office or Photoshop either.

So don't pretend that only games have this issue.

I'm not pretending that games only have this issue.

It's not even an issue to me. I'm not sure what your point is.

I was just trying to clarify that game purchases are still essentially software licenses, even from the least restrictive providers (GoG).

>While I'm sure I would get my $20-80 worth of use out of the game or book, the concept of the inevitable loss of the item is more important as an influence to me, than the utility & pleasure of the use of the item now.

I don't get it. If you believe the experience of playing the game is worth than the cost of the game, why do you care you may lose access to it later on? It's like not going to cinema because you won't have the movie recorded afterwards.

>>> I might have my facts incorrect here but if an App is removed from the Play / iOS app stores isn't it removed from users devices?

No, it's not (at least on iOS)

Source: I've bought a Navigation-App which since seems to be discontinued (N-Drive or something like that).

Not on android either. Even if you dissociate your account from the device, the apps live on (you don't get updates though)

What if you buy a new device? Does the purchase live in your account into perpetuity, or are you out of luck when you upgrade to the "next" iDevice?

If you use iCloud backup and don't ever sync to a local iTunes, then you're out of luck. If you sync with a local iTunes, the app will be in iTunes and will be installed to the device. Unless of course something on the new device prevents the app from running due to technical reasons, but that's the same with old games and new hardware/OSes

I'm not sure this is absolutely true. Years ago I installed an app on my iPhone (Now Playing, a movie times app). That app was removed from the store years ago by the author. Recently I bought an iPad and if I go to "purchased/not on this iPad" in the App Store on the iPad, the app still shows as available for download. You can't search and find it in the store though.

Maybe it still shows because all my devices are iCloud backed up and I never removed it from my iPhone.

I believe the key is that it was removed by the author. Apps that are pulled for violating the App Store rules don't show up in Purchased, to my knowledge. I know I have a couple IPAs floating around just in case I need an emergency tether or something.

After the full iCloud thing launched, I've had apps reappear that were much earlier pulled from the store, gone from my iTunes, and I've changed phones too. So it really does look like the purchase lives in the account forever.

Depends. If the developer indicates that the app was removed for 'legal issue', it will no longer be available for redownloading. Otherwise, you can download discontinued apps http://www.macrumors.com/2011/06/09/icloud-supports-re-downl...

It depends who does the removing. In the past Apple themselves have removed apps from both the App Store and customer devices for malware issues. But if a developer stops selling an app, it remains on your device.

Even if Apple removes it, you get to keep it on your device unless it's something you don't want anyway (i.e. malware). For example, that flashlight app that allowed free tethering a while back got banned from the App Store, but users who bought it got to keep it.

Like the parent said, it depends. A normal App Store pull won't remove installed instances from users' devices, but that mechanism (the "kill switch") /does/ exist for Apple to use in extreme cases (or, really, whenever they want to, since they're the ones who are really in control).

The comment I was replying to said it depends on whether it's Apple or the developer who pulls it from the store. What you are reiterating here is what I said — that being pulled by Apple does not normally result in the app being deleted from devices, but Apple does have the power to do it.

My mistake, then.

Very rarely, maybe once or twice.

And even if they do that, you still have the apk on your harddrive, you can back it up.

Citation please?

To the best of my knowledge, Apple has never removed any app directly from the user's devices.

Yes, me too, i wrote to n-drive and they send me a code for one of their partners application, very noble, but of course apple refunds nothing.

It isn't that hard to factor the downsides into the price you are willing to pay.

The internet whinging machine should focus on clear statements of what the product does and consumer education. EA should only get in trouble if they fail to make it clear that the game requires a network connection or if they fail to provide servers for the advertised period.

Selling a game with online features should not have to be a commitment to provide those features forever, so finding decent middle ground is the only solution.

> It isn't that hard to factor the downsides into the price you are willing to pay.

This. I've bought a number of $10 games on Steam because I figure I'll get that much value out of a game even if Steam disappears next month. But I won't go much higher for anything encumbered by online DRM or other means of remote shutdown.

I can afford more, but the reasoning is psychological. I'll care and get agitated if a $60 investment disappears, but I can write off $10.

Steam have always said that if for some unfathomable reason they shut down the service they would make sure our games would continue to be playable.

Yeah, I've always wondered about that...

I have a small number of games in my library, maybe 12, and I only have 3 of them installed on this computer. If they went out of business, it would be physically impossible for them to send me the files.

Yes, I know they could have some sort of "graceful shutdown period", but what if I don't hear about it?

Yes, they have said that, and with the best intentions. But one can never predict what will actually happen with a company in the throes of shutting down. The lawyers could kick out the programmers before they can throw the killswitch, or even obtain an injunction against doing so. Picture a hypothetical event where Valve enters bankruptcy and shuts down service, but an acquirer intends to resume it, but the case gets stuck in the courts for years. (IANAL and I'm exaggerating to make the point, but you get the idea.)

We're dependent on Valve's good will and intentions for Steam. There is no technical solution that the community can implement without Valve's blessing.

All of the above should be factored into the grandparent post about factoring DRM into discounting the price you're willing to pay. Valve's reassurance reduces but does not eliminate my personal DRM discount. By contrast but also comparison with Valve/Steam, the attitude of EA and many other publishers and platforms instantly pegs my personal DRM discount at 100%.

Not just with the best of intentions.

Valve have always treated their customers pretty well. They're not viewed like EA or Activision for a good reason, they've garnered a great deal of good will by behaving in an exemplary way. You're envisioning a hypothetical of the all the worst possible outcomes. At the moment we have no reason to imagine anything other than them keeping their word. I do agree that it's not ideal having no solution we can implement ourselves.

My criteria for price is actually mainly dependent on how many hours of enjoyment I get out of something. I'm not willing to spend the cost of a triple A game for 10-12 hours gameplay. If it's got something upwards of 40+ hours then I'm quite happy to spend money on it.

One thing that could be a big factor in their favor that such a claim could be credible, is that Valve is privately owned. While that doesn't necessarily mean that greed won't rule the day, but it does mean that if the company leadership prioritizes something besides fiscal performance as it goes through its death throes, it won't be considered criminal negligence.

Aside from the other issues listed here by others, would they even legally be allowed to do that for the majority of the games they sell? Most of those games are not their games, but rather the games of other companies that publish with Steam.

> Selling a game with online features should not have to be a commitment to provide those features forever,

Selling a game that requires online features to work is very different to eventually shutting off the servers of a game that has some online features.

I don't think I implied otherwise.

Stating it a little bit differently, if it is ok to put "Some features require an internet connection and are only promised to be supported until Jan, 2015" on a box, then I think it is ok to put "Game requires an internet connection and will be supported until at least Jan, 2015".

A requirement for accurate labeling is reasonably simple, especially in comparison to hairsplitting over whether it is appropriate or allowable to depend on the internet for a particular feature.

This isn't clearly on boxes though.

Look at Amazon: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Electronic-Arts-Simcity-PC-DVD/dp/B0...

It doesn't say anywhere that you must have an internet connection to play at all. Amazon add this text. "Some customers have reported issues when trying to connect to the SimCity servers." Again this gives little indication it will leave you with a broken game.

The labeling you suggest wouldn't get past advertising watch dogs as it would be confusing. Both are too similar.

"Some features require an internet connection and are only promised to be supported until Jan, 2015"

"Game requires an internet connection and will be supported until at least Jan, 2015"

I didn't know Diablo 3, Sim City or Starcraft 2 required an Internet connection to play single player until people were complaining about it.

Also, after the collapse of THQ how valid would such promises be? If EA failed next month and no one purchased the Sim City franchise the game wouldn't work..

Digital or not you assume that in purchasing a game the game will work for the foreseeable future. It isn't like an MMO where you pay for a month's access. You are paying for a license to play the game. You accept that multiplayer servers will eventually be turned off. Generally you don't expect largely single player experiences to stop working.

A lot of PC gamers specifically expect games to always work. Starcraft:Brood War is like 15 years old and I have installed and working on my Windows 7 PC. I gave Grim Fandango a spin a little while ago. Remember that game? Fantastic.

I understand that it isn't on boxes.

My point is that 'works forever' isn't a battle you are going to win, so aim low and succeed.

My wording doesn't have to be what ends up on boxes. The point is that it should be possible to clearly communicate connection requirements to the purchaser. Do that and they have all the information they need to make (or not make!) the purchase. I'm not terribly sympathetic to the 'the consumer is a moron so you can't try to inform him' line of reasoning.

The fact that companies go out of business isn't that big a deal, if you are concerned EA is going bankrupt, don't believe their promise to provide servers for 18 months and spend your dollars elsewhere.

> Selling a game with online features should not have to be a commitment to provide those features forever, so finding decent middle ground is the only solution.

I bought the damned thing. I didn't buy it "for X years".

The only "middle ground" that works is that if you take down the servers, you must provide the ability for end users to run their own. But that'll never happen, because then they can't sell you New SimCity as easily.

> I bought the damned thing. I didn't buy it "for X years".

Misunderstanding what you bought doesn't actually entitle you to anything more than what you bought. No one promised you that your game would last forever. It was clearly advertised as reliant on an online connection to their servers, and the overwhelming majority of plaintiffs here demonstrate an understanding that such a connection connotes an eventual cessation of service.

If you want to have full ownership over the capability of running the game, get it in writing before you pay.

And your rationale is why we have consumer protection laws: because that behavior is bullshit and cannot be accepted by a reasonable society. It cannot be acceptable to sell one game for $60 that works in perpetuity and one for $60 that gets the plug pulled after two or three years.

Shame that those consumer protection laws are toothless.

Games are fruit, not apples.

That is, if a company wants to sell bananas, they shouldn't have to meet your expectations surrounding apples.

Except they're not even selling bananas. They're selling you maybe-bananas. You don't know what you're buying, you don't know the term of the product's lifetime, and they won't tell you.

Markets don't work without fair access to information. If a company commits, with a posted bond, to support the game through date X--sure, you're right. But they're not. They are selling the proverbial cat in a bag. That is anti-consumer, and consumers--people--are more important than the companies that exist to serve them.

If you look up a few levels of the comment tree, you will see that I say people should be focusing on requiring accurate labeling.

The company longevity thing is problematic, but I have trouble getting worked up about it for $50 luxury purchases.

I make games. I consider them important enough to get worked up over. =)

I wasn't sure whether to respond to this comment or the ones further up the tree...

Long story short, I agree. maxerickson's idea of labeling is a good one, since the point isn't really the mechanism so much as the principle of stipulating the contents of the contract in detail. If the game industry decided to standardize on only promising a year of service, I suspect that would be fine: it's explicit, it's well-known, and the game-maker will almost certainly run longer than that if their product is remotely successful.

This quickly turns into EA not being allowed to sell other people a $5 game because you only want the $10 version.

Which is the point of accurate labeling, it creates fewer restrictions for everybody.

(I do think fit for purpose is a good test, but it can't just apply to any imagined purpose that any person can come up with)

I might have my facts incorrect here but if an App is removed from the Play / iOS app stores isn't it removed from users devices? What happens to any money you put into those apps?

Technically speaking, Google does have this capability to remotely wipe apps from devices [1], but they only do it when the app constitutes a security threat (i.e. malware) to users who were tricked into installing it. As far as I know, they've only done it twice ever [2].

iOS also has this capability [3], and similarly has not done it often (someone correct me if I'm wrong, I'm only an occasional iOS user).

[1] http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2010/06/exercising-ou...

[2] Both times were to proof-of-concept apps. http://jon.oberheide.org/blog/2010/06/25/remote-kill-and-ins...

[3] http://techcrunch.com/2008/08/07/apple-can-remotely-remove-a...

Your techcrunch link is wrong. It's linking to another source, which spouts what turns out to be incorrect conjecture from a random developer. It's referring to a CoreLocation blacklist, which I believe isn't even consulted on more recent versions of the OS.

As a person interested in developing games, I'd like to ask what's the aggravating factor here - the fact that many EA games require to be always online or the fact that EA's servers can't handle the load? I'm guessing the latter is the real problem, while the former is probably more a matter of principles (which for a majority of players don't matter) that a real annoyance.

Both, I suspect, though not handling the load is as bad as shipping a game that simply doesn't work. But since they have to be online, you can't fire up a game on an airplane, for instance (unless you feel like buying the wifi). Nor in the car. Nor on the train. It also means it's simply a ticking time bomb - when they decide to end support, you lose your game, completely. I've out-lived a lot of products - why would <application X> be any different?

It also means you can't play your game at home on your regular PC if your internet service goes out.

which, were i a gamer, is exactly when i would want some large, complex game to occupy my time!

The former is a real problem too. If your game is likely to just stop working sometime in the not-too-distant future, that drastically decreases its value to me. A game that I would have paid $60 for suddenly becomes at questionable deal at that price point, because you're essentially renting it to me. I would never pay the full price of a game for a rental. A lot of the people I know like to enjoy games for a long time, so if you take that guarantee away, suddenly I'm getting a lot less out of my purchase.

TL;DR: If you're willing to charge in the single-digits for your game, sure, make it as limited as you want. If you want to charge like a real game, don't try to shortchange me with brittle DRM.

> considering how many good franchises they own that would just be a lie

Which? The last game they made that can be described as "more than mediocre" was Mirror's Edge.

I found Mirror's Edge to be distinctly mediocre but I imagine Battlefield and the fact that they seem to create most of the "official license" sports franchises is what is being referred to.

Just curious, did you play ME on console? It's vastly, vastly improved w mouse aiming.

Yes, on the xbox. The main problem I had with the game was that there was a lot of time spent running around fairly drab indoor environments trying to find the right thing to jump on rather than the fast building scaling action I was expecting.

Agreed, it was rather fun when I remember playing it on my PC.

Its funny that Mirror's Edge has been brought up. I literally completed it yesterday. I am trying to go through my back catalog of unplayed games. Ran through it on the PS3

I think it had the makings of a fantastic game and was let down by pretty much every element. Initially I found the game was pretty exciting, unfortunately getting shot at made it tedious. There was a point where I got ran over by a train and fell off my chair. First game that made that happen. (I looked left, looked right, no train. Stepped out. HONKING TRAIN! Scared the crap out of me. I play games with the TV really loud)

The cityscape was bland, the story was meh, the free running was trial and error, getting shot at constantly was pretty tedious and combat was awkward. That said the idea's in the game were good. I feel it could be rebooted into an excellent game.

I enjoy Fifa and Battlefield. I am sure there are many more in the list. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Electronic_Arts_games

Worryingly though EA are getting pretty good at breaking franchises. Age of Empires, Ultima Online and Sim City specifically.. Fifa on the Vita severely damaged that franchises reputation.

I actually enjoyed Mirror's Edge. The game play and the story. The game was a quite short but I barely paid anything for it so quite worth it.

They key is to never pre-order an EA game. You never know what you're getting into DRM wise.

Except they made it pretty clear that it will be an always-on game. :/

But they didn't make it clear it would be unplayable :)

What's really terrifying about Diablo 3 is that it's the most in-piratable solo game yet. I think that most of the logic is server-side. So if Blizzard decides to pull the plug, you have no choice but to reimplement the whole server-side. Fortunately, Blizzard seems much more serious about the follow-up of their games than EA ever was (consider that Warcraft 3 patches are still being put out).

Still, even Blizzard could not avoid server problems at launch.

The government will usually be about 10 years behind what is actually happening. If we want a solution that works it has to be a market based one.

For example, if one wanted to create a DRM free version of Sim City now would be an excellent time to start a kickstarter.

> now would be an excellent time to start a kickstarter.

Or you could just go get Cities XL

Unfortunately, Cities XL sucks.

http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/cities-xl they pissed everyone else off at launch, too

http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/cities-xl-2012 not much better

SimCity 4 is still available (~$20 on Steam & Origin), and it's quite good, without any of the online nonsense that infects the current iteration.

Haemimont's Tropico games are also very good (Metacritic: http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/tropico-4) city-builders, with a smaller scale than traditional SimCity titles but more flavor and atmosphere. Steam has a bundle with the latest version, Tropico 4, plus all its expansions for $40 (http://store.steampowered.com/sub/19282/).

There's also "towns" which looks interesting http://www.townsgame.com/ though I have not yet played it.

don't bother.

Towns is its own genre. It's like third-person Minecraft. Not the same.

Towns is a stripped-out Dwarf Fortress done shittily with somehow even worse UI. For that sort of game you're better off playing either Dwarf Fortress or Gnomoria, which is also simplified compared to DF but has a much better UI.

Tropico 4 plus all its expansions is only $10 for this week, likely in response to all the bad Sim City PR.

Zeus: Master of Olympus is my favorite city building game.

It just has a crazy charm to it, and it also has really nifty features, like how it shows the whole (albeit simplified) production line for food (fisherman catch fish, take them to a fishery, etc.).

Here's one: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1584821767/civitas-plan-...

Can't comment on the credibility though, nothing solid has been shown yet.