Which is why I buy games on GoG whenever it’s an option.
Not exactly accurate. The button can still say Buy. The law says that they have to get extra acknowledgment from the buyer that they actually mean license. So it will say buy, and then it will pop up and say you aren’t buying the game, only a license, and then you have to click ok I understand. More nags. What we really need is another license agreement to pop up that nobody reads.
The EULA is a wall of text that means nothing to most people, just like the TOS. The CLA (California License Agreement) or whatever this will be called with be no different, unless they specifically demand a very short and to the point.
*"You are buying a game licence that can legally be revoked without providing a refund.
Ubisoft can revoke the game license at any time for any reason.
Ubisoft guarantees access to the license for 0 days."*
I have no expectation that it will be that clear and concise.
Edit: Looks like they have chosen not to discuss the language of the “clear expansion” at all. Likely because whoever wrote the law didn’t know the subject they’re regulating.
From the article:
The official phrasing in the bill’s summary reads, it will “prohibit a seller of a digital good from advertising or offering for sale a digital good, as defined, to a purchaser with the terms buy, purchase, or any other term which a reasonable person would understand.”
Alternatively, storefronts can clearly explain that you’re buying a license and that your purchase isn’t a permanent transaction, meaning the license can be revoked at any time by the issuer. The most important part of the bill states that passing it will be “ensuring that consumers have a full understanding of exactly what they have bought.”
It’ll probably be a wall of text like maybe a big fat paragraph and a little vague line at the bottom, or somehow manage to be short but still vague enough to not discourage sales while just barely straddling the line of being acceptable to the Californians who might one day end up bothering to look at how this ends up going, if they don’t forget to.
I was alarmed most by part B:
(B)The seller provides to the consumer before executing each transaction a clear and conspicuous statement that does both of the following:
(i)States in plain language that buying or purchasing the digital good is a license.
(ii)Includes a hyperlink, QR code, or similar method to access the terms and conditions that provide full details on the license.
The way I’m reading that it’s just going to say something like: “Attention, you access to this game which can be revoked or abandoned at any time. For more information follow this link and read the license. Press here to continue your purchase.” Nobody will read it.
They’ll just change the button from “Buy $59.99” to just “$59.99”.
As much as I lament the fact that we can’t just own things anymore, it’s not like this legislation will change anything. Storefronts aren’t going to drop their DRM just so they can use the word ‘buy’ again.
So it must be “Rent” now? Logically you still purchase a subscription. So this is a very weird solution.
A better solution would be that it has information on what you’re buying. “You can use this even if the game is removed”, “You can play this online and even without starting up Steam”, “Dedicated servers will be released when the game is stopped”, etc etc
Your counterexample, “purchase a subscription”, actually undercuts the point you’re trying to make. The goal is honesty here. If you are renting or subscribing, you want to know that up front, in big text, using the simplest possible word. That word is “RENT”.
The issue about the lease business model being bad for society and consumers is also important, but it’s complicated and different from basic truth in advertising.
Except you can’t make Steam offer their content offline like that. By altering the language they use it effectively makes them more transparent about what you are really paying for. So, in order to use the word “buy” or “purchase” they would have to make the content available offline, or they have to use a different word that essentially means “rent” or “subscribe” cause that is what is actually happening.
they would have to make the content available offline
Well did they confirm that something you buy isn’t? It’s only a platform and It’s more about the developers that should be doing that.
I think (see: hope) this is a stop-gap solution. It’s at least better than the current implication of buying something and being able to keep it despite these companies knowing full well that the game will be gone in a much more permanent way the moment they flick the switch on the servers.
To paraphrase Ross Scott, it may be a bare minimum but it’s at least nice to have it in writing just how fucked we consumers are.
Hopefully this pushes Valve to include drm free copies of games
