You Think You Own Your Digital Games? California Law Says Otherwise

Another reason to stick with physical

This is why I like disc based games and I think this will be my last console generation if they continue you this bullshit.

So big companies now just have to tell us they are screwing us. Pretty pointless law.

It should have instead increased the strength in consumer rights and not allow digital purchases to just arbitrarily be taken away.

Requiring the visibility is a good thing. I love my kindle and as I understand it, Amazon does have the ability to remove books even though the file is dl'd on the device.

If I thought they'd actually remove the purchased e-books, I certainly wouldn't purchase any more digital goods from them.

is more like we just brought a license to play the game but we don't really owned the game.

Yo NFT crypto bro's you paid for a temporary thumbnail.?

This law isn't really "saying" anything other than what we already know, or rather what we should know.

It's a small but productive step in the right direction, in keeping consumers informed of their rights.

Maybe the next step will be to legislate some sort of mandatory method of sharing or reselling digital games. Perhaps the step after that will make it illegal for singleplayer games to have online-only requirements. And maybe the next step after that will legislate for complete erasure of draconian DRM that does nothing to combat piracy.

The gaming-age population is taking over politics and it is going to be some interesting times ahead once these old folks are out of office. I can't wait.

Even though physical is still essentially a license, you're not dependent on someone else to maintain it so you can access it. As long as you maintain your hardware, you're good to go.

I don't believe any company has forcefully disabled a physical console game yet. Not saying it will never happen, but I don't think it's happened so far.

I know I probably should care, but I don't. Once I beat a game I'm basically done with it. Too much backlog to beat games again.

TBH in recent years even new generation kids understood how this aspect of the world works because they grew up into the modern computer and internet technologies and for some reason they believe companies work for the well-being of their existence like some caring mother lol but at least the recent Ubishit BS on shutting down The Crew 1's servers and thus people cannot play this singleplayer game that has forced "online only" game system for an excuse of multiplayer and Sony removing access to their games on most of the countries due to enforcing PSN BS really woke up the most zombie narrow minded ignorant kids from their care-free dreams and thus their shit got serious lol. Now they dance on Tiktok with frowns on their faces. :DDD

However, despite how common sense that digital products can be inaccessible to you, this logic is not different from physical products so there is no need for a dramatic captain obvious reaction about it lol. For example, when you buy a table and you use it as long as you can and when you cannot use the table anymore the company that sold you the table doesn't have to provide another table to you. TBH digital products are no different but the fact that once the service is gone your digital product is gone is common sense. For example once they shut down Steam naturally all the games in your library cannot be accessible to you but you may "own" the games in your library by backing them up and crack them on your storage device and then it kinda works as partly what GOG trying to do. This is how "you own the games" but same logic apply for GOG despite they false advertising their service with "you own the game you bought on GOG because our games has no DRM" because once GOG is no more naturally you cannot access the games you got too. Getting DRM-free games just make it so that you don't have to bother cracking, it does not grant you ownership lol. Another thing is for example when it comes to electronic devices even paying for physical product doesn't make you own the device. You cannot alter it or use it for purposes other than what the company allow you as a customer. Of course who really own the product is whoever or whatever company produced it. This again is a common sense but especially not a common sense in capitalist societies like USA because they used capitalist brainwashing to attract people to their country for legal slavery disguised as "American Dream" so hard when people are products and test subjects of their government people literally distracted with owning anything, even they proud to own debts for life ayy lmao.

In the regard of what people are angry about "games and ownership" topic, people are only angry at Denuvo for it's hell to crack it (imagine your key broke down into millions of pieces and they scattered across random planets in the whole universe ayy lmao) and preventing people who backup their games. Otherwise really I never heard people believe people own the games in digital platforms (except USA citizens who call themselves "Americans" like they are the only country in the america, then Canadians are Americans too eh?). What I heard a lot is people somehow believe once Steam is gone somehow companies will send out download links to their games, however even when you buy games on Steam, companies who have their own platforms doesn't give you a license to play the game on their platform lol for thus they can make more money lol.

What should be a law in video gaming is developer cannot chang the game in a way the game cannot be playable for customers after they bought the game. For example so many people bought No Man's Sky for it had OpenGL support and after a few years they removed this support, making lots of customers cannot play the game anymore. This is a BS move. "Technically" this is really no different than company force you to open your door and barge into your home and change the physical product you bought and therefore you cannot use it anymore. What's illegal in this aspect is customer pay for the product for they agree with the current state of the product, so when you change it customer may not agree to own it. That's why what's law is when it comes to digital services sending customers an e-mail about some aspect of the service changed so if you continue to use it you agree the changed terms logic. However, in the case of No Man's Sky the situation is scamming for people paid for it because they could play it, now they cannot play it. Imagine you buy a TV, then they change it so TV is useless to you anymore. This is BS.

When it comes to law there are lots of things must be prevented because after all video games are a product concerning little kids and they can be bought without an adult know about it. To protect kids from scams of video game companies what should be prevented is false advertising, DLC, battle pass, season pass, gacha, gamble, pay to win, microtransactions, changes in system requirement, game's server shutting down with no offline mode support, always online singleplayers, Denuvo preventing offline play... et cetera. If video games were only the concern of adults video game companies from the start couldn't implement such BS into the industry. Kids are just doesn't care in what way they are being raped ayy lmao. They kinda behave like a slave who love their master because "the chains around my body is gift from my master, they look cool, they make me proud!!!" lol. Currently video game industry is very primitive but video game companies think removing blood, removing breast slider and enforcing players to play with big breasted female characters like making her have smaller breast is "pervert", making skirt of female characters longer, making male characters cover their muscles, adding transexual and gay characters, enforcing "empowering women" brainwash wave and whatnot weird mix of Arabic Islam Taliban Mentality (AITM) and LGBTQ is what video game industry needs and what makes it sell. They target little kids to brainwash them for the ideals of the utopia they wanna live in when it's actually a dystopia not many people wants. It's really funny when they expect some 6 years old kid come from school and sit and watch an hour long cutscene about gays, trans and feminist women who can be stronger than straight men ayy lmao.

Well why video game industry gone shit is just because of new generation kids and now they cry about it. Cry me an ocean or two babe so Mars can be great again. :DDD

No, the problem is not the licensing. As many said, it's always been that way, even with physical media. However, the problem is some of them reaching onto your hard drive to delete files without your explicit permission to do so. This is akin to breaking and entering and removing something. Denying server side access is fine. Denying ability to run executables is fine. But altering the state of what's on your device is not fine.

"You Think You Own Your Digital Games?"

No. And I don't think anybody else really does either.

Yeah, it's why we should support companies that aren't trying to get rid of physical media. It's sad that physical media died on PC, though more understandable, as PCs are used for things other than gaming and entertainment.

Sadly, there are tons of people who think they own digital goods, or at least think that their stuff will never actually get taken away. Physical is king.

Viva La Physical!

"You Think You Own Your Digital Games? California Law Says Otherwise"

This is deliberately misleading click-bait. Basic contract law (coupled with IP laws) "says otherwise".

You have always been buying nothing but a license...even with the physical media (it's just that the physical media was easier to abuse). A law that requires companies to make that all the more clear to consumers is a consumer protection law meant to clarify a widespread misunderstanding people seem to harbor because the EULAs are absurdly long and written in legalese. Instead, your headline implies that CA has somehow enacted a law that takes away the ownership everyone thought they had (which they never ever had). It has not.

Not sure who these people were that thought they owned their digital content but, good on one guy for clearing it up in one State.