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[Helios]

The video is fairly long but I found this summary on reddit that explains it really well. Kudos to Roegnvaldr

Since a lot of people will be turned off by the length of the video, I'm going to post a couple of things here.
Ross's main focus of his video - a 5minute resume of his points. It's a resume, however, and he backs his arguments throughout the video. So if you are going to make arguments, please watch the video in its entirety.
Ross's slides throughout the video
Specifically, The problem with GaaS

Contents of video:

Definition of GaaS / Goods and Services / Legal Argument: Games are Goods / Legal Argument: Ownership of goods/ Legal Argument: Planned Obsolence / Conceptual Argument against Games being Services / Preservational Argument against GaaS / Counter-Arguments & Concerns / Ending & What's next

TL;DW: Under several laws in many countries and continents, a game sold/F2P with MTX of any sort is considered to be selling GOODS, not Services (Subscription models are exempt due to having descriptions of when the service ends). Regardless of what EULAs say, the actual governamental law defines that goods need to be usable at any point after purchase and software, as a good, does belong to the one who purchased the product.
Ross's argument is that the "GaaS" is not a service, but acts as one in order to be able to shut down games after they start being unprofitable. He only requests that companies give players a reasonable way to play games after the servers are shut down.
He has MANY good arguments and spitting out criticisms without taking the whole video in is a great disservice to both the person doing the "criticism" as well as to the work compiled by Ross.
You may not care about games dying. That's fine. Ross's point is that GaaS are being sold as something they are not and thus fraudulent, therefore requiring the intervention of the law. It's not an attack towards you or your attitude towards how companies handle online-only games - it's an attack on said companies mishandling their product after they cease giving support to it.

If you have counter arguments to make, have a look at Ross's rebuttals to what he believes are the most common criticisms. Yours may be there.

 

[Spukc]

I don't know why but i really really dislike this guy.

 

[Mistershine.]

Don't they just sell you the client though? I don't know of any clients that won't launch after the service shuts down, fair enough you can't get beyond the press A to start screen but even so you still technically have a game with the same amount of offline content as you always had.

Is it a shitty practice? Definitely. Is it legally fraud? Doubtful.

 

[Virex]

GaaS is a nice word for early access. You're buying something at full price that is not complete

 

[Screamer-RSA]

Well GaaS has mostly delivered terrible games. Minimum viable product trash desperately trying to siphon more money out of you.

 

[Ballthyrm]

He is fighting the tides TBH.
He may not like GaaS but with Stadia looming and streaming around the corner, this dodgy legal defense may not hold for long.

Once we go all digital and subscription based, will games be goods still ?
The practise will endure, it has to many benefits for the devs, and for the people who support it.

 

[Kamina]

Of course it is fraud. They are portioning game content so they can sell it to you at higher prices for a partially unfinished product rather than speding time and develop a good game to sell through quality.

 

[Gafmau5]

Well there’s good ways and bad way to do GaaS. Overwatch and rainbow six siege come to mind as good ones. Battlefront 2 initially started out as a bad way of doing it. Now it’s not so bad.

 

[VertigoOA]

You are not buying shorter games that are cut up into pieces. That’s the fear but it’s barely been seen. Not everything makes launch window nor should it. Don’t look at anthem.... that’s a clusterfuck that Bioware fucked up itself and only itself.

The idea that you buy it full price and then expect another 10 games worh of content for free is not gonna happen. You want another 100hrs of repeatable new content? You can spend 5 bucks... it’s actually a great value proposition dollar to time wise.

The GaaS games that have been staying on top of the industry Fornite, Rainbow Six, GTA Online, Destiny 2, and surprisingly Assassin’s Creed Odyssey are all loved by players and have a shit ton of content.

I know some people are gonna bring up some janky piece of shit like warframe but it only takes about 10 hours before that game roadblocks you with a grind 100x worse than monster hunter world and nearly forces you to spend money... I took the smarter option and uninstalled tho


Street Fighter 2 was the very first console game as service. I far prefer the modern distribution models of competitive and cooperative games now that at any time in gaming history. Or did you like having to spend 75$ (in 1994 no less!) a cart and finding a way to get rid of your 5 month old copies of world warrior and CE... if you were lucky

I don’t feel like buying the same fucking game every year for the same price when there’s barely been any changes. You want improvements, balances, new content, etc... so give me that... you can have my coffee change

 

[Helios]

You are not buying shorter games that are cut up into pieces. That’s the fear but it’s barely been seen. Not everything makes launch window nor should it. Don’t look at anthem.... that’s a clusterfuck that Bioware fucked up itself and only itself.

The idea that you buy it full price and then expect another 10 games worh of content for free is not gonna happen. You want another 100hrs of repeatable new content? You can spend 5 bucks... it’s actually a great value proposition dollar to time wise.

The GaaS games that have been staying on top of the industry Fornite, Rainbow Six, GTA Online, Destiny 2, and surprisingly Assassin’s Creed Odyssey are all loved by players and have a shit ton of content.

I know some people are gonna bring up some janky piece of shit like warframe but it only takes about 10 hours before that game roadblocks you with a grind 100x worse than monster hunter world and nearly forces you to spend money... I took the smarter option and uninstalled tho


Street Fighter 2 was the very first console game as service. I far prefer the modern distribution models of competitive and cooperative games now that at any time in gaming history. Or did you like having to spend 75$ (in 1994 no less!) a cart and finding a way to get rid of your 5 month old copies of world warrior and CE... if you were lucky

I don’t feel like buying the same fucking game every year for the same price when there’s barely been any changes. You want improvements, balances, new content, etc... so give me that... you can have my coffee change

I don't know what you're talking about. You've missed the point of the video. He's not arguing that a game that receives constant updates is a bad thing. He's arguing that these types of games have a limited lifespan and once the developer/publisher pulls the plug your copy of the game might as well go into the trash. This would be legal if GaaS were a "Service" but in many countries they are considered "Goods" (In case of subscription-based games, they are a service) which makes this type of Planned Obsolescence (maybe) illegal. To further drive the point home, as long as I have a copy of Street Fighter 2 I can play it all I want when I want, because it's not tied to a central server.
Just like it says in the OP,

He only requests that companies give players a reasonable way to play games after the servers are shut down.

 

[Hendrick's]

GaaS is a nice word for early access. You're buying something at full price that is not complete

I bought a full priced game called Anthem once. Then, a month or so after release they told me it was early access.

 

[Mista]

So far GaaS is bollocks. Its just a new excuse to release less content at launch followed by little broken content that adds nothing to the game.

 

[JoeyWestSide]

I don't know what you're talking about. You've missed the point of the video. He's not arguing that a game that receives constant updates is a bad thing. He's arguing that these types of games have a limited lifespan and once the developer/publisher pulls the plug your copy of the game might as well go into the trash. This would be legal if GaaS were a "Service" but in many countries they are considered "Goods" (In case of subscription-based games, they are a service) which makes this type of Planned Obsolescence (maybe) illegal. To further drive the point home, as long as I have a copy of Street Fighter 2 I can play it all I want when I want, because it's not tied to a central server.
Just like it says in the OP,

Isn't operating the server a service?

 

[Clear]

It occurs to me that if you follow the angle the guy doing the video takes, where every piece of software is a good, piracy really is theft.

No ifs, buts, or caveats, it is precisely analogous to theft.

This is simply the result you get when you assume ownership or possession of data bundles confers functional rights in perpetuity, which is essentially the crux of his argument.

Invoking the law is fine, but sometimes you need to step back and look at it from both sides. Because that's how the law works.

Legality is just an arbitration mechanism, it provides a framework for argument and mechanism to invoke and impose state authority for enforcement. If we were to go down this particular rabbit hole, where users are conferred all these rights, it needs to be understood what rights the copyright holders would gain also.

 

[Shifty]

It occurs to me that if you follow the angle the guy doing the video takes, where every piece of software is a good, piracy really is theft.

No ifs, buts, or caveats, it is precisely analogous to theft.

This is simply the result you get when you assume ownership or possession of data bundles confers functional rights in perpetuity, which is essentially the crux of his argument.

Invoking the law is fine, but sometimes you need to step back and look at it from both sides. Because that's how the law works.

Legality is just an arbitration mechanism, it provides a framework for argument and mechanism to invoke and impose state authority for enforcement. If we were to go down this particular rabbit hole, where users are conferred all these rights, it needs to be understood what rights the copyright holders would gain also.

I'm unsure how this is relevant unless you're implying that all consumers of video games are also pirates..?

 

[Clear]

I'm unsure how this is relevant unless you're implying that all consumers of video games are also pirates..?

His premise is that buying the software confers a continuing expectation of function, so buying a game is like buying a physically independent item like a car, with all the same expectations and legal protections. He leans hard on "legal" definitions and remedies, and I was simply pointing out that if you change the definition within the law of what a piece of purchased IP like a game, movie, or a piece of music is, then it cuts both ways.

Simply put, if you want to say that the license holder cannot unilaterally revoke function without recompense to the buyer, then you need to change the legal definition of the item being transacted in order to enforce it. This is a double-edged sword.

 

[Deleted member 740922]

Those fucking YouTube thumbnails/intro screens annoy the shit out of me. Does EVERYONE have to make a stupid face on them?

 

[Calibos]

I bought a full priced game called Anthem once. Then, a month or so after release they told me it was early access.

I bought a nice game called The Division 2 once. It was full and amazing and a month later they released more content. Then they released more content.

I absolutely hate a game called Fortnite...

I agree with some of the sentiment around GaaS, but there are many examples of games that were good from the start and continue to update and add content.


Oh, and this guy in the video bugs me....

 

[Raven117]

His breathtaking legal analysis..... frankly, sucks.

 

[Dragon Lord]

Interesting angle on the topic I haven’t run into before.

 

[Revolutionary]

Those fucking YouTube thumbnails/intro screens annoy the shit out of me. Does EVERYONE have to make a stupid face on them?

If I see a thumbnail like that in my recommended videos, I instantly flag it as 'not interested' so I never see the channel again.
Which is exactly what I did for this video this morning.

 

[Caffeine]

There are some valid points especially perpetual licenses. I hope some people in the legal system contact him to further elaborate upon this. He could have condensed a lot of this tbh I felt like we were going in circles half way in.

on the topic of online only game preservation there have been solo efforts in the case of wow in regards to private servers people created server emulators where u could run them even in a local environment to play the game alone. from mangos to ascent to trinity core builds of the server who knows what they are on now. Some companies do release private server tools publicly. I do fear some of these online only games will not be accessible down the line there is a lot of online only games releasing now. The second a profit isn't being made compared to costs of running shit gets thrown into the graveyard.

 

[CyberPanda]

I don't know why but i really really dislike this guy.

Is it the receeding hairline?

 

[EviLore]

I don't know why but i really really dislike this guy.

 

[CyberPanda]

This face pose is really getting on my nerves. It's like they are asking for a penis to be inserted into their mouths.

 

[EverydayBeast]

Once a game releases the conversation should end, anything else is extra from the developers. As a great motivator once said, "Worry never robs tomorrow of its sorrow, it only saps today of its joy.", moving on services, or games as a service can be better.