EULAs ruining games

General and high profile video game topics.
User avatar
VideoGameCritic
Site Admin
Posts: 18102
Joined: April 1st, 2015, 7:23 pm

EULAs ruining games

Postby VideoGameCritic » February 3rd, 2019, 1:34 pm

Recently it seems like the games for my PS4 always force me to page through about 100 pages of a EULA and agree to whatever was in that text. Sometimes, as with the new Soul Calibur VI, there are two documents you need to agree to.

This garbage absolutely has to stop. I suspect it's done to protect the publisher from whatever might occur online, but I didn't even take my Soul Calibur game online. I don't take most games online but have to agree to the EULAs anyway. And they seem to be getting worse.

It's bad enough publishers are taking away our control, but now they are abdicating all responsibility as well. And they are wasting our time in the process. Little things like this add up and leave a bad taste.

Thoughts?

Sonicx9
Posts: 1818
Joined: April 27th, 2015, 6:37 pm

Re: EULAs ruining games

Postby Sonicx9 » February 3rd, 2019, 5:44 pm

VideoGameCritic wrote:Recently it seems like the games for my PS4 always force me to page through about 100 pages of a EULA and agree to whatever was in that text. Sometimes, as with the new Soul Calibur VI, there are two documents you need to agree to.

This garbage absolutely has to stop. I suspect it's done to protect the publisher from whatever might occur online, but I didn't even take my Soul Calibur game online. I don't take most games online but have to agree to the EULAs anyway. And they seem to be getting worse.

It's bad enough publishers are taking away our control, but now they are abdicating all responsibility as well. And they are wasting our time in the process. Little things like this add up and leave a bad taste.

Thoughts?


You are not wrong about this because even games that are single player like the recent Crash and Spyro remakes have this garbage.: https://twitter.com/jakthebomb/status/1 ... 9626257409 and https://twitter.com/jakthebomb/status/1 ... 8165532673 It a great example of companies trying to control are purchases.

User avatar
ptdebate
Posts: 1072
Joined: April 7th, 2015, 8:39 pm

Re: EULAs ruining games

Postby ptdebate » February 3rd, 2019, 6:31 pm

What's in these EULAs you've seen? Does the game really force you to page through the entirety of the text before you agree or is that your choice to page through it all out of interest in the contents? I play quite a few modern games and I've never had to do this so I'm a little skeptical that this is as big an issue as you describe.

User avatar
VideoGameCritic
Site Admin
Posts: 18102
Joined: April 1st, 2015, 7:23 pm

Re: EULAs ruining games

Postby VideoGameCritic » February 7th, 2019, 9:02 pm

The sad part is, nobody can really tell you because nobody has the time to read and parse of all that legalese.

User avatar
ptdebate
Posts: 1072
Joined: April 7th, 2015, 8:39 pm

Re: EULAs ruining games

Postby ptdebate » February 8th, 2019, 12:00 am

VideoGameCritic wrote:The sad part is, nobody can really tell you because nobody has the time to read and parse of all that legalese.


Ha, fair enough! I hope I don't seem like a contrarian here. Debate is in my handle for a reason, I suppose. Admittedly I have seen EULAs on PC software for some time, but they never affected me much. Thinking back, I was very irritated by all of the online trappings of FFXV when I played and reviewed it. Final Fantasy is my favorite series and the earlier single player entries largely eschewed online features. I felt like Final Fantasy becoming just like everything else diminished it in a way.

User avatar
VideoGameCritic
Site Admin
Posts: 18102
Joined: April 1st, 2015, 7:23 pm

Re: EULAs ruining games

Postby VideoGameCritic » February 8th, 2019, 2:49 pm

Yeah it doesn't feel right and frankly I doubt any of it would hold up in court.

It used to be you bought a game, put it in your system and play it.

Now you buy the game, agree to sign all rights away, and play it.

How this sits well with gamers is a mystery to me. Once again a case of the industry taking more and more of your rights away, and people accepting it as "progress" when in reality it's anything but.

User avatar
pacman000
Posts: 1141
Joined: December 30th, 2015, 9:04 am

Re: EULAs ruining games

Postby pacman000 » February 9th, 2019, 11:52 am

Haven't games always had some sort of EULA tho? I remember reading them in the back of Game Boy instruction manuals. They were reasonably short then; they forbid copying & they required you to only use the game on Nintendo-approved hardware, if memory serves.

I will agree that they've gotten too long, & can hide frightening clauses: https://www.geek.com/games/gamestation- ... s-1194091/ (Ironically, to read the comments on that article, I'd have to agree to Discuss's new policies.)


Return to “Video Games General”