Epic Games integrates into GoG, and Tim Sweeney advocates for universal game ownership across all platforms

[Delicieuxz]

GoG has announced that Epic Games now has official integration with Goglaxy 2.0.

 

Following that announcement, Tim Sweeney went on Twitter advocating for "universal ownership" of digital items - meaning the games and DLC that people purchase through digital storefronts. By "universal ownership", he means that when someone buys a game or DLC on one platform, they receive access to their purchase on all participating platforms.

 

 

Tim Sweeney's larger commentary is this:

Quote

Ultimately, ownership of digital items should be a universal notion, independent of stores and platforms. So much of the digital world today is frustrated by powerful intermediaries whose toll booths obstruct open commerce to keep customers and their purchases locked in.

 

Epic’s committed to working with all willing ecosystems to connect our stores and recognize universal ownership. Early bits include purchase integration with Humble and others, and library visibility to GOG. A lot more will be coming over time.

 

Possible implementation strategies: federated (each store maintains its own ownership records, but can communicate with other stores and recognize theirs too); clearinghouse (stores agree on a common ownership database); decentralized (a blockchain type leger tracks ownership).

 

There's no question this thing will start with federated ownership, because it's easy to adopt incrementally without disrupting existing stores. But that's doesn't scale well, so it's probably not the ultimate solution.

 

Tim also made some replies in response to people commenting on his statements:
 

"If ownership of games is universal, then you don’t need every store or platform to operate forever, you just need some that do continue on."

 

"Epic's aim is to bring players in, not lock players in. Free games, exclusives, and free Epic Online Services for developers of other games are all part of this effort to bring players in. Interconnection of stores and accounts avoids lock-in."

 

"Each company is advancing in different areas, GOG with a universal launcher, Epic with account and purchasing integration. Epic Online Services (cross-platform friends, matchmaking, accounts, etc) support all platforms and stores!"

 

"Wouldn’t it be purely better for everyone if Steam purchases were available on other stores and platforms that hosted the game, and if Steam hosted the PC version of games you’ve bought on other stores and platforms?"

 

"The cost of download bandwidth is sooo small. Any store should be easily able to pay bandwidth costs for third party games from the money they do make by selling games, and any reasonable store would love to have customers frequently visiting."

 

 

This comment in particular ("possession!=ownership"), looked-at in the context of his emphasis on "universal ownership", seems to show that Tim Sweeney is actually on the side of game ownership. In acknowledging the difference between mere possession and actual ownership, he is saying that his statements of "universal ownership" take, as granted, that people own their purchased games:

 

Tim's expressed position on the matter is in agreement with GoG's own, as GoG openly supports the fact that people own their purchased games:

 

 

 

 

 

Related to the topic of game ownership, further down in the comments replying to Tim's posts, a lengthy debate took place between someone who claims to be a lawyer and another poster regarding the topic of game ownership. The lawyer argued that EULAs are enforceable in the US and that people don't own their games. The other person told them that's not so.

 

In the course of the debate the lawyer continually used false arguments including misrepresentations, inapplicable conflations between topics courts have ruled on, appeals to authority, and dishonest tricks in general to try to simply have their argument accepted as fact.

 

A more detailed look at the tricks they employed is here:

 

- They appealed many times to a Wikipedia list of court cases regarding use of online services where the verdict was in favour of the "clickwrap" user agreements. They claimed those verdicts in-favour of the clickwrap agreements show that EULAs are considered binding under law. However, all those cases were about the rights of a user of an online service who had to agree to a Terms of Service to use somebody-else's service, and not about the rights a person receives when they purchase a good. Their argument here was false and disingenuously tried to conflate the rulings regarding services to what the law is for goods, when the rules for services (which involves using somebody-else's property) are different than the rules for your purchased goods (which are your own property): You indeed have to agree to the terms of another person in order to use their property (such as their offered service), but, outside of the law, someone else can't dictate terms on how you may use your own property (which are your purchased goods).

 

 

- They repeatedly pretended that a lower court's older ruling on a matter (ToS agreement validity) which is irrelevant to the topic of purchased game ownership supercedes the higher Supreme Court's newer ruling on the exact matter of purchased good ownership. But when it comes to rulings, newer takes precedent over older, and higher court rulings overrule lower court rulings - and the Supreme Court is the US' highest court and its decisions apply to all of the US and take precedence over all the rest of the US' courts and overrule any prior ruling that is in contradiction to the Supreme Court's rulings.

 

 

- They claimed that the US Supreme Court's ruling which literally addressed and encompassed all goods was being interpreted too broadly when used to claim the first-sale doctrine applies to all goods, while simultaneously claiming that the Feldman v. Google ruling, which didn't at-all relate to the topic at-hand and was about a online user ToS agreement for a service, meant that EULAs are binding on purchasers of software goods - while also ignoring that even if that verdict had meant what they claimed (and it didn't), it would have still been superceded anyway by the newer Supreme Court ruling that the first-sale doctrine applies to all goods (with software being specifically mentioned by the Supreme Court as subject to the first-sale doctrine).

 

 

- They did the former while claiming that the Feldman v. Google verdict included mention of the decision applying to goods, when the Feldman v. Google court order only mentions the word "good" twice and neither time supports their claim. The two uses of the word "good" in the Feldman v. Google order are these:

 

"Plaintiff filed an Amended Complaint, which eliminated the express contract claim and asserted instead claims styled as (1) breach of implied contract, (2) breach of implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing"

 

“Standardization of agreements serves many of the same functions as standardization of goods and services; both are essential to a system of mass production and distribution."

 

Heck, that even shows the opposite of what the lawyer claimed: The court order states that 'goods vs services' is standardized, and essentially so, and so not open to interpretation based on the type of good or service it is or exemption based on a seller writing an EULA.

 

 

- They argued that a brief Wikipedia summation about the 2013 US Supreme Court ruling was evidence that the 2013 Supreme Court ruling only applies to foreign copyrighted works rather than all goods, while ignoring that the court explicitly explained in its ruling that the very reason why the first-sale doctrine must apply to foreign copyrighted works is because there can be no exception or exemption to the type of good which the first-sale doctrine applies to, with the judge specifically mentioning software as an example of a good which the first-sale doctrine applies to.

 

 

- They used ostentatious phrasing and repeated appeals to the authority of being a lawyer to try to suggest their argument wins by default on those grounds, despite that being a lawyer isn't a badge of credibility for a vested-interest legal argument because a lawyer is an advocate for hire and will argue and pull every trick they can to secure benefit and a win for their client's interests.

 

 

Their tactic, not as an internet troll but as a lawyer protecting their clients' interests and also their personal reputation as a paid-proponent of a certain line of argument which serves their clients' interests, was to keep making false claims about things, hoping that the other person wouldn't know the information which invalidated their claims and so would just accept the arguments as true and authoritative coming from a lawyer, so that people reading them would believe those arguments had been conceded to, and so they would be inclined to assume those arguments had validity and those people would be influenced by that going forward, effectively biasing public perception in favour of those who oppose game ownership.

 

Their many wilful disingenuous arguments shows what to be on guard for with a lawyer, and I think is a lesson to remember that a lawyer is not a purveyor of truth unless the topic they're speaking on is of no consequence to their personal practice, or if the truth is what they are being paid to argue in a particular case. A lawyer is an advocate for hire and they will bend every which way, as the one in this debate did, to argue and defend the interest of their employer. And even if they don't have a current client in the related field, if they are a lawyer who has a history of advocating for copyright holders or software publishers, or who has, themself, earned money writing EULAs, then they will consider it in their personal best interest to protect the interests of copyright holders and software publishers to the exclusion of others.

 

 

 

 

Here's a newer development concerning EGS and GoG's plan for universal ownership:

 

 

 

Related thread (updated August 2020):

 

[Praesi]

Sounds good to me. A Step in the right direction. Weird this is coming from Epic.

[ARikozuM]

10 minutes ago, NZgamer said:

So, would this mean I would be able to play the PS3 and PS4 games that I own on my PC (if a PC version/port of the game existed), or did I misunderstand? I'm all for this.

You would have access to your PS3 and PS4 games for your lifetime and possibly to pass them on to your children. Only on those consoles though. Xbox game = Xbox console. PS4 game = PS4 console. If the service becomes discontinued and you no longer have access to that game, you're effectively being robbed of a digital good. 

[ARikozuM]

4 minutes ago, NZgamer said:

Can't you already do this though? I mean, the PS3 games on discs and bought from PSN still work even though the PS3 lost support. This article was talking about buying a game on one platform and having access to it through another, so that's what I was wondering about

We're talking about digital games. For now, I'd assume console differences will remain as specific to Xbox, PS, PC, etc. until compatibility is possible. PC is PC. There's no difference between buying a Uplay copy and buying a Steam copy of Siege. They are the same game and thus should remain in possession of the license holder regardless if Steam or Ubisoft shut down tomorrow.  

 

Edit: If PS3 services shut down, you would have no access to DLC or patches from that point forward. This should mitigate that to a point. Perhaps setting up an archive to keep those services online along with the ability to continue its resale (with majority profits going to the developers of course) and community support. 

[GravityHurts]

This would be awesome if it actually happened. It would be terrific if I could buy a game on one platform and own it on all other platforms, but I just don't see this happening. If epic cared so much about this then why do they have so many exclusive contracts with games lately. I don't think that it is ever going to happen, why would you ever buy something from Steam for example if you could just buy it directly from the publisher and own it on Steam. I think it would be a good thing for us, you could just buy the game wherever it is cheapest and not have to worry about having all of your games in one library. I use gog galaxy 2.0 and I think it is a step in the right direction. I could see something like that becoming more deeply integrated with Steam ,Epic, and Origin. Maybe even being able to access their stores through it. But I don't think I will ever be able to buy a game on Epic and add it to my Steam library.

[SpaceGhostC2C]

26 minutes ago, NZgamer said:

Can't you already do this though? I mean, the PS3 games on discs and bought from PSN still work even though the PS3 lost support. This article was talking about buying a game on one platform and having access to it through another, so that's what I was wondering about

"Platforms" here are Epic Game Store vs. GOG vs Steam vs...

His point is that buying a game once should enable you to download and install it from any storefront still alive that has it. Let's say you buy The Witcher on EGS (?), then EGS shuts down or it's inconvenient for you to run their client or whatever. Then you go to GOG and get it from there, without the need to repurchase it.

Now imagine they succeed and the whole industry joins in. That would mean that if, let's say, Steam decided to arbitrarily lock your account,¹ you could still access your games through any other platform, so long as it's not a Steam exclusive, rather than losing all your purchases in some Kafkian spiral.

While not near enough, it's a small step towards dealing with the dead games problem. It's also a way to expand the market to those of us who would only play by GOG-like rules.

 

3 minutes ago, GravityHurts said:

If epic cared so much about this then why do they have so many exclusive contracts with games lately.

Yes, that was a bit contradictory. I like how he sneaked that it together with other features that are not contrary to the spirit of this deal. But exclusives... I mean, what does "universal" mean when the game is only available in one place and one place only by contract?

 

¹(it seems OP and all his posts are gone?)

[AdmiralMeowmix]

"Game ownership should be universal"
"Also only buy games from us because exclusivity"

 

[Helpful Tech Witch]

56 minutes ago, Praesi said:

Weird this is coming from Epic.

Not really. Epic wants you to use the epic games store. By advocating for this people want to use EGS so their title are available on other platforms. 

[xtroria]

8 minutes ago, TheTechWizardThatNeedsHelp said:

Not really. Epic wants you to use the epic games store. By advocating for this people want to use EGS so their title are available on other platforms. 

 

tim is basically advocating for something that will give him more money

 

will he reduce the price of games and in-game stuffs if epic games dont have to pay the royalty to the other 3rd parties? Hell no they wouldnt

 

the idea itself is good, but 100% he’s saying it for financial self-interest

 

also, how the hell microsoft and sony supposed to get their revenue to develop next-gen consoles without cut from games? They sell consoles at a loss or no profit

[Helpful Tech Witch]

Just now, xtroria said:

tim is basically advocating for something that will give him more money

Yes. That is the concept of a buiesnes. 

[FeIIex]

From gobbling up as many exclusives as possible in an attempt to overtake steam, to advocating for universal ownership?

 

Thats.. quite the change of attitude. A positive one though.

[D13H4RD]

2 hours ago, xtroria said:

will he reduce the price of games and in-game stuffs if epic games dont have to pay the royalty to the other 3rd parties? Hell no they wouldnt

 

the idea itself is good, but 100% he’s saying it for financial self-interest

Duh, he's the CEO. That's his primary concern first and foremost.

[Rohith_Kumar_Sp]

LOL grade A asshole 

this is the same guy who said skate bird wasn't allowed on their store because  they promised there backers steam keys
or did not allow to sell DARQ on his store because developer did want to release his game on all stores at the same time.

[hollyh88]

But at the same time he tries to have a monopoly where only games are available on his storefront. such a hypocrite. 

Edited July 21, 2020 by Spotty
removed quote

[Thaldor]

This would be cool, if it actually was somehow special. Same level of (or still even more) integration is for other platforms in Galaxy2.0, EGS was just so "bad" that it didn't have almost any integration because it lacked APIs for that. This coming a news got me kind of hoping that I can finally play those free games that EG throws away without installing EGS but no.

 

And really, what Tim Sweeney says, he just says it. Like in this case the Galaxy2.0 integration is hand-made (like everything in EGS because using existing APIs is something they are allergic to and that's why they still copy your whole Steam localconfig-file) and they 100% had a chance to make it something better, but no, just make almost the same that Steam offers through its ages old API and have Tim Sweeney make some tweets to earn internet points. Could they have made something more (like that you don't need to install EGS if you're using Galaxy2.0, after all sales still go through EGS) for Sweeney having something else than his opinion behind his tweets? Most likely, after all they literally custom made that integration so there's a very huge chance they could have done a lot more with it and Sweeney could have said "From this day onward you can install and play games gained through EGS with GoG Galaxy 2.0. Your move, the rest of the industry." But naaahhh... that would go too far into so many things and would actually need some development work from their team which still struggles implementing a shopping cart, they just did a bit more than the bare minimum and had their CEO say something about game ownership for which they actually did nothing.

[Taf the Ghost]

3 minutes ago, hollyh88 said:

But at the same time he tries to have a monopoly where only games are available on his storefront. such a hypocrite. 

With the UE5 demo, Tim under-the-radar announced that Epic is going to be taking a very different approach. EGS has clearly been put into coast mode. They want to be an infrastructure company. They want to sell everything that goes with game environments. The server-side of things is where a lot of Steam's power really comes from.

[lewdicrous]

I guess paying developers/publishers millions for exclusivity deals wasn't all that good long-term, huh?

[hollyh88]

3 hours ago, FeIIex said:

From gobbling up as many exclusives as possible in an attempt to overtake steam, to advocating for universal ownership?

 

Thats.. quite the change of attitude. A positive one though.

I think it's a negative though. For cdpr to work together with someone as anti  consumer as epic. Since they are so pro consumer. I wish they would focus more on the integration with steam. Since that is more buggy than working properly. It's just not good in my opinion. Why work together with someone that wants to take choice away from consumers? 

[Beskamir]

Wow wait does this mean I can download all the games I got from the epic games store but from gog and have them be drm free? Since if so that seems completely opposite to Epic's earlier stance. (Too lazy to read the full article)

[Sauron]

5 hours ago, Delicieuxz said:

Following that announcement, Tim Sweeney went on Twitter advocating for "universal ownership" of digital items - meaning the games and DLC that people purchase through digital storefronts. By "universal ownership", he means that when someone buys a game or DLC on one platform, they receive access to their purchase on all participating platforms.

Great, let's make DRM illegal.

 

Oh wait, that's not what Sweeney wants, is it? Hypocrite...

3 minutes ago, Beskamir said:

Wow wait does this mean I can download all my games from the epic games store from gog now and have them be drm free? (Too lazy to read the full article)

No, it means you can launch your DRM ridden EGS games from the GoG launcher.

[Beskamir]

Just now, Sauron said:

Great, let's make DRM illegal.

 

Oh wait, that's not what Sweeney wants, is it? Hypocrite...

No, it means you can launch your DRM ridden EGS games from the GoG launcher.

Ah thought so, well that's basically what it was like before so not much has changed. And yeah DRM should be illegal.

[LAwLz]

Great news!

 

Not sure why people hate Epic so much but I really enjoy what they have been doing in the industry. More money to the developers and less to the platform owner (taking less money for themselves), giving away free games and now this integration with GOG.

[Thaldor]

44 minutes ago, Beskamir said:

Ah thought so, well that's basically what it was like before so not much has changed. And yeah DRM should be illegal.

Well, now they do the same thing with API calls rather than with launch options (basicly nothing changed, just that Galaxy can now initiate installation and it gets better news feed and some other more or less useless data from EGS)

I'm really baffled why did GoG make this thing this big thing with announcements and all. The real changes were quite small (they did require quite a lot of work, from Epic because EGS didn't have any kind of API-platform before) and didn't really do much on the surface. But I guess when there really isn't much news, even the most insignificant news grow bigger.

[RejZoR]

Quote

Tim Sweeney advocates for universal game ownership across all platforms

 

Well, good. I actually agree with him and applaud his commitment. Until I realize he runs a platform that has year long exclusives. In which case ownership is not universal anymore. Because you can't buy or play it on any other platform for that duration...

 

Hm...

 

Also apparently the "universal ownership" means just launching it through other launcher, not actually controlling, downloading and playing it on that other platform.

 

Hm x2...

[Ashleyyyy]

8 hours ago, Praesi said:

Sounds good to me. A Step in the right direction. Weird this is coming from Epic.

maybe they wanted some good press?