Sorry to necro this but I just saw in the latest LTT vid that apparently Microsoft did go through with this plan? They were talking about it in the context of the diskless xbox that just released. https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/xbox/forum/all/how-to-transfer-content-licenses/7ac76f4e-c7e4-4153-8824-1e424478b02d

That’s their goal. “You’ll own nothing and be happy.”

Having to fly under the radar or risk financial ruin doesn’t sound like ownership to me.

Yeah that’s more comparable. I was mostly just trying to state the difference between ownership and a perpetual license but I’m thinking I oversimplified lol.

Oh yeah, I understand. I was just trying to describe the difference between ownership and a perpetual license in overly simplified terms. Also, can you think of any examples of digital goods that retain first sale doctrine? With physical disks at least a second hand market still exists for that very reason, but I can’t think of any digital media that allow resale. I would love to be wrong!

It depends on your definition of ownership. If having perpetual access to a product is enough then yes. But we aren’t allowed to, say, disassemble a game and use it’s assets to make something of our own. As opposed to say a spoon. Nobody can tell me how I can and can’t use my spoon.

It seems to me that the real reason people are upset is that they don’t want to accept that the devs of games they like willingly accepted the money. As if Epic forced them.

I can’t think of any time in history that the public has had that ability for anything. Imagine being upset because a Ford dealership won’t sell you a Toyota, or that Kohl’s won’t sell you some designer brand.

It’s DRM free. Pirate it and add an external game to Steam if the other options are unappealing to you.

I think it would be easier for me to empathize with the “exclusivity” argument if it weren’t for the fact that PCs as a general rule are inherently open. I don’t have to buy a new computer to install a new games launcher as I would with a console exclusives war. Hell most of the time you don’t even have to install the official launcher as so many of them are just web wrappers/electron apps. I’ve been using the Heroic Games Launcher to claim my free Epic games for nearly a year and the only “downside”, if you can even call it that, is that I don’t get the weekly popup’s letting me know what’s free/on sale. Just building a huge library of free games, some of which I already own on Steam. Somebody please show me the actual downside of more competition on a single platform.

It wasn’t pulled from Steam. A development company consisting of three people that put out a popular mobile game 15+ years ago got an opportunity they wouldn’t otherwise have had to create a sequel and took it. They published on (shockedpikachuface) their publishers platform, as well as Nintendo consoles and their own website for people who don’t like Epic. I doubt Allan, Kyle and Kyle would have had the funds or skill to do this on their own.

The epic hate is tiresome. It sounds like they functioned as a publisher here, providing long term funding of development prior to release. The game isn’t exclusive and has no DRM, I see no downside to this. Stop hopping on bandwagons of hate and enjoy your games people.

I hear the French had good luck with guillotines.