Well I guess it meets the letter of the law :/
They can choose between either affirmative acknowledgment:
(A) The seller receives at the time of each transaction an affirmative acknowledgment from the purchaser indicating all of the following:
(i) That the purchaser is receiving a license to access the digital good.
(ii) A complete list of restrictions and conditions of the license.
(iii) That access to the digital good may be unilaterally revoked by the seller if they no longer hold a right to the digital good, if applicable.
Or a notice:
(B) The seller provides to the consumer before executing each transaction a clear and conspicuous statement that does both of the following:
(i) States in plain language that “buying” or “purchasing” the digital good is a license.
(ii) Includes a hyperlink, QR code, or similar method to access the terms and conditions that provide full details on the license.
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240AB2426#99INT
Without a requirement to declare any restrictions (e.g. non-transferability) or revocable nature of the license the notice option is pretty toothless.
GOG for the win (sometimes)!
It is exactly the same there.
Not true, you get a DRM free installer, which is arguably better than physical media for a console as it can be duplicated indefinitely without hinderance.
You are physically able to duplicate it, legally it is quite different though.
Even in the most draconian countries, you can legally make backups of software you buy using unofficial methods so long as you don’t redistribute them.
Even if it wasn’t that would be completely fucking unenforceable and I can’t imagine being enough of a bootlicker to care.
The point is that we should be trying to change the laws that enable this, not simp for companies trying to pretend they can circumvent it legally when all they do is enable what the publisher will see as piracy.
I’m only allowed to read this article if I agree to send 625 companies my metadata. Irony.
Rattling.
Why? This has literally always been the case, but now they’re going into it actively telling you that this is the case. Seems like a step in the right direction to me.
It has always been the case yet I’ve seen this urban legend that Valve has some kind of contingency plan that keeps your ownership in case they close down.
Rattling intensives
(its a joke, i make a Spooky joke. Its literally a thing that was always written in the TOS of steam and every other store. Technically you don’t even own disk games as, when the key server is shut down they are looked forever, and there is no legal way to get around that.
there is no legal way to get around that.
That’s debatable.
Technically you don’t even own disk games as, when the key server is shut down they are looked forever, and there is no legal way to get around that.
Depends on the tech they use - back in the day CD Keys just had to pass an algorithm check - nowadays some companies have a remote call to some registration server or rely on platform auth - but the easiest to implement is that old algorithm based approach that just checks it locally.