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214 points
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The Crew’s servers, scheduled for Sunday March 31, represents a “gray area” in videogame consumer law that he would like to challenge.

I think the argument to make is that The Crew was sold under a perpetual license, not a subscription, so we were being sold a good, not a service

the seller rendered the game unusable and deprived it of all value after the point of sale.

Goddam right, that’s not a grey area IMO, that shit ought to be illegal. Maybe there should be a term, like let’s say 90 years maybe?

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117 points
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My personal favorite is the “companies are obligated to support it forever, or open source the server software hosted by a third party, hosting paid for up front for at least a year.”

They get to keep my money forever don’t they?

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45 points

While I love the spirit of this idea, it gets complicated fast. Worlds adrift is a great example. The game’s server was created using some closed source libraries with a paid license. So when the owning company (Bossa Studios?) went under, they were unable to open source it.

A law like this would effectively kill all licensed software that isn’t a full product. I do agree though; we need a solution

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18 points

When the initially licensed the library, they should’ve included distributed binary copies. That may have allowed them to release the source for their game alongside the binary of the library.

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13 points

A law like this would effectively kill all licensed software that isn’t a full product

What I’m hearing is: this law needs to be a constitutional amendment.

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7 points

IIRC Bossa tried to open source it but they used a license for Spatial OS, which provided the backbone of their game. They were unable to make a stable game without it and opted to not open source it. But they were also in an early access that would probably provide an exception for a game closing down.

Bossa did leave the island creator active and has spun up Lost Skies on the same engine, which wouldn’t be possible if they open sourced WA.

Ultimately the issue should be GaaS and MMOs are offerings service while other games are goods which have an artificial expiry date. This is a good test of software judication.

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2 points

I’m fine with that, wanna keep it out of public hands, nut up and sell your stuff

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22 points

I’d tie its length to copyright length. Maybe they would fight Disney when they try to raise it again.

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20 points

I just expect a popup in the game which says something like “Could not connect to server, some multiplayer features will be unavailable. Continue offline?”

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3 points

Or the ability to host community servers like the olden days when a game is sunsetted.

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1 point
Deleted by creator
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19 points

Or, maybe don’t force online requirement, and allow p2p. Or, better yet, open source the server now that it’s shut down and release a patch to specify where to connect.

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7 points

Blacklight Retribution did this for their console version. Wish they woulda did it for the PC version but whatever.

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1 point

😭

I miss it so much.

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16 points

Imagine buying a T-shirt, and the manufacturer, without your prior knowledge or consent, could somehow render your shirt unwearable – that’s effectively what’s happening here. The only “gray area” might be that ultimately you don’t own a copy of the game anyway (since digital copies are effectively leased – a whole other issue unto itself), but regardless: more power to this lawsuit. Seriously shady shit getting tacitly accepted lately.

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12 points
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“we lost our license to print this brands logo on our shirts, so you have to give it back now”

Smh

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-7 points
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“Imagine everyone moves to electric vehicles, gas stations close down, and people start sueing Ford for releasing a gas car 30 years ago” is the better analogy.

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6 points

That’s a terrible analogy.

It’s more like, imagine Fords required a connect to a server to run and they turned that server off, stopping a perfectly functional car you purchased from working.

Then you sued them to force them to make the car work without the server.

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0 points

What a weird case of simping

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