No one should own an Ubisoft game. Its a company thats at the top of the list with Nintendo as far as the level of hatred and vitriol they have for their own paying customers goes.
Stern@lemmy.world 5 days ago
If I never actually owned a Ubisoft game that logically pirating them isn’t theft right? Right?
A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world 5 days ago
Arcane2077@sh.itjust.works 5 days ago
You’re correct, and this goes for ALL steam games
SaharaMaleikuhm@feddit.org 4 days ago
Half Life 2 works offline just fine. You can even run the exe directly without Steam open. You just cannot compare the two. But yes, if Steam get shut down you obviously cannot download them again. Same goes for games on GOG. You could archive them, but you can also archive games from Steam, it’s all the same.
Arcane2077@sh.itjust.works 4 days ago
I didn’t say you can’t play them, just that you don’t own them. This is still true with DRM free games. You don’t own any house without a locked front door
Korhaka@sopuli.xyz 4 days ago
You don’t really own a house at all. Gotta pay eternal rent to the government to keep it
Rakonat@lemmy.world 5 days ago
Problem is Ubisoft games are so shit now days it’s not even worth the effort to pirate them.
Sauciness6413@lemmy.world 5 days ago
Yes sir 100% correct.
joel_feila@lemmy.world 5 days ago
Logic checks out
squidspinachfootball@lemm.ee 4 days ago
It’s a nice sentiment but seriously - the whole “if buying isn’t owning then pirating isn’t stealing” thing is both overused and has always annoyed me. How are the two related? You can still be stealing regardless of if you have an option to buy or not. You could still steal an item that isn’t for sale.
What we really should be focusing on is whether pirating in and of itself is stealing, and whether it should be a crime. This overused phrase is distracting from the issue at hand, imo.
p03locke@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 days ago
How are the two related?
A user obtains the game through legitimate means by “buying” the game. However, they do not own the game, and are in fact, just renting something. This is despite decades and decades of game buying, especially pre-Internet, equating to owning the game and being able to play the game forever, even 100 years from now.
By pirating the game, a user has clawed back the implied social construct that existed for decades past: Acquiring a game through piracy means that you own the game. You have it in a static form that cannot be taken away from you. There’s still the case of server shutdowns, like this legal case is arguing. But, unlike the “buyer”, the game cannot suddenly disappear from a game’s store or be forcefully uninstalled from your PC. You own it. You have the files. They cannot take that away from you.
The phrase essentially means: You have removed my means of owning software, therefore piracy is the only choice I have to own this game. It’s not stealing because it’s the only way to hold on to it forever.
lolcatnip@reddthat.com 4 days ago
I think Ubisoft is clearly in the wrong, but you’re not making a good case. You’re conflating very different meanings of the word “own”.
In terms of legal ownership, only the copyright holder owns the intellectual property, including the right to distribute and license it. When a consumer “buys” a piece of media, they’re really just buying a perpetual license for their personal use of it. With physical media, the license is typically tied to whatever physical object (disc, book, ROM, etc.) is used to deliver the content, and you can transfer your license by transferring the physical media, but the license is still the important part that separates legal use from piracy.
When you pirate something, you own the means to access it without the legal right to do so. So, in the case at hand, players still “own” the game in the same sense they would if they had pirated it. Ubisoft hasn’t revoked anyone’s physical access to the bits that comprise the game; what they’ve done is made that kind of access useless because the game relies on a service that Ubisoft used to operate.
The real issue here is that Ubisoft didn’t make it clear what they were selling, and they may even have deliberately misrepresented it. Consumers were either not aware that playing the game required Ubisoft to operate servers for it, or they were misled regarding how long Ubisoft would operate the servers.
Ultimately I think what consumers are looking for is less like ownership and more like a warranty, i.e. a promise that what they buy will continue to work for some period of time after they’ve bought it, and an obligation from the manufacturer to provide whatever services are necessary to keep that promise. Game publishers generally don’t offer any kind of warranty, and consumers don’t demand warranties, but consumers also tend to expect punishers to act as if their products come with a warranty. Publishers, of course, don’t want to draw attention to their lack of warranty, and will sometimes actively exploit that false perception that their products come with a perpetual warranty.
I think what’s really needed is a very clear indication, at the point of purchase, of whether a game requires ongoing support from the publisher to be playable, along with a legally binding statement of how long they’ll provide support. And there should be a default warranty if none is clearly specified, like say 10 years from the point of purchase.
p03locke@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 days ago
I’m not trying to frame this in the context of the lawsuit, even though that’s the point of the original article. The Crew’s nonfunctionality is just a consequence of our lack of ownership.
Perhaps this article would explain things better than I could.
supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz 5 days ago
You are joking, but I am 100% serious, I don’t see the contradiction in this.
clay_pidgin@sh.itjust.works 5 days ago
It’s a license to play the game, so when you pirate it is like sneaking into the movie theater. There’s no additional cost to the producer, but theoretically a loss of revenue from the license (movie ticket) you didn’t buy.
All that ignores the fact that they sure do pretend they are SELLING the game when it’s convenient.
TwoSteps@programming.dev 5 days ago
I agree with this point, and it’s also why I think the class action suit makes sense. Some of the people who bought The Crew got a physical copy, which is now just a useless disc. It’s still just a license like you said, and I agree that it feels like they’re selling the game.
It’s like if the movie theater sold a DVD for a movie, but the disc will only work while you’re in the theatre. Pirating might still be a crime legally but I don’t think anyone should feel bad about doing it here, Ubisoft absolutely does not deserve your money over slimy business practices like this.
clay_pidgin@sh.itjust.works 5 days ago
Agree top to bottom.
Cataphract@lemmy.ml 5 days ago
I think a better comparison would be a “Drive-In Theater”, because with pirating you’re just seeing the film, not using their seats/venue (servers) so it’s like you’re sitting in the neighbors yard watching it from their porch. Still costing them what would be considered a “viewing purchase” for the data but you’re really not putting a strain on the theater itself by “attending or sneaking in”.
clay_pidgin@sh.itjust.works 5 days ago
I mean you’re still using the Drive-In’s gravel and taking up space, but I see what you mean.
aeternum@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 days ago
the fact is, that most people who pirate, wouldn’t pay for it if they couldn’t pirate. It’s not a loss of revenue in most cases.