The New Law that Reveals: We Don't Own Digital Games
In the modern era, digital media has revolutionized how we consume entertainment. The shift towards streaming music and movies has made physical products less common. The same trend is now affecting video games, with over 90% of games sold in the UK being digital.
While digital media offers convenience—like instant access without the need to visit a physical store or manage multiple discs—it also comes with hidden terms and conditions. Digital storefronts are now required by California’s new law (AB 2426) to disclose that buyers do not hold unrestricted ownership over their digitally purchased content.
Key Points:
- Disclosure Requirement: Californian sellers must clearly state they are providing a license, not selling digital goods outright.
- Limited Ownership Rights: While this does not preclude the right to access your purchases temporarily, it highlights the transient nature of licensed media.
- Permanent Exclusions: The law does not apply when products can be permanently downloaded and is not applicable in situations where buyers are notified of terms clearly.
Implications:
This new law adds awareness that digital games, as well as other digital content, do not confer long-term ownership. It also brings to light the challenges of preserving retro or modern games through permanent downloads or physical media.
In the age of digital content, do you think it's more important to own a permanent copy or have accessible licensed rights?
There needs to be a law that requires a physical copy of anything offered digitally. This law does nothing. People don't read the terms as it is adding this won't encourage anyone since it'll be smothered into a bunch if legal nonsense the average person won't even understand.
I think this law is already going in the right direction. If something can be downloaded to have it indefinitely (like what GOG offers) it is all right. Sure, you have to provide the physical medium yourself, but without the law (or nice stores) you wouldn't even have the chance.
And even physical media has often been DRM encumbered. Remember the Sony Rootkit? So I prefer offering a permanent DRM free download I have to backup myself.
The bill text is concise and surprisingly readable.
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240AB2426#99INT
They will either need "affirmative acknowledgment from the purchaser" of their rights or provide a "clear and conspicuous statement" clarifying the buying a digital good is a licence situation.
They provide this definition:
For "affirmative acknowledgment" my guess is something like PlayStation does currently might become common. Every time I checkout their purchase button is disabled until I tick a checkbox with this statement:
Both of these scenarios should be displayed as part of the checkout flow, not hidden away in the ToS/EULA.
Or just don't spend your money on anything non-physical, you don't need half that shit anyway put it in an EFT fund let em die :D
Another problem is that physical is a red herring. You don't own modern physical games any more than you own digital ones, as the famous The Crew shitshow has demonstrated. It doesn't matter if you still have the fancy disc, if you can't even go past the main menu when the publisher decides to shut down the game. In the end DRM is the only deciding factor, not if the game is digital or physical.
You mean The Crew, the online-only racing game?
"It doesn't apply to an online game, therefore it doesn't apply to any situation."
But I agree that it's best to purchase DRM-free copies.
It doesn't apply to any situation with these kinds of aggressive DRM, like other games such as the latest Gran Turismo. Or games that don't come full on disc, the OG release of the Spyro trilogy comes to mind (thankfully that's been fixed).
In any case my point was for people to check each case before assuming physical is safe from publisher meddling. Since in many cases you don't own much more than a fancy installer in a pretty box.
You said
This is false. Most games do have the full game data on disc (or card). There are some specific examples, usually AAA titles like Hogwarts and Jedi Survivor, where there is either online DRM (I gather you mean online DRM, as that is the only thing that would make sense in context) or the title was too big to fit on one disc and they cheaped out. This is somewhat more common with Xbox hybrid discs; the disc will generally contain the Xbox One version, while the Series X version is a download. PlayStation 5 games generally have the full game on disc. Switch cards have the full game.
For the most part, if you buy a physical game, it has the game data on it.
If it's an online-only game, of course it's not playable if the servers shut down. Don't want to pay for a time-limited game? Don't buy them. (I don't.)
This is also false. DRM (again, presumably you mean online DRM in this discussion) is not the sole deciding factor. The actual deciding factors are the things are cited above.
When you say that physical and digital are equivalent, you're just factually wrong. There are certain cases where the physical disc isn't sufficient, but by and large, this sweeping statement is incorrect.
I used the loose term "aggressive DRM" to mean any kind of DRM that can at some point in the future prevent you from playing the game.
In any case what I mean is that when you buy a digital game, if it is DRM free you own the game, and if it employs some of these DRMs you don't. And by "you don't own physical games any more than you own digital games" I mean that the same is true for physical games. If they have such DRM then you don't own them.
I bring the The Crew example because it is not so obvious to the casual person, once the servers were shut down you could not play the single player portions of the game either. And it's something I've even encountered IRL, when I chatted with friends about that fiasco, some were disappointed to learn that their disc was worthless. Of course none were expecting to be able to do multiplayer activities, but not even being able to play the single player campaign was unexpected to some.
I made the statement about DRM being the only deciding factor because I do think it is. And the examples you provided are examples of that, either straight up requiring a connection to play or requiring a download from the servers to get the content. That's what separates a game you own and a game that has been licensed to you.
In any case my initial comment was made because when these kinds of news are shared there is always the "that's why I buy physical" comment. Which IMHO is a false sense of security. Even while buying physical it is important to check what kinds of DRM are implemented in the game, because you might not actually own it either. And physical is not an airtight solution, specially since there is nothing stopping publishers from implementing such online only requirements in physical games (and some already do).
I need you to understand that not only do boycotts not work, suggesting them as some kind of substitute for consumer protection regulation serves corporate interests. What you wrote isn't "wrong," per se, but it's entirely unhelpful.
Boycotts as a grand gesture don't work, I agree I often use the COD boycott as examples, but neither does giving money to things you don't agree with. We've been doing the Lisa Lionheart story line for the last 20 years, and they know it.
This law hopefully will provide a bit more clarity to people buying... sorry, licencing games. My comment is the only one I sadly think they'd understand, as Ubisoft are finding out at the moment. Funny how quickly they can change things and give away all these assets we used to get by default when the share prices start dropping. I def made a mistake there saying non-physical, digital that is allowed to be backed up (Non-DRM) has been more convent and less prone to damage than any physical collection I have.