Since I’m rambling about the precarity of digital ownership already, something else has started bother me recently: the increasing prevalence of End User License Agreements (EULA) in commercial video game releases. Sometimes before you can play a game, you first have to scroll through a wall of legalese, pretend to read it, and then click the ‘AGREE’ button.

Having to agree to a EULA in order to play a specific game has been pretty common on PC for a while now. On home consoles though it was often covered by a blanket agreement for use of the console itself. These days, however, service agreements have been popping up for the majority of games I go to play, whether it’s on Steam or Nintendo Switch. Like seriously, does Pac-Man Museum+ really need its own EULA? Really?

By my estimation, there are three potential problems with EULAs in general, but particularly in relation to video games:

An agreement between a corporation and an individual citizen can’t honestly be taken seriously when you consider the power imbalance between the two parties.
- Terms are dictated by a corporation and the other party, a mere citizen, is forced to agree without any recourse. That’s less of a contract between peers than just simple coercion.
- Also, the user is commonly presented with these terms after they have already purchased the product. The incentive to just get to you’ve paid for is quite palpable.
How could such lengthy/verbose agreements be legally enforceable when no individual person has ever actually read them in full? (C’mon, you know you’ve never read one yourself.)
According to the terms of the agreement, you do not actually own the software you have already purchased. You merely own a license to use it.

Those first two points are probably something for legal scholars to debate, so let’s just talk about that third one. Technically you don’t own the games you’ve bought, you just own a license to play them. And that license can be revoked by the IP holders whenever they like, for whatever reason they deem fit. That just seems kind of crazy, doesn’t it?

Perhaps what makes this EULA thing feel so bizarre is that we’ve been so used to purchasing physical media in the past when the license element didn’t exist.

The Super Mario 64 cartridge I bought in 1996 still works and I can play it whenever I want. This DVD of Airplane! I have plays perfectly fine, as long as I have a DVD player handy. And my Gambit 4-part limited series comic from 1993 (Howard Mackie, Jason Gorder, and Lee Weeks) is here to be enjoyed whenever the mood strikes me. Sure, I might not have the right to duplicate these works and sell bootleg copies to kids in my neighborhood, that makes sense. But certainly I’m entitled to enjoy them myself.

Ironically that is not the case with modern video games, at least not as is stipulated by their EULAs. The powers that be could technically revoke your access at any time for whatever reason. And hey, the Second Wind folks just did a Cold Take video discussing this topic.

As for the cause of EULAs suddenly becoming more prominent in video games, I suspect it’s due to a lot more gaming having online multiplayer features these days. In order to combat cheating and harassment of users in their online games, it makes sense that developers would need a mechanism by which to boot offenders. And to be clear, I am all for online platforms instituting user protections against harassment. But I wonder if broad legal agreements—especially those that dictate terms in which you don’t actually own the game you’ve paid money for—are necessary the best way to tackle such a thing.

The absurdity of one’s video game purchases being reduced to a mere license really makes me question the ethics of software copyright and piracy. Especially in our era of corporate consolidation paired with massive layoffs at game development companies. I would absolutely prefer to pay good money to purchase my games outright, and have that money go directly to the people who actually created those games. However, such a simple exchange of money for a media product feels increasingly out of reach these days.

Recently I saw someone on social media boil this down to its essence: “If buying isn't owning, piracy isn't stealing”. Yeah, that sounds about right. It seems like we’re wading into real “You wouldn’t Download a Car” territory here, philosophical speaking. And yet there doesn’t seem to be anything we can do about it.

Of course, my negativity towards EULAs is very closely tied to my feeling around issues with digital ownership discussed in a previous post. In both cases, it feels like the common user is getting strong-armed by corporate interests far outside of our control. So while EULAs might not be the biggest problem with digital media today, it still annoys me quite a bit.

We should aim to support the artists/writers/programers/etc. who actually created these works, no question. But honestly, I feel no obligation to corporate IP holders whatsoever. Especially when these companies won’t allow us to actually purchase media for personal use anymore. Regardless of the legal debate over copyright and piracy, the moral one looks pretty cut-and-dry to me.

So sure, we will all continue to dutifully click “AGREE” on the numerous EULAs that come our way—because we’re forced to, individual users don’t really have a choice. And in order to access media, the vast majority of us will also pay for multiple subscription services in perpetuity. But by the same token, I suggest that we should also download whatever media we please, whenever the opportunity presents itself. And, at least in moral terms, we shouldn’t feel bad about it.