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Might be too late. They changed the policy a few years ago when they introduced mod packs. They didn’t want entire packs to fail if one person pulled their mod, so total deletion was disabled.
Folks can still hide their mods and make new individual downloads impossible, but it’s still there in the background.
(All this is from memory. I hope I’m wrong)
I’ve always maintained that the first was a fine game that was tanked by the price. It was priced to drive gamepass subs, not sell the game. At $35-40, it would have been received much better, imo. Years later, now that it’s more appropriately priced, it seems to be more well-reviewed.
Unfortunately the second is going down the same path. It may take 5+ years for the game to be appreciated to its fullest (assuming no glaring issues), through no fault of the devs.
Yeah, I don’t remember all the details myself, so you’re probably right. I was basically trying to support your thesis that Bethesda getting nasty over mods would be something entirely new and out of character. The only example someone could even try to point to had a bunch of other (better) explanations than “mod bad, Bethesda mad.”
For all their faults, Bethesda may be the most mod-friendly AAA studio out there right now.
I can vaguely recall a single instance where they shut someone down, and that was over re-used audio assets from an older game. That was almost certainly about contractual licensing obligations to voice actors.
The copyright industry has pushed the “making available” narrative for so long, that’s sort of become the dominant talking point. IANAL, but as an internet user, I have opinions*:
a. That seems entirely backwards from what the law intends. “Making a copy” is done by the downloader, which is explicitly what the law is about.
b. The industry only went the other way because it was more convenient from a litigation perspective. It’s far easier to sue one person for seeding to 100 peers than to go after the 100 individuals who downloaded from that seeder. They got a few courts to go along with the more loose interpretation to get precedent for the next and the next suit.
* always be aware of your local copyright laws before listening to some rando online.
Legally, it’s still a license, it’s just effectively impossible to revoke.
Edit to expand on this: A truly offline forever-purchase of physical goods can be re-sold. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-sale_doctrine (this is the US-specific version, other jurisdictions may have similar doctrines).
American legal concept that limits the rights of an intellectual property owner to control resale of products embodying its intellectual property.
A digital “purchase” is usually non-transferable, even from GOG. It can’t be removed from your own HDD once you download the installer, but there are still restrictions attached on what you can do with it, even if those are limited and hard to enforce.
Out of all the boardroom discussions, raising the price was actually the most consumer-friendly suggestion from Sony. Others included:
- Deleting the original version from users’ libraries.
- Re-printing the original on disc, but including a rootkit.
- Compiling a list of original version owners and leaving their personal details in plaintext on the web until they upgrade.
- Downgrading the original to 480p, telling users the original graphics were just a bug, and selling the higher-res upgrade.
They do point out that they will be monitoring how it’s used, and could adjust things later.
Sounds like corporate-speak for “if people abuse this, we’ll lock it down harder.”
Even if people are using it to share with actual family around the country, they may get caught up in future updates that remove that feature. Also note that any publisher can opt out of the sharing. If EA or Ubi or some other big company doesn’t like the lack of limits, they may be able to force Valve’s hand in changing the policy.
The idea is wonderful, but there are a ton sof ways this could end up worse than the old system.
It was an early game pass title, priced at $60 to get people to sign up for a $10-15 subscription instead. If it had been released at ~$30 like the AA game it was, I believe it would have gotten a lot more leeway in the player reviews.
I did enjoy one playthrough. Most obsidian games beg the player to go again, but it didn’t seem worth another 15-20 hours for a slightly different ending. Replay value is what’s really missing for me.
Expectations are key. It’s a pretty good game at the right price, but anyone expecting New Vegas in Space is left disappointed.
The mod includes everything needed to downgrade other stores’ copies. To the end user, the idea is to make it as transparent as possible. This will work on Steam (with some work) and GOG (with less work), but not Epic(at all). Calling out one storefront unnecessarily would be “provocative bullshit” but in this case, it matters.
Payment processors, if left on their own, would take any money from any person for any reason. This is more to do with a patchwork of laws that are trying to snuff out anything “adult” and will absolutely sweep up every party even remotely involved in the transaction.
They’re covering their own ass. It’s cowardice, not righteousness.