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[levyjl1988]

Why is there expiry dates on digital content? It's not like food where they go bad.
I find it stupid that if you buy a movie and want to use the voucher it's already expired, or say you buy a game on eBay brand new and try to use the voucher for the content it is expired and irredeemable. That stuff isn't on disc and the content is lost forever. Most of the time it isn't available for purchase on PSN or Xbox Live. If the reason is political it seems quite stupid and inconvenient for consumers. Things are never feature complete nowadays.

 

[JohnnyFootball]

Why is there expiry dates on digital content? It's not like food where they go bad.
I find it stupid that if you buy a movie and want to use the voucher it's already expired, or say you buy a game on eBay brand new and try to use the voucher for the content it is expired and irredeemable. That stuff isn't on disc and the content is lost forever. Most of the time it isn't available for purchase on PSN or Xbox Live. If the reason is political it seems quite stupid and inconvenient for consumers. Things are never feature complete nowadays.

The only expiration date I know of is that Sony PS+ and EA Access will not allow you to play the games from that service if you cancel the subscription.

 

[a multicultural team of v]

They probably have an expiration date so that in 30 years you don't make a thread bitching that you are not allowed to redeem your FIFA 09 ultimate team packs because IT SAYS RIGHT HERE NO EXPIRATION YOU ARROGANT SONY FUCKS!!!!

 

[DynamiteCop!]

It's a license and services guarantee date, not necessarily expiration. It's basically the company stating "we can guarantee this product or service activation through X date". It's hard to make future guarantees with digital products because rights and services change, at a certain date games become delisted and can no longer be purchased or activated because licenses have expired. A company may one day uproot their network services and launch something different and that code you've had for 5 years may apply to something that no longer exists.

It's not there to harm the consumer, it's there to protect the host company from time based future uncertainty.

 

[Nella]

Yeah! I was disappointed when I found out that my Deluxe Edition DLCs code for DMC5 was going to expire in 2099. Jeez Capcom!

 

[Rayderism]

I've encountered one time on PS3......some Complete Edition version, but can't rem which game.....seems like maybe it was NFS Most Wanted. Anyway, when I bought it, the DLC code had an expiry date that ended about 6 months before I bought the game, and the code still worked. (shrug)

 

[mariosbrother]

It's one of the growing pains of media digitization, and will eventually go away.

 

[Dragon Lord]

I wondered this too. This helps to clarify a bit.

 

[dottme]

I think it’s mainly a budget issue.
As long as the code exist and isn’t used, they need to keep the cost in their account.
Once the code expire, they’ll be able to claim the money back.

And as there always are lost code/ destroyed code and so on, it is avoiding to have some money sleeping forever.