Helios
Member
The video is fairly long but I found this summary on reddit that explains it really well. Kudos to Roegnvaldr
Since a lot of people will be turned off by the length of the video, I'm going to post a couple of things here.
Ross's main focus of his video - a 5minute resume of his points. It's a resume, however, and he backs his arguments throughout the video. So if you are going to make arguments, please watch the video in its entirety.
Ross's slides throughout the video
Specifically, The problem with GaaS
Contents of video:
Definition of GaaS / Goods and Services / Legal Argument: Games are Goods / Legal Argument: Ownership of goods/ Legal Argument: Planned Obsolence / Conceptual Argument against Games being Services / Preservational Argument against GaaS / Counter-Arguments & Concerns / Ending & What's next
TL;DW: Under several laws in many countries and continents, a game sold/F2P with MTX of any sort is considered to be selling GOODS, not Services (Subscription models are exempt due to having descriptions of when the service ends). Regardless of what EULAs say, the actual governamental law defines that goods need to be usable at any point after purchase and software, as a good, does belong to the one who purchased the product.
Ross's argument is that the "GaaS" is not a service, but acts as one in order to be able to shut down games after they start being unprofitable. He only requests that companies give players a reasonable way to play games after the servers are shut down.
He has MANY good arguments and spitting out criticisms without taking the whole video in is a great disservice to both the person doing the "criticism" as well as to the work compiled by Ross.
You may not care about games dying. That's fine. Ross's point is that GaaS are being sold as something they are not and thus fraudulent, therefore requiring the intervention of the law. It's not an attack towards you or your attitude towards how companies handle online-only games - it's an attack on said companies mishandling their product after they cease giving support to it.
If you have counter arguments to make, have a look at Ross's rebuttals to what he believes are the most common criticisms. Yours may be there.
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