The Glade 4.0

....how can they tell you that you can't resell something that you own? I mean, you bought and paid for it just like anything else...I don't see how they can tell you that you can't resell it.

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"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Jesus of Nazareth

They touch on that. Basically (unless I am misinterpreting), they are saying that many software publishers have it in their EULA that you are purchasing a license to use the software (i.e. a glorified rental for your use only), not outright buying the software from them to do with as you please.

I think it's bull honkey, personally. If I am paying their outrageous prices, I better damn well own the software completely. Want me to rent it? Charge me less.

That's exactly what I was thinking.

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"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Jesus of Nazareth

Someone really needs to challange this ont he basis that A) you're purchasing the physical medium B) in the store, it's processed as a sale and C) the EULA doesn't come into play until AFTER you have purchased it from the store; there's no way to agree to it prior to paying your money.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Very well said.

Problem is, that's a big-bucks litigation, I would assume. Software companies have pretty deep pockets. Not sure who would/could bring that kind of suit.

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This cold and dark tormented hell
Is all I`ll ever know
So when you get to heaven
May the devil be the judge

Don't be naive. You're not purchasing the physical medium for $50-60. You're paying for the IP contained on it. And as such, you can't possibly imagine that your $50-60 is purchasing full rights to the source code. Therefore, you must be licensing the IP, anything beyond that makes absolutely no sense.

And when it comes to data in a digital age, it's not unreasonable to ban the resale of data, given that the owner of the IP (not you) has zero guarantee that you have not made a copy of the data.

I fully support resale of the physical medium. Gouge that CD deeply, and sell the physical product as a coaster for fifty cents at a yard sale. Anything less than that, and you're reselling IP that you do not own, and the owner has not sold any transferable rights to you.

The argument that you have no way to see the EULA before purchase was a good one a decade ago. Now, the EULAs are generally posted online, and are boilerplate anyways and we've all had the opportunity to read ones that are just like it, so claiming that you were surprised that you weren't purchasing any transferable rights is pretty silly at this point when you own fifty other games with EULAs that also don't offer any transferable rights.

IIRC, I've read several EULAs that stated that you could immediately ship the full contents of the box back with a receipt dated within X many days of the shipping date for a refund if you don't accept the terms of the EULA, though I think that died out as the piracy caught up to the copy protection schemes.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

Way to ruin a ***** session with reasoning, knowledge, and sensibility, Kaffis!

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"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Jesus of Nazareth

What Kaffis said.

You aren't paying for a computer program, code, files, etc... you are paying for the right to play their game. If the terms of the purchase state that this right is not transferrable, then reselling should not be allowed.

At that point, the consumer will have to decide with their wallets if they want to support companies that apply this restriction to their games.

I fully realize all this, but frankly it's an issue. If I own the physical medium and their proprietary data is on it I shouldn't have to destroy my property to protect their rights. The relative value is an issue, but it's still a major problem.



Surprised or not really doesn't matter. The EULA is an agreement and contract of sorts. This would be like selling someone a house and then refusing to give them a key until they sign a contract saying they're really just renting it and then claiming that its perfectly legitimate because it's standard and it's available online.



If it died out, that's a serious problem.

Basically they're demanding that you pay first, then agree in order to use what you paid for. It simply doesn't square up with any other sort of buisness or exchange or property. I, quite frankly, think someone ought to belooking to see if there were any "inducements" for the judge to decide this way.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Except that it's not a term of purchase. You purchase, and then they present the terms. You can't do this in any other field of buisness.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Nobody's selling you the house, though. You're free to negotiate the sale of the house for the several hundred thousand (or a couple million, these days) dollars that the actual house is worth.

But you put fifty bucks down, and think you're really getting the house? You bought a weekend of a timeshare, not a house, dude.

Also, nobody's telling you to destroy your property. Your property is simply worthless without their property riding on top of it. That doesn't give you the right to sell your property with their property attached unless you remove it, however. And scratching up your CD has not destroyed "your property" -- it's still a circular piece of resin encased foil, just like your property was before you scratched off their property.

Also, you want to read the EULA before your purchase? Research. It's on the web. (Examples provided from both the publishing juggernauts; EA groups them all together, Activision hosts PDFs of the manuals which contain them.)

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

I hope this is overturned. If it isn't, I wouldn't be surprised to see someone try to slip a EULA on a DVD/BD disc. Nobody pauses to read wall of text screens on the movies, and the user can show assent by pressing "Play Movie" at the movie. After all, you can't possilby imagine that your $15-20 is purchasing full rights to the IP of the movie.

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So the death of Game Stop is eminent? While some people see this as a good unintended consquence, I'm not so sure.

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

If gamestop died out I'd have zero video game stores within at least 20 miles of my house. I know it's the devil or whatever, but it sure as hell beats going to walmart or best buy or wherever else i would have to go if there wasn't one around. It's also by far the easiest place to reserve non big name games, and in some cases the only place to find them. Oh, and it's the easiest place to find older games that I'd forgotten about or just found out about.

I've never gotten Game Stop hate. In my opinion (and apparently plenty of others since they keep going) they provide a quality service at a price people are willing to pay. However a large portion of their profits are on the resale market. If that market disappears it would probably hurt them a lot, maybe even fatally.

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

Ironically I came to dislike GS after I left there, upon reflection of how they screwed their employees over.

But yeah, if you can find one that doesn't have extreme bias toward/against certain platforms you found a keeper and a perfectly good game store.

Ironically enough, Jocificus, I'm not sure it does beat the hell out of going to Wallyworld or Best Buy.

Yes, it's the only place where it's easy to reserve upcoming games, but it's also a fairly evident truism that it's the place where reservations are most necessary, particularly for PC games. If they went under, you'd just see Walmart and Best Buy bump their orders up to compensate, and you'd still be able to get your games on release day.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

My options for release date are "Hour drive", "Walmart", or "ohai Amazon". ;p Complaining about a lack of video game stores is.. entertaining, to me.

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Grenade 3 Sports Drink. It's fire in the hole.. Your hole!

I've always done pretty well with Amazon pre-orders. The game always shows up on launch day as adverised.

I haven't made a purchase in a gamestop in a long time. I wouldn't classify it as hate.. but I don't care for some of their practices (selling open games as new for one example), so I may wander if I'm near one and not in a hurry, i never go out of my way to buy things there.

I have to respectfully disagree kaffis. It is perfectly reasonable to assume you are buying a copy of IP in physical medium to do with as you will, but not make further copies of, as in all other consumer ip - music, art, literature, etc.

In fact, this is NOT standard. It is behavior unique to one industry, that ignores the established norm of civil copyright and property terms, and that imposes non standard, differing terms, of 40 pages+ in some cases, in language most are not trained to understand, after the point if exchange.

This is not "do I own the source material to do with as I please" - it is "do I own the copy I paid for"

As a basic point of principle people must know the terms of a contract before they engage, and providing them online in a completely different medium is not reasonable. I would also hold that the variety and length of EULAs given the nature of the transaction fails the practicality test.

If you truly believe everyone understands this and it is above board, answer this:

Why do companies not advertise software as long term rental, rather than as a sale or with the word "buy"?

I believe their 'sales' would go down, especially in the consumer space, because most folks would not endorse the understanding you put forth.

There are also numerous examples online of hardware manufacturers refusing to honour the windows refund EULA term, or honoring it for a desultory sum ( or were in the XP days)

Hellfire move?

I no longer care.

$60 for a game, and another $45 for downloadable content before the game is complete? That's overpriced, and yet that game and content cost 10x more to develop and employed far more people than a pathetic little office suite that costs $300+ dollars?

I'll continue to find alternative avenues to get my software. (And it's not all piracy. Nothing like sharing an MS Technet subscription between several people...works out to $40 for a single installation of every peice of software Microsoft currently publishes.)

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

You really don't need to reserve games. Best Buy or Wal-Mart will usually have it... Or you can order it from Amazon. They do release day deliveries for some games. I like the Penny-Arcade on the secondary market for games. If you buy used from GS, you aren't the developer's customer, and they don't have to care about you.

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"...the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?" -Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Heh, my experience with Gamestop typically goes like:

"Sorry, we're out of copies of *New game* unless you have it pre-ordered."

*Go next door to Wal-Mart where they have many stacks of said game available.*

Wal-Mart has pulled through for me a time or two when GameStop has failed.

Surprisingly, I've had 2 times where K-Mart even did. Still find it weird to this day, but it's something I keep in mind. :p