this post was submitted on 21 Jun 2025
0 points (NaN% liked)

Gaming

3560 readers
14 users here now

The Lemmy.zip Gaming Community

For news, discussions and memes!


Community Rules

This community follows the Lemmy.zip Instance rules, with the inclusion of the following rule:

You can see Lemmy.zip's rules by going to our Code of Conduct.

What to Expect in Our Code of Conduct:


If you enjoy reading legal stuff, you can check it all out at legal.lemmy.zip.


founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Hi there, We removed Dark and Darker from sale on the Epic Games Store on March 5 in consideration of a court decision in Korea between Nexon and the game's publisher, IRONMACE. On November 1, 2025, we will be removing Dark and Darker from your library, at which point it will no longer be playable via the Epic Games Store.

Effective immediately, players can no longer purchase Redstone Shards or the Legendary Status upgrades via the Epic Games Store. Players can continue to use the Redstone Shards that they have previously purchased until November 1, 2025.

We will issue a refund to all players who have purchased the Legendary Status upgrade. Refunds will be issued to the player’s original payment method, and where that’s not possible, players will receive a refund to their Epic account balance. We are unable to provide refunds on Redstone Shards.

If you have not received a refund by July 1, please contact player support.

Thank you,
The Epic Games Store team

(page 2) 18 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago (3 children)

When steam takes games off the store they let you still download them. Epic just sucks.

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago (2 children)

You do not own physical games either. It’s just harder for the publisher to revoke a license for a physical game but legally there is little difference.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Nintendo: "hold my beer"

Game key cards are the stupidest idea I have seen in a long time.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (3 children)

Not true. With older physical games which fit on the CDs/DVDs you by law owned your copy and had full ownership over it to do whatever you wanted.

That's the difference between license and owning.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago (10 children)

That's the difference between license and owning.

No, when you own a game, you can make copies and sell them. That is because owning the game means you own the copyright to the game.

If you are not the owner of the IP (which you aren’t, unless you own the company that made the game), then the only way to legally play the game is for the actual owner to provide you with some kind of license. If you don’t have a license then the default copyright rules apply which means you aren’t legally allowed to have or play a copy.

Your license is also limited and doesn’t allow you to ‘do whatever you want’. Try selling copies and see how quickly you get sued. You can’t even do what you want with your single copy. Go buy a bunch of physical games and start a game rental business. Or buy a bunch of physical games and open a game cafe where people can play ‘your’ games. Your license doesn’t allow you to do that.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago (2 children)

The second-hand videogame market will always exist, even if the license when you bought the game doesn't give you explicit permission to sell your copy. This probably isn't going to change any time soon either

load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments (9 replies)
load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (4 children)

Reminder that you do not own digital games

That is not universally true. On GOG for example you can download all your games, so things like this could not happen there. Sure, you still technically purchase a license and do not actually buy the games, but for all intents and purposes this is still the closest you get to actually owning the games.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Sure you get a DRM-free license on GOG, but for many games you are still dependent on online servers for authentication, which can be shut down at any time rendering your access null and void. The only recourse is technically "hacking" a game a creating local servers which is both against terms of service and against the law in some countries.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago (1 children)

online servers for authentication

I am not aware of any game on GOG that requires an online server for authentication. I'm not saying no such thing exists - I don't own every single game on GOG, but that would go against the whole DRM free thing. Care to name a few games that do this? I don't mean games that have an online mode that require a server, but games that just require authentication against an online server to be able to play the game.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago (1 children)

You are talking about always-on DRM, I was talking about dependence on the servers for connecting to the multiplayer. Most of GOG games lose partial funtionality when servers get shut down as GOG doesn't use/host their own servers.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago (1 children)

You specifically said "online servers for authentication". That's what I understood as just that - a server required to be able to play the game, not a server required to use an actual online feature of a game. Don't get me wrong, I very much prefer when games allow multiplayer games without requiring a server run by the publisher. All that is very different from what the posts title is about, though.

By the way, there are still games on GOG that let you run local servers for multi player gaming.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

You specifically said "online servers for authentication".

And then continued in the next sentence. In context it makes sense, without it I can understand your confusion.

And I'm not trying to attack GOG, just highlighting the reality of online "onwership" in general. GOG and Itch.io are the best we can get without real regulations.

There are some great open source games (like [email protected]), but it's still very rare.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (5 children)

They don't have DRM. That's not the same as owning the game. If you don't back up the games or installers yourself, and GOG goes under, you lose access to your library the same as Epic or Steam going away.

You can back up your Steam and Epic games, too. You just need to be able to access your account to verify your license for most titles (but not everything; loads of games do not use Steam or Epic's DRM, have no online checks to verify anything, and you can just copy the installation folder to another machine to play the game). But you can also easily crack both of their DRM to skip the online checks even if they do use it.

This goes for physical media as well. You own the disk; you do not own the software on said disk. The software on the physical media could still have an online check to see if you are a license holder (this is what CD-Keys are used for) and block you from installing/running the software, despite it being on your own CD/DVD. I am pretty sure I myself have games on disk that can not be installed because the online verification servers no longer exist, so the only way to install them is with cracks.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Depending on the era of the game, you might well own a copy of a game on a disk, just like you own a copy of a book when you buy a book. Weaselling out of first-sale-doctrine stuff came a long time after people started buying video games. A century ago, publishers were trying exactly the same thing with books, and depending on the country, either legislation was introduced that made it explicitly illegal, or the courts determined that putting a licence agreement in a book just meant that the customer got a copy of a licence agreement with their book, not that they were bound by its terms.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

I was born in '85. IBM pioneered the idea of software licensing in the '50s. Nothing I've ever purchased was old enough to be free from the concept.

The thing I hate most is not being able to re-sell something. I mean, sure, I could sell my disks to someone; but they wouldn't necessarily be able to use them and then I would be guilty of fraud or copyright violation or both. 😩

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago (1 children)

They don’t have DRM. That’s not the same as owning the game.

That's why I mentioned that you purchase a license. That has also always been true even if you "bought" a game as a physical copy in a store. A DRM-free game is still the closest thing you get to owning a game.

If you don’t back up the games or installers yourself, and GOG goes under, you lose access to your library the same as Epic or Steam going away.

I have heard this argument before, but I really don't get it. Of course you could lose your files if you don't download them. I'd say that's so obvious it isn't even worth mentioning. If you lose or destroy your physical copy of a game you also lose access to it. Pretty obvious.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Why could you both not be right ? Yes, right now a DRM Free game is the closest thing that we get to owning a game. Yet, that wasn't always true, we used to have an unlimited access to our video game, executable, as long as we had a disk.

But they took that from us ! 👿

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago (1 children)

But that's the point they're making, isn't it? With GOG games you can download the installer. With that you also get unlimited access to it.

Given you don't lose it, but that same argument goes for physical disks.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (3 replies)
load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments
view more: ‹ prev next ›