Lawyer: Dead Space 3 Resource Exploit Might Be Theft

[Something Amyss]

Except that his entire point was invalidated the day before this when EA stated it wasn't a glitch.

Ding ding ding ding ding!

Anyway, I'm getting tired of this sort of thing being rephrased as theft. I'm not pro-piracy, but an exploit is neither a car nor bread.

 

[Xdeser2]

Honestly...Fuck this guy

He dosent know a single damn thing about Games, so why ask his opinion?

 

[kburns10]

Except that his entire point was invalidated the day before this when EA stated it wasn't a glitch.

Thank you. If the bakery in this example told me, "No, that's not incorrect change, we meant to give you the wrong amount" then it's not theft. His example and point are invalid.

 

[TsunamiWombat]

"So, arguably if you go into this game knowing you are supposed to be paying for these weapons and you notice a glitch allows you to accumulate them without paying, that's theft as well,"

Therein lays the fallacy. You aren't supposed to be paying for these items. You CAN be paying for them. It's not theft. Dumb as hell.

 

[Atmos Duality]

I commented on this hours ago in the general Gaming Discussion.

And I'm glad this situation isn't going to develop past this (EA did something right instead of issuing mass-bans, color me surprised). Though I shudder to think that this is going to give some knucklefuck in the business some evil idea..

Never discount the lawyers kids, that's all I'm sayin'.

 

[Sidmen]

Interesting.

My counterpoint would be thus: resources in a videogame are an intangible idea represented by numbers and graphics. To "steal" something, you necessarily have to deprive them of their property.

At the same time, I could take MY copy of deadspace, hack the files inside it, and increase starting resources to 1,000,000 every time I start a new game, and it still wouldn't be stealing, since it was my property to do with as I wish.

 

[loa]

This is just in: Playing the game is theft.

 

[Sheo_Dagana]

I don't know how EA would go about taking action against this, even if it were theft. You're not paying for the resources themselves, you're paying for access to lots of them at one time. So you don't have to 'grind' or locate them if you don't want to. I mean, the guy has been lawyering longer than me (I haven't lawyered at all, outside Ace Attorney games) so I'm sure he knows what he's talking about, but it's just incredibly stupid. I know that gaming is something we're all passionate about, but there comes a point when you need to take a step back and say 'It's just a game, calm down.'

 

[Kopikatsu]

since it was my property to do with as I wish.

Nope. Licensing agreements are a very simple concept, so it confuses me that so many people don't get it.

Anywho, to be on topic...the Lawyer's analogy is flawed (Not just because all analogies are flawed, and everyone who ever uses one should feel bad about themselves) because it's clear she has no idea what she's talking about. The resources aren't DLC-only, and the DLC-only parts cannot be obtained in any way except by purchasing the DLC (whether through real money or ingame Ration Seals). That right there blows her assertion right out of the water.

 

[Skeleon]

One: The fact EA is aware of the exploit but is taking no steps to stop it indicates the company doesn't view it as theft.

Yeah. I mean, how can it be theft if EA says: "Go ahead. Buy our buns and get some extra change for free. This extra change you can gather is intentional and we're not going to change our policy." Makes no sense to me how she can even argue that considering EA's own response.

 

[Sidmen]

Nope. Licensing agreements are a very simple concept, so it confuses me that so many people don't get it.

Mostly, it has to do with the human mind rejecting the concept and putting in one that actually makes sense.

If people selling videogames were forced to read off the licensing terms during each sale before taking money, then maybe I'd accept them. Until then, I purchased a videogame, then inside the game I found some licensing stuff that was irrelevant to me, since I can't return the game and thus am under no obligation to do anything not stipulated in the transaction (I gave them money, they gave me property on a disc).

 

[Kopikatsu]

Nope. Licensing agreements are a very simple concept, so it confuses me that so many people don't get it.

Mostly, it has to do with the human mind rejecting the concept and putting in one that actually makes sense.

If people selling videogames were forced to read off the licensing terms during each sale before taking money, then maybe I'd accept them. Until then, I purchased a videogame, then inside the game I found some licensing stuff that was irrelevant to me, since I can't return the game and thus am under no obligation to do anything not stipulated in the transaction (I gave them money, they gave me property on a disc).

Most EULAs have the stipulation that if you don't agree to it, then you can return the software to the store or manufacturer for a full refund. (This is required by law in most places)

You're only paying for what they're offering. If you don't accept that what they're offering is worth what they're asking for, then don't buy it or wait until the price goes down. -shrug-

 

[Trishbot]

The analogy makes no sense. You buy a loaf of break or something and that's something that actually exists.

Using an exploit in Dead Space 3 gets you... what? Stuff that you technically already bought because it's on the disc? Stuff that isn't actually there? Zero new pieces of data or code? You get absolutely nothing apart from imaginary money for imaginary weapons in an imaginary setting to fight imaginary monsters.

Then again, I'm from the era of Game Genie, GameShark, and Action Replay, and you can bet your ass I cheated to high heavens on games like Battletoads, Ninja Gaiden, Castlevania, Contra, and NES Batman.

 

[Sidmen]

Most EULAs have the stipulation that if you don't agree to it, then you can return the software to the store or manufacturer for a full refund. (This is required by law in most places)

You're only paying for what they're offering. If you don't accept that what they're offering is worth what they're asking for, then don't buy it or wait until the price goes down. -shrug-

Maybe they do, can't say. Never read them. Since they weren't part of the actual contract I agreed to when I purchased the game, they're about as binding as my agreement to blow up Megaton.

I do know that whenever I've tried to return a game I've been informed that I can't, and that I can only "trade it in".

So, once I buy a game nobody will ever be able to tell me that I can't do something with it. I'll decode the files and increase the roman legionary's attack value from 4 to 6, change the skin of an assault rifle to something I made (usually adding smiley face stickers), etc. etc.

I do understand that I can't sell it, since a company owns the copyrights, but once it's sold to me - I own my copy. Laws and "agreements" saying the contrary are wrong and deserve to be laughed at.

 

[Rellik San]

Most EULAs have the stipulation that if you don't agree to it, then you can return the software to the store or manufacturer for a full refund. (This is required by law in most places)

Tell that to physical stores that sell PC games, given they all insist you can't return a PC Game for any reason, not even if your brand new disk is so heavily scratched the game won't install or run properly (yeah I've had that nugget before now).

(I'm aware under legal obligation, they have too. But unless you walk in with the law in print copy, chances are they won't even dignify you).

 

[SL33TBL1ND]

Nope. Licensing agreements are a very simple concept, so it confuses me that so many people don't get it.

Mostly, it has to do with the human mind rejecting the concept and putting in one that actually makes sense.

If people selling videogames were forced to read off the licensing terms during each sale before taking money, then maybe I'd accept them. Until then, I purchased a videogame, then inside the game I found some licensing stuff that was irrelevant to me, since I can't return the game and thus am under no obligation to do anything not stipulated in the transaction (I gave them money, they gave me property on a disc).

Most EULAs have the stipulation that if you don't agree to it, then you can return the software to the store or manufacturer for a full refund. (This is required by law in most places)

You're only paying for what they're offering. If you don't accept that what they're offering is worth what they're asking for, then don't buy it or wait until the price goes down. -shrug-

Since you don't agree to them at the point of sale, a number of jurisdictions don't recognise their legality.

 

[Therumancer]

The way I see it is the central issue of intangible, virtual, property having value is not silly. We've been here for a long time, with people actually making millions selling things like virtual real estate and items in things like "Second Life", and the very idea of DLC and microtransactions to begin with. This is simply another facet of theft and piracy since it comes down to someone taking something for free that does not belong to them.

That said, this specific issue is in of itself a touchy one, especially if the developers state ahead of time that the game is designed to be beatable without paying for anything additional. For such a claim to have weight they would have to have a clearly stated model where the game requires you to pay X amount of additional money in microtransactions to succeed beyond a certain point. If the microtransactions are being billed simply as a conveinence or time saving device (whatever the case might be), then there isn't much of an arguement being made for exploiting a glitch (which is always debatable) since that typically takes time, time which would be saved by simply swiping your credit card which is the initial intent.

I don't see this being an issue until we get to the point where games start wearing a "pay to win" label proudly as opposed to trying to talk around the issue. Their own declarations of intent usually mean it's difficult to claim theft or really "breaking" the intended system if they always intended for success to be possible without paying them anything additional through microtransactions.

That's my thoughts on the subject at any rate.

To be honest I've been much more eager to see legal action taken against gold farmers and those who purchuse currency and such outside of the intended system in MMORPGs and screw up in game economies for other players for years on end. In such cases it can be argued that what they are doing is clearly against the stated intent of the game and it's developers, and truthfully it affects far more people due to the nature of online communities, than a couple of CEOs whose personal money mattresses might be a fraction of a milimeter less thick at the end of the day. Even so, that isn't likely to ever happen or else we probably would have seen it by now.