Xbox One's online DRM "could have been fine", says Xbox co-creator

@Bizarro: That's your opinion, not a fact.

:)

 

Xbox One's online DRM "could have been fine", says Xbox co-creator

"Hopefully now that they have more time they will fix that mess."

Xbox Games, News & Reviews | GamesRadar+

 

Xbox One's online DRM "could have been fine", says Xbox co-creator

The article title is terrible. It suggests that what Microsoft actually proposed last year "could have been fine" but that's not the case in the article.

He says "I think the digital distribution/DRM thing could have been fine if they had just used Steam as their model,
but they proposed something that wasn't like Steam and wasn't good for their customers."

 

Microsoft never had a solution, they had a plan. There wasn't enough details on how that plan would be implemented for anyone to determine if it was going to be good or bad. All we could do was make an assumption based on prior attempts to do something similar.

 

^ And my assumption, as well as a lot of other gamers, was that it was a crappy idea that needed to be stopped asap.

 

And stop it we did. Hurray!

Peace, J.R.

 

Let's face it folks if that policy were still in place today, I doubt many people would have bought the Xbox One (I know I wouldn't).

 

[quote user="Randver"]Again I don't know what to tell you. I've backed up every statement I've made with court cases and even referenced them.[/quote]They do not apply. ELUA is enforced on a case-by-case basis.

Correct.

DC Universe Online is an MMO. You weren't buying the disc, you were buying access
to the MMO.

They don't because the expectation by console gamers is that they own their games and can play them without The Internet.

Logically, this is untrue. If it was legally binding, there wouldn't be cases that seek to overturn parts of EULAs.

Once again, EULAs are not binding until there is a court case and a verdict.

That is only true if you believe the propaganda spread by publishers.

And how do they enforce it? A court case that results in a verdict.

You yourself provided the proof - court
cases and verdicts. Without a court case and a verdict, EULAs are toothless.

Because you think a think is enforceable does not mean it is until the Judicial branch has deemed it so. EULAs are not legal statutes, they're contracts. Contracts may or may not be valid.

 

@IceStorm

Your perspective on all this doesn't fly in the real world. I can see your point but it's not realistic.

My former employer was audited on a regular basis for software license compliance (common in large companies), We failed one of those audits and purchased the additional licenses and paid a fine ( I'm not sure how the fine was determined I'll assume it was
in the EULA).

I agree my employer didn't have to do that until a court told them they had to but there was enough legal precedent that the court would find against us that it was paid. We weren't going to incur the legal cost for a case we would lose anyway.

Your acceptance of a EULA will be used against you in court (as with any contract) so it is a legal document and has been upheld as such by the courts.

Your extreme view on all this could be applied to criminal cases. Someone commits a crime and they are guilty of nothing until the court finds them guilty but all of us know that certain acts are illegal and we'll be found guilty.

As far as DC Universe goes....I purchased a piece of software that required me to be online and provide a license key to use it. The same DRM that many PC games use that aren't MMO's. Console MMO's are the only ones using that type of DRM at this point but
it could apply to any game.

 

[quote user="Randver"]Microsoft never had a solution, they had a plan. There wasn't enough details on how that plan would be implemented for anyone to determine if it was going to be good or bad. All we could do was make an assumption based on prior attempts
to do something similar.[/quote]IMO, this is a good and acceptable answer to this entire topic.

 

[quote user="Randver"]Your perspective on all this doesn't fly in the real world[/quote]It absolutely does. It's the basis for court cases that fight EULAs. It's the reason doctrine of first sale trumps any "license" shenanigans that someone may try to pull
on a console title that doesn't require an Internet connection for activation.

That isn't a "legal" issue, that's a contract issue that your employer choose to honor. If your employer had opted to go to court, then it would have become
a legal issue in civil court.

Clicking "yes" to a document that cannot be read by any reasonable stretch of the imagination is something one can fight in court. I don't "accept" anything when I pop a game into my 360's
disc tray. I just play.

You purchased a client for access to an MMO. The client-side is useless without the server-side
and the server-side requires an account.

Are you aware Xbox One discs can be used to install games, then the installer can purchase a digital copy off the storefront and the game content that was installed from disc now "becomes" the digital copy? That's the same thing as selling an MMO disc. You
can install the client, but you cannot use it without the server-side bits.

And when they do the games will be licenses. Given what happened at
E3 in 2013, that isn't going to happen in the near term. For now, games sold on disc are owned, not licensed. They fall under doctrine of first sale, same as CDs, same as DVDs, same as Blu-rays.

 

@IceStorm

We've hit a stalemate with the EULA issue. There is case law that a EULA is legally binding and are enforceable so if the issue ever impacts you your welcome to fight it but the legal precedent is that you'll lose.

First sale doctrine does apply to disc based video games, I agree 100 percent but..... Courts have found that publishers and developers can legally lock down the license and the disc becomes useless. .You have the right to sell the game but it doesn't need
to work.

PC gaming has been doing this for years. I believe Spore was the first time someone tried to fight it and they lost. They can lock that license down behind a non-transferable user account, limit hardware activations or any other means. Courts have found
in favor of the publishers in every case.

First sale doctrine doesn't trump licenses. Every other piece of disc base software has skirted the first sale doctrine for decades. I can sell you disc of old Windows OS's, PC games and other non-gaming software but try and use them. License have all been
activated and good luck getting them deactivated.

The console publishers could do exactly the same thing. Include a license key with the game and require us to activate it binding it to our account ( Origin, UPlay, MS, etc). The disc is useless without the account information.

We don't own the software, we license it ( per 9th Circuit ). Console publishers let us sell our games. At anytime we can be in the same boat that PC software is. What stops that from happening? (other than the backlash from gamers). Nothing.

 

[quote user="Randver"]There is case law that a EULA is legally binding[/quote]No. There is case law that states specific EULAs are considered to be legally binding contracts. It's a distinction you and others do not make when you make sweeping blanket statements
that all games are licenses and bound by EULAs.

No buts. Console titles on disc are owned.

That's
because the disc in those instances is not what the person is buying. They're buying a license. The disc is just a bits delivery mechanism.

Yes, PC games have been licenses for years in exchange for a $10
reduction in the price of games compared to console games. PC gamers have never minded much because PC games at the start were never returnable/resalable to third parties like GameStop. That has been the case going back to the pre-PC era because PC and home
computer games on disc (be it 5.25", 3.5", or optical media) were trivial to copy (even when there was copy protection).

Console games have historically not been trivial to copy. That's why there's a used game market for console titles - the media contains the game and cannot be easily replicated.

But they
do not.

For console games on disc, the buyer owns that specific copy of the game and the publishers/developers have no direct control over what the buyer does with that copy. That's the entire basis for
used games.

Unless you have a court case specifically about reselling console games, the finding does not apply to console games.

You're making the same mistake people made about the original EU finding that licenses could be resold. Those court cases apply to application software. Games are not considered the same thing. The German courts threw out the case brought against Valve.
The EU courts have thrown out cases against eBook publishers.

Games are not considered software in the eyes of the court at this time. They're considered content.

 

Regardless of this DRM stuff I would still have bought my X1..... maybe it would of sent the kiddies elsewhere.....

 

[quote user="kingvas78"]Regardless of this DRM stuff I would still have bought my X1[/quote]I take it you weren't burnt by the Live shutdown for the original Xbox?

While the DRM system is running, it's not much of a problem. When it goes down... well, you can't be nostalgic when the content doesn't work.

Kids don't care much about the DRM situation. They're growing up with Netflix, iTunes, various UltraViolet clients, Nintendo's uber-restrictive eStore, etc. They're used to buying digital content and having no right of resale. It's older people who care
about having physical copies of content that work without a remote DRM system, that fall under doctrine of first sale.