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A comment on Ubisoft deleted account with hundreds of dollars’ worth of games for inactivity. Parent comment

Re:Ubisoft deleted account with hundreds of dollars’ worth o... by danaris on Monday December 27, 2021 @11:43AM (#29703992)
Unfortunately, there's a pretty straightforward way around legislation that requires that people have access to games they've bought, and companies are already moving in that direction: Just make every game have an online component, and make it not run if it can't properly authenticate with the server.

Banning this type of practice gets into much thornier ground, because plenty of games legitimately do run only online (MMOs of all types, for instance), and for plenty of others, there's a legitimate reason for them to at least have an online component...and just how deeply embedded in the game that online component has to be is rarely going to be a simple matter to determine.

I don't really see a good solution to this at the moment, sadly.

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Re:Ubisoft deleted account with hundreds of dollars’ worth o... by dragonwriter on Monday December 27, 2021 @11:48AM (#29704038)
> I don't really see a good solution to this at the moment, sadly.

Preferring games that don't do the bad thing and being willing to pay a premium for (or accept lower production values from) them is the market solution. I think you’ve outline why there isn't a legislative solution that doesn't adversely impact lots of genres of games where online is fundamental to the game and not an abusive control methods with no other purpose.

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Re:Ubisoft deleted account with hundreds of dollars’ worth o... by danaris on Monday December 27, 2021 @12:04PM (#29704232)
Well, yes, but on the whole, that one doesn't seem to be working: there are still plenty of people more than willing to plop down their $60+ for the latest and greatest AAA games...with loot boxes, microtransactions, always-online requirements for single-player modes, and extremely dodgy privacy policies.
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Re:Ubisoft deleted account with hundreds of dollars’ worth o... by dragonwriter on Monday December 27, 2021 @12:09PM (#29704286)
> extremely dodgy privacy policies.

You might not be able to ban always-online requirements without unacceptable collateral damage, but you can legislatively address “extremely dodgy privacy policies” by simply having decent privacy laws and not leaving the issue up to corporate policy.

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