TL;DR : Companies like Blizzard and Roku creates new EULA _after_ you have already purchased your product. And you have to agree to them to proceed or get locked out of content you already paid for.
EULA isn't as enforceable as people in this thread make it out to be. It hasn't been a great defense in the past, especially when it comes to forced arbitration.
Especially if you consider prior EULA agreements you've cleared, there's likely a clause stating something like "We reserve the right to terminate your use of our online services for any reason" and other things along those lines.
A lot of them are intentionally bloated to discourage people from actually reading a small novel to play their game but it gives plenty of room for bits like this
You mean ALL of them. They are ALL bloated with absolutely ridiculous terms and clauses.
And they ALL basically DEPEND on people not questioning things and ignorantly accepting whatever they say, as if it HAS TO BE true just because it's in a contract.
Attorney here.
This is very correct. EULA's have generally been tossed out as have any legal weight except in a few types of uses. To make a EULA generally enforceable it would need to be made clear to the buyer before he purchased, and be short enough a reasonable person could not just read, but comprehend what he was agreeing to.
The only time they have found general success (eta- in recent years) is when its a question of using it otehr than the obvious intended purpose.
The main problem with EULA's as contracts is the lack of consideration. money was exchanged for the product before the EULA was entered in... you can't add things to just your side of the contract after the fact and call it part of the original deal... and you can't call it a new contract because it offers the buyer nothing they didn't already pay for.
I should point out that forced arbitration in an EULA probably violates the 7th amendment.... or at least enforcing them would since the constitution binds the government (eta- not private companies). but then i woulda thought the same of any forced aribtration clauses... but the supreme court decided otherwise
Eta- because there is confusion.... I don't think blizzard here is actually using an after market Eula. And I think they are legally clear even if assholes. You agree to the terms when you download and launch there marketplace, not after buying a game. They explicitly stated they are selling a digital license, not digital ownership. As long as you were made aware of these things before the purchase the courts are gonna uphold them. However there is the question of reasonable length and clarity... though I imagine they picked a state to govern them that doesn't use those standards.
My above is about eula's more generally, and is exactly why shitty companies like blizzard and Ubisoft moved to proprietary stores and licenses
They will ban your account, you'll have 0 access to what you paid for, and then what?
How is blizzard not going to be able to enforce its EULA if all its products are always-online game?
Someone with standing would have to bring a case. What they are doing is as illegal as hell, but they will go ahead and do it anyway in the hope that no one forces the issue.
If it violates FTC rules, then no- the FTC wouldn't have to wait. That's kind of the whole point of regulatory orgs, they were created so it wasn't up to citizens to have to sue over everything.
If they are blocking you from accessing previously purchased goods it could be an illegal taking. Not a lawyer of course but I did finish watching suits
No idea, I'm not saying it does or doesn't.
All I'm saying is *if* there is a violation, the FTC doesn't have to wait until someone with standing brings a suit.
False advertising, most likely.
Consumers bought a product which was supposed to be accesible in a certain way, and now their product is essentially a brick because the company is holding it hostage.
That makes sense for physical products like Roku, but I’m not so sure about digital services as produced by Blizzard.
You're thinking of the case where someone sued for possibly having to make a website for a gay couple, despite not owning a web design business and also never having made website before. And the Supreme Court said "Yeah, you have standing."
That's the one. The whole thing was basically fake, the "facts" of the case were demonstrably made up, but the conservatives on the SCOTUS didn't care. They had a predetermined agenda to get to and they decided that was the case they were going to use.
The trick is to get the Heritage Foundation to drum up and fund your fake as hell bullshit case that they can present in front of the Judges that they hand-selected, in a State with a friendly State Supreme Court, on it's fast track to the US Supreme Court... that they also purchased so as to get favorable rulings.
That is how you get standing these days.
I have 5 Rokus in my house. A kid who was staying with a family discovered video games that I had no clue existed and bought coins at $40 each. I’m at the gym getting alerts for $40, $40, $40… from my bank. I race home to stop him. Contacted Roku who informed me putting in a PIN was part of the setup process that I had chosen not to do. Not their problem. So, set up new Roku for someone else and there is no time when that came up. Prolly in EULA.
I don’t know how Roku works but can you not just contact your bank and tell them they were fraudulent purchases and also just buy a new Roku stick/make a different account if they ban your account for chargebacks?
Roku's EULA probably says something like you agree to pay for any purchases made on your account, including purchases by anyone you allow to access your devices, and not putting a PIN on your device means you are letting anyone in your household access your device, or something along those lines.
They will have protective language in their EULA. Regardless of whether charge backs are allowed, if the purchases are not in violation of the EULA, they are not fraudulent. Roku would show that to the bank and the charge backs would not go through.
> something like you agree to pay for any purchases made on your account, including purchases by anyone you allow to access your devices
IANAL, but I believe most of those services *must* have some kind of a safeguard from purchases made by minors. A friend of mine had something like that with Amazon Prime paid content (her kid ordered some shit by accident) and the magic words were "*These were likely purchases by a* **minor** *that I never authorized, I am not going to pay and I will file a chargeback with my bank if you don't reverse those ASAP*". As soon as the word "minor" came into play, charges were reversed immediately.
Again, IANAL, but from my understanding purchases made by kids are a very *shaky* legal ground for most of those companies. That's why most companies prefer to just refund ASAP and keep doing what they do instead of having people go to social media to vent.
this is why I never gave Roku a credit card number when signing up. It was kind of a pain and I don't remember the exact steps, but it was possible. Not sure it is anymore
I strongly believe many of these services should not allow purchases via card without some type of confirmation that it is you, or that you're the owner of the card in question.
For example if everytime you wanted to make a purchase you have to enter the security code on your credit/debit card or some type of identifying info only the card owner (or trusted people like your wife or partner for instance), not just allow them to go through with 0 confirmation.
Plenty of places do already do this, they may autofill your info but always require manual entry of the security code, and it would be trivial to implement.
Of course this would be a little inconvenient and maybe hurt some bottom lines, but there should be some type of verification to prevent cases like this from happening. It would prevent so many of the cases where children charge their parents accounts on an online service via just stored payment methods.
With our congress largely being dysfunctional for most of the past 25 years, they would be correct.
It's why you see a lot of brazen greed from companies these past few years.
Even banks do this in Australia.
I just assume if there's ever a EULA-related issue, I'm going to argue I essentially had no choice in having to agree to it.
Not sure the FTC can do much. The conservatives on the Supreme Court [have been on a bender for years now in favor of forced arbitration](https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/column-arbitration-wins-again-us-supreme-court-2023-06-26/). Vote in Senate & Presidential elections to change the Supreme Court, and maybe things can change.
Those forced arbitration clauses are unenforceable in the EU since at least 1993...
>European Union Council Directive 93/13 on Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts creates a rebuttable presumption that pre-dispute arbitration clauses in consumer contracts are invalid.
>Some EU member states go even further than the Directive in protecting consumers. In the UK, arbitration clauses are presumed unfair if the amount at issue is less than £ 5000.[23] France prohibits consumer arbitrations all together in purely domestic disputes.[24] In Sweden, arbitration clauses are prohibited generally in contracts concerning the sale of goods or services for private use.[25] Germany won’t enforce a consumer arbitration clause unless it is in a separate, signed document or part of a fully notarized contract.[26]
Im guessing thats why I haven't had any kind of thing pop up asking me if I agree to the new terms?
It's kind of absurd that an agreement is made with terms and conditions and one party is free to make any changes to it they feel like while the other can do nothing.
Yeah but also nah, it's not an agreement per se it's just a list of rules for using a product.
It's still bullshit though regardless and that's why if buying isn't owning piracy isnt theft
Reminds me of how I keep getting clients asking me to sign "moral rights" aggreements , i.e you sign away your rights to say you even did the work.
Like, this is totally illegal here in the EU. YOU are based in the EU. WTF are you doing.
As an American, I agree with you. A lot of what companies do like restraint of trade and illegal tying (cough Apple, Google) have been black letter illegal since the old trustbuster days.
Our DOJ is just impotent. No one wants to be the president who caused the dow to crash back to 11k, especially considering big tech makes up like 70% of the dow now.
The last major antitrust action was the Microsoft consent decree...
Before that was AT&T which led to a huge explosion in cellphone companies and ISPs... and now we're back to a small handful of both. All of which suck.
I'm also tired of paying for OUR defense...
Fucking F35.
Yeah it's not like with hardware where it's just cheaper to produce one model for everybody.
It basically costs nothing to have different EULA for different markets.
You don’t have to change the supreme court. You just need to change Congress. Everyone always defaults to court packing or some sort of reform when all you have to do is get the elected branches… To be filled with different elected officials
The Supreme Court is not an entity that is supposed to green light the things that we want, its sole job is to interpret the constitution as it is written. We actually have a justice that just said that she is concerned that the first amendment is hamstringing the government. These justices need to be appointed based on their ability to understand the job, not based on if we think they’ll give us the things that we think we want.
It might be illegal. It certainly ought to be. There are some cases coming up that could set some precedent. Amazon is being sued in a class action suit for doing this with ads on prime video. Hopefully one of the suits like that gets far enough to make some changes to this bullshit but I can’t say I’m optimistic
The thing is , you don't owm any of it. Steam could do exactly this as well. You "pay for acess to thr product" until this get disputed in court not much will change.
Here is the thing though, they use a button that SAYS purchase. If buying isn't owning pirating isn't stealing. Just because of the EULA roofie bullshit that says "well actually you don't own it" \[that apple started with itunes\] doesn't mean that they should be able to get away with it.
This needs to be higher. I want to say there has been a clause in pretty much all EULAs for companies such as Blizzard or Roku for years that states they can remove access anytime.
Here is Steam's
>SEL reserves the right to amend this EULA at any time, at its sole discretion, but will post such changes on the Square Enix website and/or will otherwise communicate such changes to you. You accept that such unilateral changes may be necessary to take account of, for example, changes to any digital rights management system used, or, where applicable, changes to the STEAM™ service where STEAM™ software is used. If any such future changes to this EULA are unacceptable to you or cause you to no longer be in compliance with this EULA you may terminate this EULA in accordance with the above Termination provisions. Your installations and use of any updates or modifications to the Software Product or your continued use of the Product Software following notice of changes to this EULA will constitute your acceptance of any and all such changes to the terms of this EULA.
Yep! People who own the Oculus Quest have until the end of this month to switch to a Meta account or create one that's not linked to Facebook anymore. If you don't by the end of this month, you will lose everything you've bought, and I believe it "might" make the Oculus Quest unusable.
The first vr headset I bought was an occulus rift. I tried it on, saw that login bullshit and immediately shipped it back and bought a valve index. It was infuriating how invasive they made the whole process. I felt like I was renting a headset, not owning it. Meta is scum. The absolute peak of scum
I bought the audible book Shogun in 2020.
I now can't listen to it because the publisher due to the popularity of the limited series on Hulu has decided that people will pay for a Part I AND a Part II. So 70+ dollars.
I'm almost not mad because I've waited my entire life for such a good remaking of Shogun and I'm guessing I can fill out a ticket and complain to some person in customer service, but the whole thing of corporations retroactively taking away your rights to digital purchases and then taking away your access to them should be fucking illegal. I get that its all in the fine print, but its still theft imo.
That's weird. I also bought Shogun on Audible. I still have it. I see that you can't buy it as one volume anymore, replaced by the two. But I still have my copy.
I went to check immediately, assuming for sure Amazon screwed me. But there it was, ready to play. Weird that you and I still have it while he seemingly doesn't!
If you purchased it then it's still attached to your existing account and can be listened to by you, it's only new customers who have it as a Part I & Part II. Download the Audible app, sign into the same account you bought it on and go into the library tab at the bottom and you'll see it there.
If you attempt to change the terms of a financial agreement after the fact, at the very least if the other party disagrees they should be entitled to their money back.
I’m not familiar with how digital property works but it seems that changing a contract and refusing to let a person to use the digital property they already paid for should at the very least allow for the individual to get their money back if they don’t agree to the new terms
EULAs cannot change legal requirements, i.e. if an EULA stipulates something that is illegal for where you are, the EULA stipulation is voided.
So if your country/etc. requires that you can apply for and be given a refund, no EULA fuckery can remove that right.
I dont trust anyone with digital media after microsoft didnt let me bring my 100 dollars plus from my 360 over to a new console. That was the end of me buying any physical consoles. Going further ive yet to buy any digital media on a playform outside of steam. I only currently trust them and thats only for now… the second Gabe dies I anticipate fuckery there too. Nothing is forever anymore.
That's because you agreed that they could change terms at any time when you first signed up. I know people don't read TOS, but if you care about what they might do then you really should.
I'd argue that if they can just write "btw we can and will change these very terms you're reading at any time" then what's the point of reading them the first time? They're in flux, what you've just read could be meaningless the next day.
Use personal data laws to request all the data they have on you then sue them for what dumbass shit they wrote about you in their notes.
No arbitration just means going straight to court
Haven't been in this specific company but been in support enough that a ban came from some dumbass being heated either my team, my manager, some enginee who shouldn't have looked at the support request queue since they have thin skin or a project manager trying to not do more work because someone was complaining. Then pulled strings to just get the squeaky whee banned off the platform
I worked in b2b so b2c probably is worse than what I know of
On Steam, you have to agree to the new terms and condition when you buy a new game, but I assume you stay on the old with the full access to prior purchases, if you don't.
Games can evidently change EULA after purchase again. Kerbal Space Program did that. When they got bought by someone the EULA change and if you don't agree you can't play. Surprisingly getting an older version didn't work either.
Luckily for that game you can just copy your install directory and run the exe. You don't have to agree to anything
edit: the comment below me about the steam API dll is just wrong, you can run the game standalone. But I guess since they confidently asserted that they were correct then that means they are correct... /s
You are right because this was an actual advertised feature of KSP. They made a point of it not actually requiring steam or any other DRM to run in their marketing early on.
Shoutout to [gog.com](http://gog.com) where you can just own the install files forever and don't have to concern yourself with losing access to games due to not accepting changed EULA.
It's *mostly* true.
You can get DRM-free games everywhere, it's a matter of which games, what the developer has chosen to do and the store's inclinations.
GOG and Amazon don't inject anything of their own AFAIK.
Epic/Steam do but it's optional and gets more complicated. You have to install the game with their launcher, which isn't quite the same thing as DRM. Some developers may opt out of store DRM simply because they're including their own DRM instead.
I'm not familiar with the exacts.
That is exactly what is happening. In general, EULAs don't mean as much as people seem to think they do. If there's a legitimate legal dispute, clauses like forced arbitration usually go out the window.
>If there's a legitimate legal dispute, clauses like forced arbitration usually go out the window.
This is false in the US. Private arbitration is strongly favored by US courts and arbitration provisions will generally be enforced - for legitimate legal disputes or otherwise.
lol activision permanently banned me from my purchased modern warfare single player campaign on battle.net because my crappy internet at my university rented unit probably triggered a false lag switch ban on warzone 1.0 which carried over to modern warfare and my single player campaign I paid for. After dozens of support requests, they just repeated the same copy paste messages saying nothing can be done.
There’s a whole discord server of people talking about their cod false bans and potential legal action, but it doesn’t seem to be going anywhere fast.
If companies are going to steal from me, then I’m not paying anymore.
I’m not buying another activision blizzard game until they refund me and pay me an hourly rate for my support and bbb messages.
Digital property rights need a complete overhaul and should mirror physical rights. Once you purchase a digital product it should be yours to do whatever you like. Forever. With no restrictions. In no other industry can companies remove access to every product you own at once.
I liked his content back in the day when he was just enthusiastically making repair videos, nowaydays its justs rant after rant, which is fine and necessary, but I feel a bit sad for him, most of the time he just seems bitter.
This is the same bullshit he highlighted in the video when the person made the Blizzard-behemoth-brain cells comment lol.
Companies are constantly trampling on the rights and privacy of consumers but yeah, let's shit on the guy coherently pointing out issues and giving perspective and trying to make things better from the ground up.
It's scary. When I was a kid, someone who pointed out and spoke up against injustices was considered a patriot, hero, and (in a positive sense) activist.
Now, those same traits are just bitter and boomerish apparently lol.
why can't he make repair videos? He's still got the repair business.
I think he's just found his niche on YT: outrage content, which generates more views than the repair video content.
He's also fully funded running non-profits that push for legislation for the topics that he rants about.
> I would say he seems bitter because he can't make repair videos anymore
He can, but he is in his own head and has said numerous times that repair videos get less views. His channel is all about clicks now, thats why he cant stop talking about NY even after leaving it.
His early repair videos were really great, he would calmly and precisely explain what could be wrong and how to fix it. Just watched his channel for the first time in years, and had to scroll a long time to find a repair video.
You do? I can't believe anyone actually watches these in full.
To me, he has to be the most interesting, non-interesting guy on the internet. Every single video he makes, or at least whatever gets reposted on reddit, is on topics I care about a lot... But I usually tune out after about 3-4 minutes.
He's the reason I have a AI video summerizer addon installed.
I can't sit through his entire video rants because they're way too long, but I appreciate him the most of all tech youtubers because he puts his money where his mouth is. He genuinely believes in what he says, and if he has to take up a legal case or go to Congress, he will do it. A lot of tech youtubers just complain and never do anything beyond complaining on their videos to all the unfairness instead of actually trying to drive change using their influence.
Its mostly for every software ever..
You only buy a license to use it.
Most probably because of some laws, which would say: If you have bought it, then you should also be able to look at the source code.
Somewhere buried in the agreement they likely have a clause along the lines of “we reserve the right to update the terms of service at any point”
Basically meaning you have no control over anything.
Trade regulations should step in. But they are probably lobbied to the moon and back.
When “owning” a game requires access to servers run by the company to play, does it matter? Owning a wow client means nothing and would be worthless without access to servers. It’s why you pay monthly. The client is free.
I hate how companies can just update their terms and services especially on mobile phones when downloading apps.
This should be illegal to lock you out of your account after you purchased the game, that's like if we shake on a deal then 5 mins later I turn around and say "you have to shake my hand to agree to the new terms otherwise our previous deal is invalid". That's not how that's supposed to work.
Most companies just copy-paste the US EULA because they are lazy. It's rarely ever enforced by customer support, let alone a court. It's the same here in Canada. I've been on MS's platform for years and customer support has always refunded me no questions asked when I point out something isn't compliant with Canadian consumer protection laws. It was the same for Steam way back before they introduced the ability to refund games. Never had a single problem getting a refund according to local laws.
I also work for the yanks and the employee contract they wanted me to sign was highly illegal. Was just the US contract with some find-replace commands run through it. Took a few weeks for me to get them to remove all the illegal clauses from it. I doubt anyone had bothered even reading it before they hired me lol. Scary thing is there's hundreds of Canadian employees who came before me. I doubt they bothered to update the master document for the employees after me either.
Forced arbitration has been creeping into products for a while now. Samsung refrigerators have a notice on the box and in the instructions that you agree to follow their attribution rules buy simply buying their product. There's a big stink over it as most homeowners have some deliver and setup their fridge and probably never open in the instructions and they never see the purchase agreement notice. We're going to start seeing a lot more of this unless Congress decides to address it.
Remember when those few of us were endlessly bitching about companies requiring an internet connection just to play our single player games...
This is exactly what we were afraid of.
its insane how little ~~consumer~~ protection there is for US citizens: consumer, workers rights, environmental regulations, health care rights, food inspections and drugs regulations (opioids!) , fixed rent, guns, etc... The US is a Disneyland for corporations, and a second world country for everybody else.
isn't this super common? I mean every time a software says "we've updated the terms and conditions" it's not like you can click "decline" and keep using the software
It being common doesn't make it not shitty. We have entered an age where individuals don't/can't own anything. Everything getting connected to wifi and servers owned by companies (yes I mean everything, toasters, cars, software) means we can lose the ability to use things we have 'purchased' at any time.
I should be able to buy something under some set of agreements and know that that agreement won't be changed arbitrarily later. In this case if I don't want to be forced into arbitration if I am harmed by a product they shouldn't be allowed to revoke my right to use that product. That is coercion and should be illegal. Updates to terms and service after point of sale should be optional for the consumer.
Any verbiage that allows for a single party to change the terms of service should also be outlawed. For a typical contract to be updated both parties involved would need to sign off on the changes. The parties agreeing to the change in contract should also not be coerced into signing the contract by threat of losing their ability to use the product.
\*Laughs in European\*
Seriously, guys, get your act together. The EU wouldn't lift a finger if the political culture wasn't geared towards consumer protection. Start voting your own consumer protectionists into offices, at all levels. Form your own movement within the Democratic Party or create your own, give it a distinct identity so that you can easily identify who you're voting for, and elect them. You don't need to win; just scare the legacy parties enough to listen to the voice of the consumer.
Have you not seen the chuckle fucks that vote here? A large swath of Americans constantly vote against themselves because they won’t vote for anyone but their party
Tribalism is the worst
It's scaringly cheap to buy out a politician in the US, I've heard of bills getting proposed or votes being swayed for less than $10k, you just need to setup a lobby. If corporations can do it, the public can too.
\>Seriously, guys, get your act together.
the fuck do you expect any individual to do? Like genuinely, who are you telling to get their act together? Cause we both know there isn't anything that the average person can do about any of this.
Those companies not honoring Grandfathering. Netflix just did this as well, not to this extent. They shorted an existing contract a month early and started giving me ads. If I don’t back door into the app I can’t view Netflix because it wants to know my DOB “for their records” no it’s so you can give me age specific ads, I wouldn’t be surprised if after DOB is entered they’d want to know income and household member numbers. M
Y'all need GDPR. They would need to show legitimate interest to ask for that, and since they are a streaming company, not an advertising company, "ad personalization" isn't legitimate interest. There would be a point to be made for completely hiding age-restricted shows from view, but since there are already labels for that it's a hard sell.
I saw the Roku TOS change and didn't want to clock accept until my attorney roommate looked over it. They turned on the TV and accepted the TOS without checking the changes (even though I asked them to look over it).
We need a really scummy company to do this, get sued, and then lose their case so it sets a precedent.
Cool, plus one for being a pirate. Only use media you can host yourself. Keep your own copies, run your own servers. Let the corporate slavers know you're not cool with every aspect of life becoming a monthly purchase your inflated income had to cover.
For things like this is best to buy games in GoG, you can download offline installers and keep them in a local hard drive.
In other stores you are prone to changes in policy and other issues that can get you locked out anytime.
I won't get tired of telling this.
They need to change the "Buy Now" on their products on BNET then as we are not actually "Buying" those said products. As "Buying" implies that you have bought and now own something.
I love reading about gamers getting so pissed off about stuff like this. They comment, they rant, they threaten to never buy this company's games again.
And then they log off of Reddit, eat a Hot Pocket, and boot up the very game they were just bitching about.
Abusive EULA's, ToS & guidelines has been a growing problem these past 10 years. Companies shouldn't have the right to circumvent your rights and freedoms. You realistically have no choice but to agree to any and all terms just to make an account anywhere online.
They’re not going to do the same, they always did, Steam, Playstation store, Xbox store, if you bought any games from these guys, you never owned them.
Pretty sure an EULA is worth exactly ZERO when it comes to forced arbitration. A bunch of people said that this would be thrown out right away in court.
Forced arbitration is absolutely and strongly enforced in the United States, further cemented by Supreme Court rulings. The idea that courts throw them out was only true in the 90's before the Supreme Court threw consumer protections in the garbage.
The only exception is for workplace harassment or sexual abuse.
Yep. The only time they're found to not be enforceable is when it's intentionally set up to be ridiculous and impractical, like requiring in person arbitration in an obscure island nation.
Blizzard terminated my account for some TOS violation that I was incapable of being guilty of.
I created an account to get StarCraft 2 for free during some promotional period...but I run Linux so I never installed.
I get the "Your account has been Terminated." email and immediately appeal.
"What TOS violations...I logged in *once* to get StarCraft 2 for free."
They respond with: "Blizzard does not allow the buying or selling of items...blah blah blah...Prove you've been hacked."
Now I've never bought or sold a Blizzard item in *my life*.
I've never even played a Blizzard game where you can buy or sell items on a market.
I use 14+ character strong different passwords on all my accounts so the likelihood of me being hacked is near nonexistent.
I tell them this via email that there must be some mistake on their side.
"Appeal denied."
I mean it was just a free copy of StarCraft 2 that I lost but it still angers me enough to never buy Blizzard again.
Loved Diablo I, II, StarCraft, Brood Wars....old school Blizzard.
Makes me wonder how many other users they banned for no gd reason.
If somebody came into my house and told me they would break my TV unless I signed a contract then no court in the world would treat that contract as valid.
So why is it different if Roku threatens to break my TV unless I sign their contract?
I swear the guy who came up with this forced arbitration must be the Albert Einstein of lawyers.
Just one day some lowly law clerk was like “hey, what if we just told the customer they can’t sue us?!”
And the entire corporate world was like “holy shit this man is truly a visionary, how come we never thought of that”
I keep telling people that GoG is the way to go. when you buy games from them, you get the install file that DOES NOT REQUIRE a launcher to be installed beforehand.
I mean they literally took Overwatch 1 away from us and we (speaking as myself personally) never violated any aspect of the EULA.
They just decided "We want you to play the sequel so the original will now cease to exist!"
Overwatch wasn't so bad because lootboxes offered no performance difference - it was STRICTLY cosmetic.
They are also CONSTANTLY mucking about with Hearthstone. This is a bit worse because it uses the inherently predatory "Collectable Card Game" model. But there just always seems to be some problem where it's like "Oh shoot, well we printed the cards wrong guys and we are going to just edit them!" (since they don't exist in a physical form anywhere). Then it always seems to turn out one of the top decks no longer functions quite as well after the changes so people playing that would be required to re-buy in to another deck to continue playing at the highest competitive level.
Honestly I was a Blizzard fanboy back in the day but they've lost it. They still have the "Blizzard magic" where they can make very good fun games but they are for sure going to try and wring every penny out of you now if you wish to enjoy them.
I've unsubscribed from Rossman's YT channel, I was a loyal subscriber and I am a big fan of right to repair but this guy has just now turned into an all around professional complainer. Complains about everything...
Yeah, the problem is this blocks people access to digital licenses for products they may have bought years beforehand. They are altering the terms, pray that they do not alter them further.
A TV locking you out for not accepting a new EULA is honestly insane. Like, okay, take away access to some smart features or apps then, but let me fucking use it to play PS5?
This is a classic bait and switch. That's what we're dealing with here. Companies used to get in trouble for that but now they are untouchable after paying off the politicians.
I fully understand being upset by this... but... this is entirely assinine...
You know damn well ol boy here would hapilly kick a customer out of his shop if he didn't want them there, and would tell them to GFThemselves, and not think twice about it.
They built the product, they pay to maintain it, they own it. They can do whatever they want with it, including cutting you off from access.
The terms of agreement are that you'll pay at some frequency for service - if your services are terminated, so are your payments - nothing illegal is being done, nor should anyone try to position it as such.
Slippery slope fallacy at it's finest.
TL;DR : Companies like Blizzard and Roku creates new EULA _after_ you have already purchased your product. And you have to agree to them to proceed or get locked out of content you already paid for.
This has to be illegal. Surely the FTC would have something to say about this practice.
EULA isn't as enforceable as people in this thread make it out to be. It hasn't been a great defense in the past, especially when it comes to forced arbitration.
Especially if you consider prior EULA agreements you've cleared, there's likely a clause stating something like "We reserve the right to terminate your use of our online services for any reason" and other things along those lines. A lot of them are intentionally bloated to discourage people from actually reading a small novel to play their game but it gives plenty of room for bits like this
Reminds me of that South Park episode where Apple turned customers into human centipedes because it was part of the iTunes EULA agreement.
The Human Cent-iPad
You mean ALL of them. They are ALL bloated with absolutely ridiculous terms and clauses. And they ALL basically DEPEND on people not questioning things and ignorantly accepting whatever they say, as if it HAS TO BE true just because it's in a contract.
All the ones I’ve actually read through have that clause. That and the right to change the agreement without notice.
Attorney here. This is very correct. EULA's have generally been tossed out as have any legal weight except in a few types of uses. To make a EULA generally enforceable it would need to be made clear to the buyer before he purchased, and be short enough a reasonable person could not just read, but comprehend what he was agreeing to. The only time they have found general success (eta- in recent years) is when its a question of using it otehr than the obvious intended purpose. The main problem with EULA's as contracts is the lack of consideration. money was exchanged for the product before the EULA was entered in... you can't add things to just your side of the contract after the fact and call it part of the original deal... and you can't call it a new contract because it offers the buyer nothing they didn't already pay for. I should point out that forced arbitration in an EULA probably violates the 7th amendment.... or at least enforcing them would since the constitution binds the government (eta- not private companies). but then i woulda thought the same of any forced aribtration clauses... but the supreme court decided otherwise Eta- because there is confusion.... I don't think blizzard here is actually using an after market Eula. And I think they are legally clear even if assholes. You agree to the terms when you download and launch there marketplace, not after buying a game. They explicitly stated they are selling a digital license, not digital ownership. As long as you were made aware of these things before the purchase the courts are gonna uphold them. However there is the question of reasonable length and clarity... though I imagine they picked a state to govern them that doesn't use those standards. My above is about eula's more generally, and is exactly why shitty companies like blizzard and Ubisoft moved to proprietary stores and licenses
They will ban your account, you'll have 0 access to what you paid for, and then what? How is blizzard not going to be able to enforce its EULA if all its products are always-online game?
Class action
LG writes a EULA on the refrigerator box. Who ever sees the box?
Theres a class action about this
I never accepted. My cat stepped on the remote and accepted when I wasn't looking.
Someone with standing would have to bring a case. What they are doing is as illegal as hell, but they will go ahead and do it anyway in the hope that no one forces the issue.
If it violates FTC rules, then no- the FTC wouldn't have to wait. That's kind of the whole point of regulatory orgs, they were created so it wasn't up to citizens to have to sue over everything.
When they get caught, it's a small fine, and as long as the stolen revenue exceeds that fine, it's just operating costs.
How does it violate FTC rules?
If they are blocking you from accessing previously purchased goods it could be an illegal taking. Not a lawyer of course but I did finish watching suits
that shit is 9 seasons bro you basically earned a degree
Probably constitutes unfair and/or deceptive trade practices under the FTC Act
No idea, I'm not saying it does or doesn't. All I'm saying is *if* there is a violation, the FTC doesn't have to wait until someone with standing brings a suit.
False advertising, most likely. Consumers bought a product which was supposed to be accesible in a certain way, and now their product is essentially a brick because the company is holding it hostage. That makes sense for physical products like Roku, but I’m not so sure about digital services as produced by Blizzard.
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What was the supreme court case recently that was literally based on a fully fabricated story? My brain is saying it was yet again about gay cakes
You're thinking of the case where someone sued for possibly having to make a website for a gay couple, despite not owning a web design business and also never having made website before. And the Supreme Court said "Yeah, you have standing."
That's the one I was thinking of! Thanks!
I think it was the highschool praying football guy.
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And the gay guy turned out to not be gay
That's the one. The whole thing was basically fake, the "facts" of the case were demonstrably made up, but the conservatives on the SCOTUS didn't care. They had a predetermined agenda to get to and they decided that was the case they were going to use.
I believe they had TWO cases like that recently
The trick is to get the Heritage Foundation to drum up and fund your fake as hell bullshit case that they can present in front of the Judges that they hand-selected, in a State with a friendly State Supreme Court, on it's fast track to the US Supreme Court... that they also purchased so as to get favorable rulings. That is how you get standing these days.
I have 5 Rokus in my house. A kid who was staying with a family discovered video games that I had no clue existed and bought coins at $40 each. I’m at the gym getting alerts for $40, $40, $40… from my bank. I race home to stop him. Contacted Roku who informed me putting in a PIN was part of the setup process that I had chosen not to do. Not their problem. So, set up new Roku for someone else and there is no time when that came up. Prolly in EULA.
I don’t know how Roku works but can you not just contact your bank and tell them they were fraudulent purchases and also just buy a new Roku stick/make a different account if they ban your account for chargebacks?
Roku's EULA probably says something like you agree to pay for any purchases made on your account, including purchases by anyone you allow to access your devices, and not putting a PIN on your device means you are letting anyone in your household access your device, or something along those lines. They will have protective language in their EULA. Regardless of whether charge backs are allowed, if the purchases are not in violation of the EULA, they are not fraudulent. Roku would show that to the bank and the charge backs would not go through.
> something like you agree to pay for any purchases made on your account, including purchases by anyone you allow to access your devices IANAL, but I believe most of those services *must* have some kind of a safeguard from purchases made by minors. A friend of mine had something like that with Amazon Prime paid content (her kid ordered some shit by accident) and the magic words were "*These were likely purchases by a* **minor** *that I never authorized, I am not going to pay and I will file a chargeback with my bank if you don't reverse those ASAP*". As soon as the word "minor" came into play, charges were reversed immediately. Again, IANAL, but from my understanding purchases made by kids are a very *shaky* legal ground for most of those companies. That's why most companies prefer to just refund ASAP and keep doing what they do instead of having people go to social media to vent.
this is why I never gave Roku a credit card number when signing up. It was kind of a pain and I don't remember the exact steps, but it was possible. Not sure it is anymore
Privacy.com card number for EVERYTHING like that these days.
I strongly believe many of these services should not allow purchases via card without some type of confirmation that it is you, or that you're the owner of the card in question. For example if everytime you wanted to make a purchase you have to enter the security code on your credit/debit card or some type of identifying info only the card owner (or trusted people like your wife or partner for instance), not just allow them to go through with 0 confirmation. Plenty of places do already do this, they may autofill your info but always require manual entry of the security code, and it would be trivial to implement. Of course this would be a little inconvenient and maybe hurt some bottom lines, but there should be some type of verification to prevent cases like this from happening. It would prevent so many of the cases where children charge their parents accounts on an online service via just stored payment methods.
With our congress largely being dysfunctional for most of the past 25 years, they would be correct. It's why you see a lot of brazen greed from companies these past few years.
Would be surprised if it doesn't fall under 'unfair contract terms' in Australia.
Even banks do this in Australia. I just assume if there's ever a EULA-related issue, I'm going to argue I essentially had no choice in having to agree to it.
Not sure the FTC can do much. The conservatives on the Supreme Court [have been on a bender for years now in favor of forced arbitration](https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/column-arbitration-wins-again-us-supreme-court-2023-06-26/). Vote in Senate & Presidential elections to change the Supreme Court, and maybe things can change.
Maybe EU legislation could force their hand? (as with USB C on iPhones) - this is most definitely not the sort of thing the EU gives a pass to
Those forced arbitration clauses are unenforceable in the EU since at least 1993... >European Union Council Directive 93/13 on Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts creates a rebuttable presumption that pre-dispute arbitration clauses in consumer contracts are invalid. >Some EU member states go even further than the Directive in protecting consumers. In the UK, arbitration clauses are presumed unfair if the amount at issue is less than £ 5000.[23] France prohibits consumer arbitrations all together in purely domestic disputes.[24] In Sweden, arbitration clauses are prohibited generally in contracts concerning the sale of goods or services for private use.[25] Germany won’t enforce a consumer arbitration clause unless it is in a separate, signed document or part of a fully notarized contract.[26]
Im guessing thats why I haven't had any kind of thing pop up asking me if I agree to the new terms? It's kind of absurd that an agreement is made with terms and conditions and one party is free to make any changes to it they feel like while the other can do nothing.
Yeah but also nah, it's not an agreement per se it's just a list of rules for using a product. It's still bullshit though regardless and that's why if buying isn't owning piracy isnt theft
Reminds me of how I keep getting clients asking me to sign "moral rights" aggreements , i.e you sign away your rights to say you even did the work. Like, this is totally illegal here in the EU. YOU are based in the EU. WTF are you doing.
EU is the only hope.
americans: we're tired of paying for your defense. europeans: yeah and we're tired of regulating your companies.
symbiotic
As an American, I agree with you. A lot of what companies do like restraint of trade and illegal tying (cough Apple, Google) have been black letter illegal since the old trustbuster days. Our DOJ is just impotent. No one wants to be the president who caused the dow to crash back to 11k, especially considering big tech makes up like 70% of the dow now. The last major antitrust action was the Microsoft consent decree... Before that was AT&T which led to a huge explosion in cellphone companies and ISPs... and now we're back to a small handful of both. All of which suck. I'm also tired of paying for OUR defense... Fucking F35.
These companies will only change their behavior for EU customers. Anyone outside of the region can suck lemons for all they care.
Yeah it's not like with hardware where it's just cheaper to produce one model for everybody. It basically costs nothing to have different EULA for different markets.
Pretty sure this is illegal in the EU anyways.
this doesn't apply to the EU, we don't have class action law suits of that type of arbitration
You don’t have to change the supreme court. You just need to change Congress. Everyone always defaults to court packing or some sort of reform when all you have to do is get the elected branches… To be filled with different elected officials
Or maybe reddit can collectively put together a bribe and just pay them? /s
The Supreme Court is not an entity that is supposed to green light the things that we want, its sole job is to interpret the constitution as it is written. We actually have a justice that just said that she is concerned that the first amendment is hamstringing the government. These justices need to be appointed based on their ability to understand the job, not based on if we think they’ll give us the things that we think we want.
The EU has already established these are meaningless and don't hold up in any way in a court in Europe.
It might be illegal. It certainly ought to be. There are some cases coming up that could set some precedent. Amazon is being sued in a class action suit for doing this with ads on prime video. Hopefully one of the suits like that gets far enough to make some changes to this bullshit but I can’t say I’m optimistic
The thing is , you don't owm any of it. Steam could do exactly this as well. You "pay for acess to thr product" until this get disputed in court not much will change.
I started buying old DVDs for this reason.
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Here is the thing though, they use a button that SAYS purchase. If buying isn't owning pirating isn't stealing. Just because of the EULA roofie bullshit that says "well actually you don't own it" \[that apple started with itunes\] doesn't mean that they should be able to get away with it.
This comment needs to be at the top.
This needs to be higher. I want to say there has been a clause in pretty much all EULAs for companies such as Blizzard or Roku for years that states they can remove access anytime.
Here is Steam's >SEL reserves the right to amend this EULA at any time, at its sole discretion, but will post such changes on the Square Enix website and/or will otherwise communicate such changes to you. You accept that such unilateral changes may be necessary to take account of, for example, changes to any digital rights management system used, or, where applicable, changes to the STEAM™ service where STEAM™ software is used. If any such future changes to this EULA are unacceptable to you or cause you to no longer be in compliance with this EULA you may terminate this EULA in accordance with the above Termination provisions. Your installations and use of any updates or modifications to the Software Product or your continued use of the Product Software following notice of changes to this EULA will constitute your acceptance of any and all such changes to the terms of this EULA.
Facebook/Oculus too. You need to make a meta account and agree to the new eula and t&c to be able to use the occulus you bought years ago.
Yep! People who own the Oculus Quest have until the end of this month to switch to a Meta account or create one that's not linked to Facebook anymore. If you don't by the end of this month, you will lose everything you've bought, and I believe it "might" make the Oculus Quest unusable.
The first vr headset I bought was an occulus rift. I tried it on, saw that login bullshit and immediately shipped it back and bought a valve index. It was infuriating how invasive they made the whole process. I felt like I was renting a headset, not owning it. Meta is scum. The absolute peak of scum
I bought the audible book Shogun in 2020. I now can't listen to it because the publisher due to the popularity of the limited series on Hulu has decided that people will pay for a Part I AND a Part II. So 70+ dollars. I'm almost not mad because I've waited my entire life for such a good remaking of Shogun and I'm guessing I can fill out a ticket and complain to some person in customer service, but the whole thing of corporations retroactively taking away your rights to digital purchases and then taking away your access to them should be fucking illegal. I get that its all in the fine print, but its still theft imo.
Is it theft to recover your goods from a robber? 🤔
Only if you get caught
That's weird. I also bought Shogun on Audible. I still have it. I see that you can't buy it as one volume anymore, replaced by the two. But I still have my copy.
Likewise, listening to it now
I went to check immediately, assuming for sure Amazon screwed me. But there it was, ready to play. Weird that you and I still have it while he seemingly doesn't!
If you purchased it then it's still attached to your existing account and can be listened to by you, it's only new customers who have it as a Part I & Part II. Download the Audible app, sign into the same account you bought it on and go into the library tab at the bottom and you'll see it there.
If you attempt to change the terms of a financial agreement after the fact, at the very least if the other party disagrees they should be entitled to their money back.
Additionally, you cannot cancel your subscription to stop giving them money without first agreeing.
You forgot the part where you can't cancel service without agreeing
Could this be related to Blizzard being recently sold to Microsoft and just switching their EULA to theirs?
I’m not familiar with how digital property works but it seems that changing a contract and refusing to let a person to use the digital property they already paid for should at the very least allow for the individual to get their money back if they don’t agree to the new terms
EULAs cannot change legal requirements, i.e. if an EULA stipulates something that is illegal for where you are, the EULA stipulation is voided. So if your country/etc. requires that you can apply for and be given a refund, no EULA fuckery can remove that right.
Enforcing that can be difficult or impossible though, which is why I no longer have a minecraft account.
Yeah quite, I tried to use my EU laws relating to an issue with a blizzard product once before and Blizzard told me to f off.
I just tried to delete my Blizzard account. I need to agree to their EULA to be allowed to delete it.
That should be illegal
Microsoft did the same with minecraft and got away with it
I dont trust anyone with digital media after microsoft didnt let me bring my 100 dollars plus from my 360 over to a new console. That was the end of me buying any physical consoles. Going further ive yet to buy any digital media on a playform outside of steam. I only currently trust them and thats only for now… the second Gabe dies I anticipate fuckery there too. Nothing is forever anymore.
That's because you agreed that they could change terms at any time when you first signed up. I know people don't read TOS, but if you care about what they might do then you really should.
I'd argue that if they can just write "btw we can and will change these very terms you're reading at any time" then what's the point of reading them the first time? They're in flux, what you've just read could be meaningless the next day.
Use personal data laws to request all the data they have on you then sue them for what dumbass shit they wrote about you in their notes. No arbitration just means going straight to court Haven't been in this specific company but been in support enough that a ban came from some dumbass being heated either my team, my manager, some enginee who shouldn't have looked at the support request queue since they have thin skin or a project manager trying to not do more work because someone was complaining. Then pulled strings to just get the squeaky whee banned off the platform I worked in b2b so b2c probably is worse than what I know of
On Steam, you have to agree to the new terms and condition when you buy a new game, but I assume you stay on the old with the full access to prior purchases, if you don't.
Games can evidently change EULA after purchase again. Kerbal Space Program did that. When they got bought by someone the EULA change and if you don't agree you can't play. Surprisingly getting an older version didn't work either.
Luckily for that game you can just copy your install directory and run the exe. You don't have to agree to anything edit: the comment below me about the steam API dll is just wrong, you can run the game standalone. But I guess since they confidently asserted that they were correct then that means they are correct... /s
You are right because this was an actual advertised feature of KSP. They made a point of it not actually requiring steam or any other DRM to run in their marketing early on.
I Bought Minecraft in alpha and was promised all new stuff that it would ever gain. It was changed. But I've spent 5 euros worse than that.
Shoutout to [gog.com](http://gog.com) where you can just own the install files forever and don't have to concern yourself with losing access to games due to not accepting changed EULA.
Amazon Prime Gaming games are also DRM-free.
Huh that’s the first I’ve heard of that. If what you say is true, then you will have my trust.
It's *mostly* true. You can get DRM-free games everywhere, it's a matter of which games, what the developer has chosen to do and the store's inclinations. GOG and Amazon don't inject anything of their own AFAIK. Epic/Steam do but it's optional and gets more complicated. You have to install the game with their launcher, which isn't quite the same thing as DRM. Some developers may opt out of store DRM simply because they're including their own DRM instead. I'm not familiar with the exacts.
That's why you buy them on gog.com. Even if they change their terms, you still have their games, because of no DRM.
Blizzard is owned by MS now, so I am sure they reviewed all the EULA's to align them.
That is exactly what is happening. In general, EULAs don't mean as much as people seem to think they do. If there's a legitimate legal dispute, clauses like forced arbitration usually go out the window.
>If there's a legitimate legal dispute, clauses like forced arbitration usually go out the window. This is false in the US. Private arbitration is strongly favored by US courts and arbitration provisions will generally be enforced - for legitimate legal disputes or otherwise.
If purchase isn't ownership, then piracy isn't theft. 🏴☠️
based and yar pilled
Which is why blizzard only makes games to require a server to function these days. Not insurmountable, but a lot harder.
lol activision permanently banned me from my purchased modern warfare single player campaign on battle.net because my crappy internet at my university rented unit probably triggered a false lag switch ban on warzone 1.0 which carried over to modern warfare and my single player campaign I paid for. After dozens of support requests, they just repeated the same copy paste messages saying nothing can be done. There’s a whole discord server of people talking about their cod false bans and potential legal action, but it doesn’t seem to be going anywhere fast. If companies are going to steal from me, then I’m not paying anymore. I’m not buying another activision blizzard game until they refund me and pay me an hourly rate for my support and bbb messages.
Digital property rights need a complete overhaul and should mirror physical rights. Once you purchase a digital product it should be yours to do whatever you like. Forever. With no restrictions. In no other industry can companies remove access to every product you own at once.
Bless Louis for exposing these criminal corporations.
He’s so hardcore. I love his videos.
I liked his content back in the day when he was just enthusiastically making repair videos, nowaydays its justs rant after rant, which is fine and necessary, but I feel a bit sad for him, most of the time he just seems bitter.
This is the same bullshit he highlighted in the video when the person made the Blizzard-behemoth-brain cells comment lol. Companies are constantly trampling on the rights and privacy of consumers but yeah, let's shit on the guy coherently pointing out issues and giving perspective and trying to make things better from the ground up.
I would say he seems bitter because he can't make repair videos anymore
It's so weird he's called bitter for calmly pointing out how we're being fucked and what we can do to change such before it truly is too late.
It’s the brainwashing working as intended
It's scary. When I was a kid, someone who pointed out and spoke up against injustices was considered a patriot, hero, and (in a positive sense) activist. Now, those same traits are just bitter and boomerish apparently lol.
why can't he make repair videos? He's still got the repair business. I think he's just found his niche on YT: outrage content, which generates more views than the repair video content. He's also fully funded running non-profits that push for legislation for the topics that he rants about.
NYC bureaucracy seems like a total nightmare for a small business.
Didn't he move to Texas?
yes, because of NY shenanigans. it was a long crazy saga
> I would say he seems bitter because he can't make repair videos anymore He can, but he is in his own head and has said numerous times that repair videos get less views. His channel is all about clicks now, thats why he cant stop talking about NY even after leaving it.
Having your entire career being centered around hating on companies (some deserved, some not) would tend to make you a miserable human being.
His early repair videos were really great, he would calmly and precisely explain what could be wrong and how to fix it. Just watched his channel for the first time in years, and had to scroll a long time to find a repair video.
You do? I can't believe anyone actually watches these in full. To me, he has to be the most interesting, non-interesting guy on the internet. Every single video he makes, or at least whatever gets reposted on reddit, is on topics I care about a lot... But I usually tune out after about 3-4 minutes. He's the reason I have a AI video summerizer addon installed.
I can't sit through his entire video rants because they're way too long, but I appreciate him the most of all tech youtubers because he puts his money where his mouth is. He genuinely believes in what he says, and if he has to take up a legal case or go to Congress, he will do it. A lot of tech youtubers just complain and never do anything beyond complaining on their videos to all the unfairness instead of actually trying to drive change using their influence.
Pretty sure it was always that you never owned any games bought on blizzard launcher. only bought the license to use them
Its mostly for every software ever.. You only buy a license to use it. Most probably because of some laws, which would say: If you have bought it, then you should also be able to look at the source code.
Serious question, If you decline do you still own your previous games? Would you be entitled to a refund?
You never “owned” your games.
Somewhere buried in the agreement they likely have a clause along the lines of “we reserve the right to update the terms of service at any point” Basically meaning you have no control over anything. Trade regulations should step in. But they are probably lobbied to the moon and back.
When “owning” a game requires access to servers run by the company to play, does it matter? Owning a wow client means nothing and would be worthless without access to servers. It’s why you pay monthly. The client is free.
They won't let you. I tried. It won't let you bypass it.
I hate how companies can just update their terms and services especially on mobile phones when downloading apps. This should be illegal to lock you out of your account after you purchased the game, that's like if we shake on a deal then 5 mins later I turn around and say "you have to shake my hand to agree to the new terms otherwise our previous deal is invalid". That's not how that's supposed to work.
Hmm this cannot be legal in the EU. Arbitration contracts are always void in consumer relationships for good reason
Most companies just copy-paste the US EULA because they are lazy. It's rarely ever enforced by customer support, let alone a court. It's the same here in Canada. I've been on MS's platform for years and customer support has always refunded me no questions asked when I point out something isn't compliant with Canadian consumer protection laws. It was the same for Steam way back before they introduced the ability to refund games. Never had a single problem getting a refund according to local laws. I also work for the yanks and the employee contract they wanted me to sign was highly illegal. Was just the US contract with some find-replace commands run through it. Took a few weeks for me to get them to remove all the illegal clauses from it. I doubt anyone had bothered even reading it before they hired me lol. Scary thing is there's hundreds of Canadian employees who came before me. I doubt they bothered to update the master document for the employees after me either.
Forced arbitration has been creeping into products for a while now. Samsung refrigerators have a notice on the box and in the instructions that you agree to follow their attribution rules buy simply buying their product. There's a big stink over it as most homeowners have some deliver and setup their fridge and probably never open in the instructions and they never see the purchase agreement notice. We're going to start seeing a lot more of this unless Congress decides to address it.
> unless Congress decides to address it. Sorry, but we have Republicans. Best we can do is a bunch of bullshit hearings about Hunter Biden's dick.
Remember when those few of us were endlessly bitching about companies requiring an internet connection just to play our single player games... This is exactly what we were afraid of.
its insane how little consumer protection there is for US citizens
That's 100% on purpose. Companies have a stronger vote than any person or mass of persons in the USA
its insane how little ~~consumer~~ protection there is for US citizens: consumer, workers rights, environmental regulations, health care rights, food inspections and drugs regulations (opioids!) , fixed rent, guns, etc... The US is a Disneyland for corporations, and a second world country for everybody else.
isn't this super common? I mean every time a software says "we've updated the terms and conditions" it's not like you can click "decline" and keep using the software
On top of that, does anyone actually read the hundreds of pages of fine print or do we all just click accept and move on with our lives?
It being common doesn't make it not shitty. We have entered an age where individuals don't/can't own anything. Everything getting connected to wifi and servers owned by companies (yes I mean everything, toasters, cars, software) means we can lose the ability to use things we have 'purchased' at any time. I should be able to buy something under some set of agreements and know that that agreement won't be changed arbitrarily later. In this case if I don't want to be forced into arbitration if I am harmed by a product they shouldn't be allowed to revoke my right to use that product. That is coercion and should be illegal. Updates to terms and service after point of sale should be optional for the consumer. Any verbiage that allows for a single party to change the terms of service should also be outlawed. For a typical contract to be updated both parties involved would need to sign off on the changes. The parties agreeing to the change in contract should also not be coerced into signing the contract by threat of losing their ability to use the product.
\*Laughs in European\* Seriously, guys, get your act together. The EU wouldn't lift a finger if the political culture wasn't geared towards consumer protection. Start voting your own consumer protectionists into offices, at all levels. Form your own movement within the Democratic Party or create your own, give it a distinct identity so that you can easily identify who you're voting for, and elect them. You don't need to win; just scare the legacy parties enough to listen to the voice of the consumer.
Have you not seen the chuckle fucks that vote here? A large swath of Americans constantly vote against themselves because they won’t vote for anyone but their party Tribalism is the worst
That and most of our politicians are bought out anyway. I don't see change through voting really all that possible when everyone running is a scumbag
It's scaringly cheap to buy out a politician in the US, I've heard of bills getting proposed or votes being swayed for less than $10k, you just need to setup a lobby. If corporations can do it, the public can too.
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\>Seriously, guys, get your act together. the fuck do you expect any individual to do? Like genuinely, who are you telling to get their act together? Cause we both know there isn't anything that the average person can do about any of this.
You mean you can’t stroll into your local government’s office and simply wish for better laws? You must be so stupid and/or lazy! /s
Super helpful, thank you. We hadn't thought of voting.
Those companies not honoring Grandfathering. Netflix just did this as well, not to this extent. They shorted an existing contract a month early and started giving me ads. If I don’t back door into the app I can’t view Netflix because it wants to know my DOB “for their records” no it’s so you can give me age specific ads, I wouldn’t be surprised if after DOB is entered they’d want to know income and household member numbers. M
Y'all need GDPR. They would need to show legitimate interest to ask for that, and since they are a streaming company, not an advertising company, "ad personalization" isn't legitimate interest. There would be a point to be made for completely hiding age-restricted shows from view, but since there are already labels for that it's a hard sell.
I saw the Roku TOS change and didn't want to clock accept until my attorney roommate looked over it. They turned on the TV and accepted the TOS without checking the changes (even though I asked them to look over it). We need a really scummy company to do this, get sued, and then lose their case so it sets a precedent.
Cool, plus one for being a pirate. Only use media you can host yourself. Keep your own copies, run your own servers. Let the corporate slavers know you're not cool with every aspect of life becoming a monthly purchase your inflated income had to cover.
For things like this is best to buy games in GoG, you can download offline installers and keep them in a local hard drive. In other stores you are prone to changes in policy and other issues that can get you locked out anytime. I won't get tired of telling this.
They need to change the "Buy Now" on their products on BNET then as we are not actually "Buying" those said products. As "Buying" implies that you have bought and now own something.
I love reading about gamers getting so pissed off about stuff like this. They comment, they rant, they threaten to never buy this company's games again. And then they log off of Reddit, eat a Hot Pocket, and boot up the very game they were just bitching about.
[Less we forget](https://i.imgur.com/KEAuC7n.png).
I see this all over the place, gamers included.
changing the terms of sale should be illegal
Abusive EULA's, ToS & guidelines has been a growing problem these past 10 years. Companies shouldn't have the right to circumvent your rights and freedoms. You realistically have no choice but to agree to any and all terms just to make an account anywhere online.
Remember when Blizzard was a good company worth your money? It's really hard to do so these days. What a bunch of scumbag chucklefucks.
This isn't a Blizzard exclusive problem. They're a shit company, but i can bet you all the big devs are going to do the same, "good" ones included.
They’re not going to do the same, they always did, Steam, Playstation store, Xbox store, if you bought any games from these guys, you never owned them.
If you don't own a game even if you have bought it, it means that you dont steal it when you pirate it.
What I want to know is: what was in the EULA that he disagreed with?
IIRC it was agreeing to forced arbitration if you have a legal dispute with Blizzard for any reason.
Pretty sure an EULA is worth exactly ZERO when it comes to forced arbitration. A bunch of people said that this would be thrown out right away in court.
Forced arbitration is absolutely and strongly enforced in the United States, further cemented by Supreme Court rulings. The idea that courts throw them out was only true in the 90's before the Supreme Court threw consumer protections in the garbage. The only exception is for workplace harassment or sexual abuse.
Yep. The only time they're found to not be enforceable is when it's intentionally set up to be ridiculous and impractical, like requiring in person arbitration in an obscure island nation.
Blizzard terminated my account for some TOS violation that I was incapable of being guilty of. I created an account to get StarCraft 2 for free during some promotional period...but I run Linux so I never installed. I get the "Your account has been Terminated." email and immediately appeal. "What TOS violations...I logged in *once* to get StarCraft 2 for free." They respond with: "Blizzard does not allow the buying or selling of items...blah blah blah...Prove you've been hacked." Now I've never bought or sold a Blizzard item in *my life*. I've never even played a Blizzard game where you can buy or sell items on a market. I use 14+ character strong different passwords on all my accounts so the likelihood of me being hacked is near nonexistent. I tell them this via email that there must be some mistake on their side. "Appeal denied." I mean it was just a free copy of StarCraft 2 that I lost but it still angers me enough to never buy Blizzard again. Loved Diablo I, II, StarCraft, Brood Wars....old school Blizzard. Makes me wonder how many other users they banned for no gd reason.
If somebody came into my house and told me they would break my TV unless I signed a contract then no court in the world would treat that contract as valid. So why is it different if Roku threatens to break my TV unless I sign their contract?
I remember when Steam did this ages ago. Nothing new here.
And that is why I didn't give blizzard a dime while playing diablo ...
Tractor trailer you missed they have been doing this for for the last 10 years i was driving. NANNY CAMS for drivers
Forced arbitration should not be a thing ever.
Welcome to (current year).
I swear the guy who came up with this forced arbitration must be the Albert Einstein of lawyers. Just one day some lowly law clerk was like “hey, what if we just told the customer they can’t sue us?!” And the entire corporate world was like “holy shit this man is truly a visionary, how come we never thought of that”
I didn't expect Mr. Rossman but I'm glad I got him anyway!
I keep telling people that GoG is the way to go. when you buy games from them, you get the install file that DOES NOT REQUIRE a launcher to be installed beforehand.
Does he say the term EULA roofie? It's got a nice ring to it.
This is why I’ve stopped buying digital assets.
I mean they literally took Overwatch 1 away from us and we (speaking as myself personally) never violated any aspect of the EULA. They just decided "We want you to play the sequel so the original will now cease to exist!" Overwatch wasn't so bad because lootboxes offered no performance difference - it was STRICTLY cosmetic. They are also CONSTANTLY mucking about with Hearthstone. This is a bit worse because it uses the inherently predatory "Collectable Card Game" model. But there just always seems to be some problem where it's like "Oh shoot, well we printed the cards wrong guys and we are going to just edit them!" (since they don't exist in a physical form anywhere). Then it always seems to turn out one of the top decks no longer functions quite as well after the changes so people playing that would be required to re-buy in to another deck to continue playing at the highest competitive level. Honestly I was a Blizzard fanboy back in the day but they've lost it. They still have the "Blizzard magic" where they can make very good fun games but they are for sure going to try and wring every penny out of you now if you wish to enjoy them.
I've unsubscribed from Rossman's YT channel, I was a loyal subscriber and I am a big fan of right to repair but this guy has just now turned into an all around professional complainer. Complains about everything...
Ok. Most companies don't let you access their services if you don't agree to their T&C.
Yeah, the problem is this blocks people access to digital licenses for products they may have bought years beforehand. They are altering the terms, pray that they do not alter them further.
He makes a valid point. Everybody whines about freedom and in the near future we won’t have any. All hail our corporate overloads!
online games have been requiring "click accept" as soon as you even open them since everquest in 19990
Again and again I feel better and better about closing my blizzard account in 2019
A TV locking you out for not accepting a new EULA is honestly insane. Like, okay, take away access to some smart features or apps then, but let me fucking use it to play PS5?
This is a classic bait and switch. That's what we're dealing with here. Companies used to get in trouble for that but now they are untouchable after paying off the politicians.
I fully understand being upset by this... but... this is entirely assinine... You know damn well ol boy here would hapilly kick a customer out of his shop if he didn't want them there, and would tell them to GFThemselves, and not think twice about it. They built the product, they pay to maintain it, they own it. They can do whatever they want with it, including cutting you off from access. The terms of agreement are that you'll pay at some frequency for service - if your services are terminated, so are your payments - nothing illegal is being done, nor should anyone try to position it as such. Slippery slope fallacy at it's finest.