cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/74416381
The relevant section is blunt. “The Software is licensed to you, not sold,” the EULA states. “You are granted a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, and personal license to play or use the Software for your private, non-commercial use on the system or device it was intended for.”
The terms also restrict renting, modifying, or obtaining games through unauthorised means. Nothing in there is new, technically. Sony’s EULA has always said this. The timing is what makes it land differently right now.
Isn’t Steam the same?
Every piece of software is the same.
Indeed your Steam account is not transferable so when you die your games die with you.
The reason Steam gets away with it (for now) though is they’re unusually chill about everything. Give someone your account? They don’t care. Pirate their games? Don’t care. Make a Steam app mod that literally automated the piracy process and uses Steam’s own servers to get the game files? Cool. Pirates are also using Steam’s servers to play pirated games online (through spacewars, easily detectable)? More power to you. And in the midst of all this they introduce the family feature where people can share their games with others in the family.But I am no Steam shill and the license has the final say. So always BUY your games (
from marketplaces like GOG) when possible.Pretty sure GOG has similar terms, too. The difference is that they’re effectively unenforceable with the lack of DRM. But the “you’re only buying a licence to use the software” verbiage is pretty universal, and old at this point. In fact, I’m pretty sure I’ve got NES games somewhere with nearly identical phrasing in their manuals.
