this post was submitted on 03 Oct 2023
1831 points (97.7% liked)

Technology

60129 readers
3662 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related content.
  3. Be excellent to each another!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots


founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

We are contacting you regarding a past Prime Video purchase(s). The below content is no longer playable on Prime Video.

In an effort to compensate you for the inconvenience, we have applied a £5.99 Amazon Gift Card to your account. The Gift Card amount is equal to the amount you paid for the Prime Video purchase(s). To apologize for the inconvenience, we've also added an Amazon Gift Certificate of £5 to your account. Your Gift Card balance will be automatically applied to your next eligible order. You can view your balance and usage history in Your Account here:

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (3 children)

That's definitely how it works with games on Steam or GOG.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Unless you bought after-market keys like on G2A and it turned out to be stolen/keygen'd. Valve will remove your game if your key is found to be stolen (whether you knew it or not). I imagine you know this but just felt it bore mentioning.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Good point, yes, that's an exception. A justified one if you'd ask me but I guess YMMV.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You can read the subscriber agreement here but I'm pretty sure that's not the case with Steam.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I have dozens of games in my library that are no longer available to purchase. Often these are games with expired music copyright, though some just removed the music in an update instead. I don't remember a single withdrawn game that would get removed from my library.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

My point was it's likely within Steam's rights and terms and conditions. If they needed to or wanted to they likely could remove a game from someone's library but they likely know the overwhelming backlash that they would face.

For example games like Rimworld and Disco Elysium were, at a time, banned in Australia. I don't believe they were removed from online storefronts but if there was ever enough legal pressure maybe something could have happened. There is a Steam Support page for regional restrictions but it doesn't mention anything in regards to accessing games that have become banned in your country, contained malicious code, or somehow were infringing on copyrighted materials.

I think Codename: Gordon and Order of War were removed. I could be mistaken though.


On a sidenote I imagine removing Steam's DRM using a Steam emulator is in some ways against their terms and conditions. Even though there are some DRM free games on Steam like the original Fallout if I am remembering correctly.


Edit: In regards to my last point I think this is the section from the subscriber agreement that may involve Steam emulators

"... host or provide matchmaking services for the Content and Services or emulate or redirect the communication protocols used by Valve in any network feature of the Content and Services, through protocol emulation, tunneling, modifying or adding components to the Content and Services ..."

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yes, I believe you're correct in terms of them being within their rights to do so. I'm just not aware of them ever actually pulling this trigger, but they technically can.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Yeah. Reminds of when they changes the user agreement to prevent class action lawsuits.

Unless there's a major shift at Valve I couldn't see it happening anytime soon. My fear would be once it happens once that it would become more common.

[–] AliasWyvernspur 3 points 1 year ago

iTunes as well. There are a few things I can still stream that are no longer sold.