PS5 & LE: Orobyss Follow-up From Judd

Announcements
164

As mentioned. Learn contract and advertising law, then we can talk.

It’s useless to argue with you since you lack the understanding of how a crowdfunding page relates to being the same as a contractual obligation. Hence what should I tell ya there?

The base tier is:
Traveler Supporter.
Which is the receiving of a digital copy upon release (in that case it was EA release even).

Then what they state they will provide applies.

Specifically the ‘Featuring’ part, which is contractually binding as it’s the ‘rough overview’
The second binding aspect is monetary-wise, which means business model used. Cannot demand a subscription if you tell it’s a one-time payment, would be breach of contract.

Hence we’re back to the segment ‘Pay Model’ which states:

This one-time payment will be all that a player will have to spend to have the complete Last Epoch experience and be on the same footing as other players.

And that’s all necessary for a contractual obligation. With leeway to the beginning of the paragraph that states:

The planned pay model for Last Epoch

Which provides a distinct amount of leeway on how exactly the rough direction can be handled.

Still not allowed to change one-time payment to subscription model for example. That is actually written down in law which things are allowed, and which examples of things are not allowed, as a broad spectrum with the respective exclusions following after in detailed follow-up paragraphs commonly.

165

Yes, a game company can legally change its business model to a monthly subscription, even after users have purchased the game under a different model (e.g., a one-time purchase).
The key reason is that when a user purchases a digital game, they are typically buying a license to access the content, not ownership of the software itself. The terms of this license are outlined in the End User License Agreement (EULA) and the game’s Terms of Service (ToS), which users must agree to before playing.
These agreements almost always contain clauses that state the company reserves the right to:
Modify the agreement, game, or online services at any time.
Revoke access to the license (and thus the game).
If a company decides to switch to a subscription model, existing users usually have two options:
Agree to the new terms and pay the monthly fee to continue accessing the game.
Refuse the new terms, which means losing access to the game (as the company can revoke the license).

Took me 2 seconds to Google. I find it very ironic that you are trying to insult someone else for not knowing the law, and then basing everything off of your feelings. You are taking this way too personally.

166

A license simply states ‘you don’t own this but you can use it under these conditions’.

In the EU a license actually is handled exactly the same way as a good, hence ownership. There is no legal distinction at all unless a specific end-date is defined.

So in the EU at least: Factually wrong again.

Sure, my rent contract can contain a lot of things as well, and I can even sign it!
Doesn’t mean it applies actually :slight_smile:

The respective parts have to be aligning with the local law of the marketspace.
In my case hence EU law.

Also… what the heck are you talking about changing it from one-time payment (shelf-price) to subscription legally?
That’s illegal in nigh every friggin country of the word under their respectice consumer protection laws :joy:

Illegal under the EU consumer protection law.
The UK Consumer Rights Act also causes it to be illegal there.
Even in the friggin US this is actually illegal. It would need affirmative consent there first, disclosed at time of purchase. Hence no ‘after’.

The scale of that is not willy-nilly though, it has to adhere to local laws. All other modifications don’t apply and hence the costumer can enforce legal action once more. Companies actually overstep significantly several times and people simply don’t care enough to do something against it… but if someone cares then a company suddenly has a huge problem.

In the EU only allowed if provable significant reason is available. Willy-nilly removal once more is actually not even legal.
Sure, the majority won’t bother once more… but you can actually go through court and enforce a reinstatement of the account if you care enough to do the whole song and dance there.

:man_facepalming:

And this ladies and gentlemen… is why modern society is such a mess.
Provision of the links to legal texts has even happened and still we got a smartass which a) either cannot read. b) or isn’t able to understand the content.
And hence thinks hence everyone else is solely speaking ‘from their feelings’.

This is one major case of ‘confidently incompetent’.

But let’s make it simple @Warchon :
Go and provide some license based service, doesn’t matter which one. Over the internet.
Make people pay 1$ or 1€ for it once as a shelf price.
Then change it after they do to a subscription model, bar then from use unless they allow you to bill em and see what happens :slight_smile:

Or sell just sell something at a one-time fee and then after a month revoke access to it and see what happens :slight_smile:

Or provide something and then entirely switch up what you provide and see what happens :slight_smile:

Good luck with that stuff! Costly things to do… or worst-case a new view on life… through bars.

167

You know, I’m starting to think you aren’t a lawyer.

“you can put whatever you want in a contract and even if I sign it it doesn’t apply”. So if it is in a contract it doesn’t matter, and if it isn’t in a contract it does matter. Ok then.

Maybe just grow up and stop playing armchair lawyer, you are a perfect example of Dunning-Kruger effect. You complain it violates their Kickstarter promises, then didn’t even back the Kickstarter or even look at it. Then you say it’s fraud, but then it’s not it’s just misleading, but there’s no evidence of it. Then you make wild baseless claims about law, without even checking if they are legitimate first. Learn how to use the internet.

More importantly, take a breath. The expansion isn’t even out yet, or will be for a long time, and we don’t even know what or if it will have a cost. It probably will and the company has every right to do so. No company operates with the intention of going bankrupt. That’s real business 101.

168

Never said I’m one, specifically said several times otherwise.

Welcome to law!
If you put something into a contract which is not legal then it cannot be enforced :slight_smile:
That’s kinda how it goes.

I can for example have a tenant here and set my rent to 4 times the going rate. My city enforces a fixated rent-price depending on position of the house and the size of the living accomodations as well as some other aspects.
The tenant can sign the contract, go to customer protection services and then the contract is ‘suddenly’ very very very hard to cancel from the site of the owner, is set to the legal going rate and also causes me as the person renting it out to pay a damn hefty fine.

I said it’s worst-case fraud. Which means intent is there, nigh impossible to prove and unlikely.
It’s mostly neglecence in wording. Hence misleading business practices. Which is not fraud. It’s misleading business practices.

What would be fraud - which was my first go-to - is to be knowledgeable about the situation existing and nonetheless not acting in that direction, which was the first mention at all about the topic, which was the first estimation as I’m generally expecting the worst and hoping for the best.
Likelyhood for misleading is massively higher, option for fraud is not zero though actually. Most likely outcome is that no claimant case will even be made, hence no prosecution as the most likely situation is that EHG won’t even try to provide a paid expansion in the first place.

But potential situations and actual situations are seemingly hard to differentiate, as well as the myriad of examples which were talked about and specifically narrowed down to which aspect of the law would apply under it.

Yes, which is why this whole discussion is about the potential situation, which is even stated in my first posts in this topic.
Specifically so.

So what’s your point? That’s the premise the whole time anyway.
If ‘A’ happens then ‘B’ followed.
We don’t know if ‘A’ will happen, which means the discussion about ‘B’ isn’t irrelevant as the chance for ‘A’ is present enough to be realistic.

Not everyone likes to be caught with their pants down acting all surprised saying ‘Oh no… I would’ve never expected that! Whatever should I do now? I have no clue since I never put a thought into it!’.
Which is the whole discussion here so people are not caught with their pants down for the aforementioned chance of the situation to happen.

And nonetheless over 90% go bancrupt within 2 years and we see multi-billion conglomerates loosing several of their billions regularly as well because former success doesn’t exclude future fuck-ups.

169

Then why did you say something that you knew was factually wrong?

Negligence (just fyi as I know English isn’t your first language).

It is often considered a type of fraud.

170

Huh?

Yeah, when intent is behind it, it’s not inherently fraud.

171

The first paragraph is entirely undercut/ made redundant by the second, so why say it? You clearly know that the first paragraph is factually wrong since you then go on to give the limitations to it in the second paragraph.

172

Because it doesn’t made it redudant?

You can sign a contract. The contract nonetheless doesn’t apply fully.
Non-enforcable (or rather things which are not allowed to be enforced) are excempt from the contract.

The statement was made since the initial argument:

Stated the disbelief of this situation existing.

Hence it is a example that you can absolutely sign a contract which then has no meaning for you.

Hence you need to write the wrongful status at the beginning and then state what it leads to.

None of it is wrong there, is it? The first paragraph states solely the base premise from where it comes from while the second then leads it into what it actually in reality is handled as.

How would you write it instead?

173

I was being facetious, I promise you nobody has ever once considered you to be a lawyer in this thread. Also saying contracts are legally binding but also no they aren’t is just hilarious.

I figured the only possible way to maybe get through to you that you just don’t have a case would be to read the entire EULA, but that would be insanely petty.

So anyways the link to the EULA is here Last Epoch EULA. Just in case you think I’m intentionally leaving out or manipulating it.

Rights

Unless otherwise stated in these Terms of Use, Eleventh Hour Games is the owner or licensee of all rights.

Remember when I said they are allowed to change the game because they own it and you only own the license to play it? Right there in the rights section. They are the owner and the licensee, just a fancy word for someone who issues licenses.

License

If You accept and comply with these Terms of Use, Eleventh Hour Games will grant, and You will receive, a limited, revocable, non-sub licensable, non-commercial, and non-exclusive license to use and access the Website, Materials, and Services, subject to the limitations set forth in these Terms of Use

This would be what you received by the licensee

Content

To the greatest extent permitted by law Eleventh Hour Games does not accept liability for any loss or damage which may result either directly or indirectly from reliance by You upon the accuracy or currency of information contained in any of the Website, Materials, or Services, including without limitation where such loss or damage is a result of or contributed to by the negligence of Eleventh Hour Games.

That one is a doozy. Basically if you misinterpreted something they may have said or posted, they aren’t held responsible for it. Oops

174

Now is the part where you argue you never agreed to it, or that it’s “irrelevant”, but oops again!

YOU SHOULD CAREFULLY READ THIS AGREEMENT BEFORE INSTALLING OR USING ANY ELEVENTH HOUR GAMES PRODUCT OR SERVICE AS IT AFFECTS YOUR LEGAL RIGHTS. IF YOU DO NOT AGREE WITH ALL OF THE TERMS, YOU MAY NOT INSTALL, USE, OR OTHERWISE ACCESS ANY ELEVENTH HOUR GAMES PRODUCT OR SERVICE

Right at the tippy top of the EULA.

Acceptance of terms

These Terms of Use govern the relationship between You (“You” or “User”) and Eleventh Hour Games regarding the use of the Services. By downloading, installing, accessing, or making use of any part of the Website, Materials, and/or Services, You agree to the Terms of Use and accept to be bound to the terms therein.

So now you will complain about EU rights and laws being different, and it would be sociopathic to take time out f my day to research EU law.

Anyways, I thought the use of “misleading” was very specific so I found this law

EU law prohibits misleading practices primarily through the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive (UCPD), which bans deceptive actions and omissions that can influence a consumer’s economic behavior, and the Misleading and Comparative Advertising Directive (MCAD), which specifically targets misleading advertising. Recent updates, like Directive (EU) 2019/2161 and Directive (EU) 2024/825, have expanded protections to cover fake reviews, greenwashing, and hidden advertising, introducing a blacklist of prohibited practices.

It’s a little vague so I needed to go deeper. Misleading practices include exploitation, which in this case means practices that pressure players into spending by exploiting vulnerabilities, usually targeted towards children. Considering the precedent for this would be phone games that make credit card purchases too easy or involve gambling it’s safe to say this isn’t that.

Another one is hidden fees. I know you are going to say “but they promised not to charge for expansions so that’s hidden”, but A) you still can’t show where they said that and B) hidden fees would be things that are charged without your knowing about it. Aka hidden. Telling you up front about an expansion cost isn’t very hidden.

Misleading Actions & Omissions: Providing false information or hiding material information is forbidden.

There is nothing in the EULA that states all content going forward will not be charged for. The entirety of it doesn’t even mention it at all. You can’t call it an omission either because that would be standard practice for the industry.

Misleading Presentation: Providing false information or presenting product/service features in a deceptive way.
Aggressive Practices: Using undue pressure or influence to manipulate consumer decisions.

The representation of the game in their advertisements don’t mention free forever, and also they show directly what the game will look and play like. They have bundles that pop up on steam and a tiny portion in general to tell you about their in game store, hard to call that aggressive.

There are more laws like greenwashing but that hardly applies here.

If you wanted refund you did have your rights to get one following EU law

Key EU consumer rights for digital goods
14-Day Withdrawal Period: You generally have 14 days from the purchase of digital content to cancel and get a full refund.

Now at this point I’m sure you are going to say but they said it in a video. And man I tried watching one stream and it was 4 hours long. It would take a psychopath to want to go through finding all video records they have posted and sit through each and every one of them.

Very genuinely, everything aside, do not lose sleep over this. It’s completely out of your hands, and the best you can do is be optimistic, or even better yet if you like the game supportive. I was very skeptical when they announced an expansion but finding out it’s not going to be like next month I’m willing to see what happens between here and then.

175

Also since someone else mentioned I thought I would pipe and say this entire thing was trap. Either I agreed and it would be starting that not all contracts are viable and if I didn’t he would move the goal posts by adding additional information. But so more importantly with his example of he could immediately turn around and sue right after signing creates problems

Technically he is correct in one aspect. You cannot use the law to break the law. In this case, the tenant signed an agreement which is legally binding, but in the contract was something that was illegal. You cannot use the law (enforcement of contract) to break the law (ignoring the maximum possible rent)

Here’s where it gets funny. The tenant signs the contract, knowing it’s illegal, so be can turn around and sue. You cannot use the law (your right to sue for unfair terms) when you are also breaking the law (civil entrapment). It could be argued that you intentionally attempted to make someone break the law, and you alone or you both could be charged for it. Being as each person is liable for the terms of the contract (it is assumed you have read anything you have signed), you could both face penalties for attempting to game the system.

It’s also super not relevant here because no laws are being explicitly broken in the EULA. It’s boilerplate at best (a term meaning standard). If you could sue and win over this EULA, it would be precedent to sue over every EULA for the same thing. Which honestly you would not have been the first to try.

176

It’d be clearer if you wrapped the EULA bits in quote tags, like this:

Remember when I said they are allowed to change the game because they own it and you only own the license to play it? Right there in the rights section. They are the owner and the licensee, just a fancy word for someone who issues licenses.

This would be what you received by the licensee

177

Yea that absolutely would have been better and I never even thought of it. Or really know how to do it outside of quoting another person’s reply lol

1 Like
178

Correct!

Which is why the tenant doesn’t get anything beyond the remuneration of used time in court, the reduction of the rent to the proper amount and costs which were caused through the happening of the proceedings.

The fine is to be paid to the government for breaking the law and the enforcement is made by court. But the claimant isn’t the individual tenant here commonly but a institution created to oversee enforcing of the law in that regard… which is - luckily so - a free institution to use for every citizen in my city.

If it were different then there would intent needed to be proven, which is always really hard and stringend. Hence how would you prove that I intentionally raised the rent above the amount legally allowed as a landlord? Or how would you prove that the tenant has known beforehand that they were signing a illegal contract?
That’s why the size of the fine is in most cases related to the described limitations under neglecence rather then fraud.
And that’s why the tenant gets their remuneration for the effort that had to be invested to get it fixed.

So you’re absolutely right, you would have to pay loads loads more if intent is there.

It’s not a EULA though?

A EULA is a End-User-License-Agreement. It depicts what is and isn’t allowed related to the usage of the license.
The situation here wouldn’t be a EULA related agreement, it would be related to advertisment in the first instance and to contract law in the second. Only if all up to that point is fine the EULA would even start to have relevance. And then only the parts of the EULA which are legal in the respective country.

For example Blizzard wouldn’t be allowed to: Terminate your account without reason with or without notification to you.
Which was something they tried to put into their EULA. Illegal in the EU, termination of contract (or even parts of a contract) have to be with distinct reason.

Which was also why they removed that again. Imagine some random support guy which has to manage tickets and is tasked to ban anyone which is ‘deemed problematic’ but actually doesn’t break anything related to their contracts simply goes around and bans EU citizens.
The millions of fines wouldn’t be profitable at all since customer protection would’ve been at that in no time at all.

Also waiving liability is not lawful in the EU when it’s in the EULA. Hence ‘because of their software my PC got destroyed and I can prove it’ means even if this right is waived inside the EULA… it’s not applying.

EULA’s are overarching contracts which include as many areas of the world at the same time, all with different legal frameworks. They are generally written where no action from the company will cause them issues… simply having to reduce the scope of the EULA respectively for the relevant countries. Thus that’s why only the portions which are actually upholding legally do apply to the respective customer.
Rewriting it individually for every country would be a mess as often you cannot even ensure that the right EULA would then be displayed, hence it’s a universal one with only partial application.

179

slow clap ooookay you got me. This has been the most elaborate troll I’ve ever seen. There is no way anyone is dumb enough to define the EULA and then pretend it isn’t THE contract.

180

Because it isn’t?

EULA is appliant to the end-user, this doesn’t include all contractual obligations. It’s solely the license agreement, it relates in no way to the content of it.
The Steam store page for example is not only advertising, it’s the contractual framework of the product. Is it SP? MP? Live-service? Genre? Style? That’s all a part of it.

The store page is considered a so-called ‘Formal offer’ and hence is a part of your contractual obligations.

The contract isn’t only EULA, it’s kinda quite a bit more :stuck_out_tongue: