Forced updates ruining paid games

[Iucounu]

Hypotethical but apparently plausible situation:

When buying a game, you are usually allowed to return it within a certain time if you don't like it. But what if a forced update later changes the game so that -albeit still playable- you no longer enjoy it? You are not allowed to decline the update and keep playing (at least not on Epic Store), and you can no longer return the game and get a refund. Can this be legal?

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

welcome to dawn of war.
1.0, total masterpiece. every patch it got worse and worse. every expansion dumber and dumber.

no, it didn't change anything, because you're buying the permit to be allowed to attempt to try to use THEIR software on THEIR terms. that's how it works today. but digital delivery totally saved gaming. totally.

 

[JarlFrank]

Dawn of War is not a problem because it had a physical release, just install the game off your CDs and don't patch it.

 

[thesheeep]

You can also download old versions of games on Steam, but the process is of course more involved.

https://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/1/3183487463215080980/

Don't think I ever had the need to do that for any game in the last 20 years or so, but hey, it is possible...

 

[octavius]

Me, I'm still looking for the "no thanks, I'll stick with Android 12" option to appear when the daily unavoidable upgrade nagging (I hate naggers and nagware) appears on my phone.

 

[Iucounu]

You can also download old versions of games on Steam, but the process is of course more involved.

https://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/1/3183487463215080980/

Don't think I ever had the need to do that for any game in the last 20 years or so, but hey, it is possible...

Sound like a reason to choose Steam over Epic...

 

[JarlFrank]

You can also download old versions of games on Steam, but the process is of course more involved.

https://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/1/3183487463215080980/

Don't think I ever had the need to do that for any game in the last 20 years or so, but hey, it is possible...

One game where this has become necessary is Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak because those faggots at Gearbox added mandatory always-only DRM with Epic Online Services.
Allegedly this was done to facilitate multiplayer crossplay between Steam and Epic Store players, but a connection is also necessary to play single player, which previously it had not been.

 

[Sibelius]

You can also download old versions of games on Steam, but the process is of course more involved.

https://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/1/3183487463215080980/

Don't think I ever had the need to do that for any game in the last 20 years or so, but hey, it is possible...

One game where this has become necessary is Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak because those faggots at Gearbox added mandatory always-only DRM with Epic Online Services.
Allegedly this was done to facilitate multiplayer crossplay between Steam and Epic Store players, but a connection is also necessary to play single player, which previously it had not been.

Another game this would come in useful for is the game I'm playing at the moment Aeterna Noctis. The dev team introduced leader boards for a single player metroidvania title and added Easy Anti-Cheat to 'ensure fairness'. This caused performance issues and long loading times between rooms and incesnsed the community. The devs have since removed it after about 6 months of complaints and negative reviews, but the game still runs like shit compared to my pirated v1.002 version. The launch version is so good I am waiting for the game to come off of sale so I can buy it at full price on Steam. I also want to support the devs for listening to the community, even if it did take 6 months.

 

[Devastator]

Making the game worse is terrible. An even bigger irony of the 'convenience' of mandatory updates lies in their occasional removal of content that players have paid for. I recall the uproar surrounding Destiny 2 when Bungie announced the 'sunsetting' of content (corpo doublespeak). Admittedly, the game seems like a shameless cash grab, yet it remains an intriguing case. IIRC, certain planets and previous DLC content were simply removed from the game. The reasoning given was that the game had grown 'too large' for standard SSD capacities. Just imagine offering a selective installation, a feature games have had for ages. Baldur's Gate's approach seemed very neat at the time by allowing a highly customizable HDD installation from its initial five CDs.

P. S. An 'excellent' change (but not really an update) will come to Gran Turismo Sport in early 2024 when the developer's servers will shut down forever, thereby completely breaking several of the game's functionalities. What makes this funnier is that the game needs PS Plus for multiplayer, which is a paid service by Sony -- supposedly to help MAINTAIN THE SERVERS.
(Sony apologists will claim that PS Plus funds only the PSN servers and that the developer's servers shutting down has nothing to do with it. But that would mean that the monthly PS Plus subscription only funds the uptime of an overpriced forwarding service -- linking your console the developer's servers ).

 

[Zarniwoop]

Making the game worse is terrible. An even bigger irony of the 'convenience' of mandatory updates lies in their occasional removal of content that players have paid for. I recall the uproar surrounding Destiny 2 when Bungie announced the 'sunsetting' of content (corpo doublespeak). Admittedly, the game seems like a shameless cash grab, yet it remains an intriguing case. IIRC, certain planets and previous DLC content were simply removed from the game. The reasoning given was that the game had grown 'too large' for standard SSD capacities. Just imagine offering a selective installation, a feature games have had for ages. Baldur's Gate's approach seemed very neat at the time by allowing a highly customizable HDD installation from its initial five CDs.

P. S. An 'excellent' change (but not really an update) will come to Gran Turismo Sport in early 2024 when the developer's servers will shut down forever, thereby completely breaking several of the game's functionalities. What makes this funnier is that the game needs PS Plus for multiplayer, which is a paid service by Sony -- supposedly to help MAINTAIN THE SERVERS.

Rockstar removing music from the GTAs should have been the last straw. But as I have said for a while now, modern gamers are spineless morons who don't pay attention and would buy anything. Aka: millennials.

 

[Devastator]

Making the game worse is terrible. An even bigger irony of the 'convenience' of mandatory updates lies in their occasional removal of content that players have paid for. I recall the uproar surrounding Destiny 2 when Bungie announced the 'sunsetting' of content (corpo doublespeak). Admittedly, the game seems like a shameless cash grab, yet it remains an intriguing case. IIRC, certain planets and previous DLC content were simply removed from the game. The reasoning given was that the game had grown 'too large' for standard SSD capacities. Just imagine offering a selective installation, a feature games have had for ages. Baldur's Gate's approach seemed very neat at the time by allowing a highly customizable HDD installation from its initial five CDs.

P. S. An 'excellent' change (but not really an update) will come to Gran Turismo Sport in early 2024 when the developer's servers will shut down forever, thereby completely breaking several of the game's functionalities. What makes this funnier is that the game needs PS Plus for multiplayer, which is a paid service by Sony -- supposedly to help MAINTAIN THE SERVERS.

Rockstar removing music from the GTAs should have been the last straw. But as I have said for a while now, modern gamers are spineless morons who don't pay attention and would buy anything. Aka: millennials.

Some millennials are over 40 now. Older ones played Quake and CS 1.6, younger ones Halo and MW2 on Xbox. You're probably thinking about zoomers and alphas.

 

[NecroLord]

Yo ho, ho!
Har, har, har!
Really, if devs keep pulling stunts like these, even the braindead gaymers will eventually get fed up with it and find different ways to "acquire" games...

 

[Zarniwoop]

Making the game worse is terrible. An even bigger irony of the 'convenience' of mandatory updates lies in their occasional removal of content that players have paid for. I recall the uproar surrounding Destiny 2 when Bungie announced the 'sunsetting' of content (corpo doublespeak). Admittedly, the game seems like a shameless cash grab, yet it remains an intriguing case. IIRC, certain planets and previous DLC content were simply removed from the game. The reasoning given was that the game had grown 'too large' for standard SSD capacities. Just imagine offering a selective installation, a feature games have had for ages. Baldur's Gate's approach seemed very neat at the time by allowing a highly customizable HDD installation from its initial five CDs.

P. S. An 'excellent' change (but not really an update) will come to Gran Turismo Sport in early 2024 when the developer's servers will shut down forever, thereby completely breaking several of the game's functionalities. What makes this funnier is that the game needs PS Plus for multiplayer, which is a paid service by Sony -- supposedly to help MAINTAIN THE SERVERS.

Rockstar removing music from the GTAs should have been the last straw. But as I have said for a while now, modern gamers are spineless morons who don't pay attention and would buy anything. Aka: millennials.

Some millennials are over 40 now. You're probably thinking zoomers and alphas.

Firstly, that's a really bad definition, millennials are born after 88/89 or so. They kept moving the date back in a pathetic attempt to include more normal people in their sicko club. Zuckerberg is definitely not a fucking millennial for example. He's a typical Gen X autist nerd.

Millennials are the always-offended purple-haired faggots who run marketing and HR departments and think the epitome of culture is blaming everything on white men. The ones Cuck Simulator are based on.

Zoomers are the ones who yeet and no cap and always act like they're high on weed (and often are) and love everything in pink and purple color schemes and have anime avatars.

It's really not that hard to distinguish between them.

Millennials caused this, make no mistake. The others were still twinkles in their fathers' eyes. Or yeets in their eyes, whatever.

 

[NecroLord]

Making the game worse is terrible. An even bigger irony of the 'convenience' of mandatory updates lies in their occasional removal of content that players have paid for. I recall the uproar surrounding Destiny 2 when Bungie announced the 'sunsetting' of content (corpo doublespeak). Admittedly, the game seems like a shameless cash grab, yet it remains an intriguing case. IIRC, certain planets and previous DLC content were simply removed from the game. The reasoning given was that the game had grown 'too large' for standard SSD capacities. Just imagine offering a selective installation, a feature games have had for ages. Baldur's Gate's approach seemed very neat at the time by allowing a highly customizable HDD installation from its initial five CDs.

P. S. An 'excellent' change (but not really an update) will come to Gran Turismo Sport in early 2024 when the developer's servers will shut down forever, thereby completely breaking several of the game's functionalities. What makes this funnier is that the game needs PS Plus for multiplayer, which is a paid service by Sony -- supposedly to help MAINTAIN THE SERVERS.

Rockstar removing music from the GTAs should have been the last straw. But as I have said for a while now, modern gamers are spineless morons who don't pay attention and would buy anything. Aka: millennials.

Some millennials are over 40 now. You're probably thinking zoomers and alphas.

Firstly, that's a really bad definition, millennials are born after 88/89 or so. They kept moving the date back in a pathetic attempt to include more normal people in their sicko club. Zuckerberg is definitely not a fucking millennial for example. He's a typical Gen X autist nerd.

Millennials are the always-offended purple-haired faggots who run marketing and HR departments and think the epitome of culture is blaming everything on white men. The ones Cuck Simulator are based on.

Zoomers are the ones who yeet and no cap and always act like they're high on weed (and often are) and love everything in pink and purple color schemes and have anime avatars.

It's really not that hard to distinguish between them.

Millennials caused this, make no mistake. The others were still twinkles in their fathers' eyes. Or yeets in their eyes, whatever.

Yeah, but who are the worst?
Millennials or Zoomers?
Or Boomers for being the ones causing much of the shit that is happening today?

 

[Athena]

even the braindead gaymers will eventually get fed up with it and find different ways to "acquire" games...

Most gamers under 30 don't know how to pirate games, or believe they'll get a virus for trying, or plainly they are bootlickers and think it's the second most immoral act one can do (after saying the N word)

 

[manifest]

This happens to free-to-play games all the time, look at Phantasy Star Online 2 or even CS:GO/2. No refunds btw.

 

[Devastator]

Making the game worse is terrible. An even bigger irony of the 'convenience' of mandatory updates lies in their occasional removal of content that players have paid for. I recall the uproar surrounding Destiny 2 when Bungie announced the 'sunsetting' of content (corpo doublespeak). Admittedly, the game seems like a shameless cash grab, yet it remains an intriguing case. IIRC, certain planets and previous DLC content were simply removed from the game. The reasoning given was that the game had grown 'too large' for standard SSD capacities. Just imagine offering a selective installation, a feature games have had for ages. Baldur's Gate's approach seemed very neat at the time by allowing a highly customizable HDD installation from its initial five CDs.

P. S. An 'excellent' change (but not really an update) will come to Gran Turismo Sport in early 2024 when the developer's servers will shut down forever, thereby completely breaking several of the game's functionalities. What makes this funnier is that the game needs PS Plus for multiplayer, which is a paid service by Sony -- supposedly to help MAINTAIN THE SERVERS.

Rockstar removing music from the GTAs should have been the last straw. But as I have said for a while now, modern gamers are spineless morons who don't pay attention and would buy anything. Aka: millennials.

Some millennials are over 40 now. You're probably thinking zoomers and alphas.

Firstly, that's a really bad definition, millennials are born after 88/89 or so. They kept moving the date back in a pathetic attempt to include more normal people in their sicko club. Zuckerberg is definitely not a fucking millennial for example. He's a typical Gen X autist nerd.

Millennials are the always-offended purple-haired faggots who run marketing and HR departments and think the epitome of culture is blaming everything on white men. The ones Cuck Simulator are based on.

Zoomers are the ones who yeet and no cap and always act like they're high on weed (and often are) and love everything in pink and purple color schemes and have anime avatars.

It's really not that hard to distinguish between them.

Millennials caused this, make no mistake. The others were still twinkles in their fathers' eyes. Or yeets in their eyes, whatever.

1. You seem to be confusing generational labels with personal traits. Just say 'edgy furry socialists' and we will understand each other.

2. How the fuck is Zuckerberg Gen X? You really need to recheck how the generations are defined, preferably not using mass media.

3. You must be really high on copium if you think Millennials caused the gaming market going to shit. They are mostly still not old enough for top management positions, if we exclude exceptions of young CEOs like Zuck. Check who was in charge when they started introducing DLCs, when PS plus became a paid service when PS4 was introduced, etc. It was Boomers at the top and Gen X as their cock sucking servants.

4. Do you think the fact that Zuck is a piece of shit has anything to do with his age? You can be a satanist fuck regardless of your age and it's pure copium to think otherwise. See point 1.

5. If Millennials did cause all of this, why do the Boomers, Xers, Zoomers and Alphas not fix it? See point 4.

 

[Halfling Rodeo]

Making the game worse is terrible. An even bigger irony of the 'convenience' of mandatory updates lies in their occasional removal of content that players have paid for. I recall the uproar surrounding Destiny 2 when Bungie announced the 'sunsetting' of content (corpo doublespeak). Admittedly, the game seems like a shameless cash grab, yet it remains an intriguing case. IIRC, certain planets and previous DLC content were simply removed from the game. The reasoning given was that the game had grown 'too large' for standard SSD capacities. Just imagine offering a selective installation, a feature games have had for ages. Baldur's Gate's approach seemed very neat at the time by allowing a highly customizable HDD installation from its initial five CDs.

P. S. An 'excellent' change (but not really an update) will come to Gran Turismo Sport in early 2024 when the developer's servers will shut down forever, thereby completely breaking several of the game's functionalities. What makes this funnier is that the game needs PS Plus for multiplayer, which is a paid service by Sony -- supposedly to help MAINTAIN THE SERVERS.
(Sony apologists will claim that PS Plus funds only the PSN servers and that the developer's servers shutting down has nothing to do with it. But that would mean that the monthly PS Plus subscription only funds the uptime of an overpriced forwarding service -- linking your console the developer's servers ).

Bungie said it was because of consoles. Game was too big to install on their hard drives or some shit. Mean while even 343 can offer limited installs in MCC to get just what you want.

They also took old content and reused it after it got deleted. You would find old guns as part of the new updates and the community didn't seem to mind. I suspect the real reason a lot of old content was because of Bungie trying to lower expectations. They never want to over deliver or get fans expectations up for good content. By removing the old good stuff a player doesn't expect the old good quality and maybe more inclined to accept the garbage they shovel out now. Bit of a conspiracy but there you go.

Firstly, that's a really bad definition, millennials are born after 88/89 or so. They kept moving the date back in a pathetic attempt to include more normal people in their sicko club. Zuckerberg is definitely not a fucking millennial for example. He's a typical Gen X autist nerd.

Millenial is any one growing up during the turn of the Millenium. It should be any one born during the mid 80s to 1999. It's a 20 year block. Gen X grew up during the 70s and 80s as the previous block and cut off late 70s with a blur between those 2 groups.

Generations don't even work very well any more because life is too fast. An early millenial would have been using DOS, Windows 9X to XP to 7 and 10. They had to adapt to the changing gaming systems and culture around them. Going from communities who majority looked like them with the odd Chinese take away owners kid to the hellscape we're in now. Late millenials wouldn't have ever seen a community like that and they're likely to never see one, technology is just graphical improvements and PC stores like Steam and App store on phones means they never had to learn and evolve with new tech. The 10 year difference is a bigger personality clash than any other period in all of recorded history and it's all considered Millenial. One is adaptable and able to trouble shoot problems, the other is unable to use a file system.

 

[Modron]

Or Boomers for being the ones causing much of the shit that is happening today?

Most of the real crappy changes happened when boomers were in their 20s and 30s, their parents were still in the driver's seat.

 

[Halfling Rodeo]

Or Boomers for being the ones causing much of the shit that is happening today?

Most of the real crappy changes happened when boomers were in their 20s and 30s, their parents were still in the driver's seat.

A lot of the big changes that impact us now happened in the late 60s and early 70s. That's when mass immigration was pushed in for many countries. The boomers were too young to prevent it (if that was possible) and aren't to blame for being born right before everything went to shit. They are as much victims as any one else. It can't be nice seeing your country turn into a shit hole across the span of your life time when you did nothing but work your job and try to provide for your family.

 

[flyingjohn]

I hate this so much. Why this is really bad:

-The general game is butchered for years in terms of balance and vision. Paradox/Firaxis games are practically unrecognizable after years of patching for better or worse.
-Mods will usually require the newest version.Especially the good mods.
-Random sporadic updates that change core engine stuff(Empire at war being 64 bit) will cause issues and be fixed years later.
-Piracy will have only the newest versions available,especially for Gog stuff.
-Having a option to go back the previous version is nice until the game is updated again and your last stable becomes the new ruined.

Before even attempting to get a game i check steam/gog db if the game had a minimum of 4 years of not being updated.Or if the updates were generic localization depots which don't change anything.