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Comment by sorenjan | Hacker News Reader

It sounds like you got what you payed for and have used it for a long time. Did you buy what what was available at the time, or did you pay for what you thought it would be years into the future?

What other goods or services do you expect to use for years and then get your money back? If Spotify removes your favorite artist, do you expect to get money back for the years you already payed for while you listened to that artist?

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I think you are getting confused about how RL works. The continuing payments are decryptors and the rocket pass - this is the "continuing service" that frankly I am not talking about getting a refund on, I got my money for exactly what they promised.

The initial price of rocket league is what I am talking about - and yes, that's where I believe that the contract of violations were broken.

If you change your car's firmware 5 years after its released so it behaves in a way that I cant use it as I have always used it, I might have changed my purchase decision - and in the car example I usually get to accept or decline the change - I cant (obviously) because this has a service component.

Was there any promise (contractual obligation) to keep RL servers working for some years?

Give me a break. This is absolutely implied. Else what is the point of investing gaming time in the service developing your identity and game item inventory?

If this were the case, wouldn't anyone just be able to successfully sue essentially any MMORPG that went under?

Yes. The OP is behaving childishly and a prime example of entitlement in gamer culture.

games are enjoyment and people are emotionally invested in things they enjoy, most people don't "get" it i think since every other form of media isn't as commoditized as games(yet). i wonder what kinda entitlement claims will be flying around in the future when disney yanks all their content to their streaming service and puts a nice HBO sized paywall around it.

What happens when amazon kills the last book publisher and then decides to dynamically increase the price of series that people like to read - the next GRRM book is coming out! but it's only on amazon kindle and it's a 100 bucks! chapters are streamed to your device in real time so no taking notes there you pesky pirate.

this is only the beginning, i can see why people are having knee jerk reactions to it

Well, they are pulling it from steam. Want to play with your friend that never played? Yeah, you'll need to buy him a copy... on epic's store. And a new one for yourself.

Pulling it from steam is reason enough for me.

So far all they've said is they aren't going to sell it on Steam. Any suggestion you won't be able to play with your friend is just speculation.

The PC version of Rocket League will come to the Epic Games store in late 2019. In the meantime, it will continue to be available for purchase on Steam; thereafter it will continue to be supported on Steam for all existing purchasers."

Furthermore, Epic clarified that support for Rocket League on Steam will continue even after the game is released on the Epic Games Store and players "will still be able to play Rocket League on Steam with all of the content they've previously purchased, same as always."

https://www.usgamer.net/articles/epic-promises-support-for-r...

I can’t imagine why Valve would continue to provide services such as Steamworks matchmaking and Workshop content for a game they can’t possibly make any more money from.

Because they'd get bad PR for yanking that stuff? It's not like it costs them a noticeable amount of money to maintain the existing services for a single game for customers who've already purchased it.

Not just speculation, but unimaginably false. Epic even has a completely free online network service that's completely cross platform and for any storefront. I can't picture them not having online work across storefronts.

Why would pulling game sales from Steam affect your ability to play with your friends or make you buy a second copy of the game? They're not blocking network connections from existing copies of Rocket League. This isn't a Sony-like move, where they're siloing off players by platform; they're just switching which game store you purchase new copies from.

You're comparing a product (Rocket League) to a subscription (Spotify). A closer comparison would be how Sony removed the ability to use the OtherOS feature in a firmware update, which could be seen as dealbreaker between buying or not buying the product for some, even after many years owning the product.

I’d call it property damage and would expect full market value in compensation.

This is a simplistic and specious argument. I think owning a game in 2019 (where so much of what is owned is a service, an environment, and a virtual identity within the game's universe) amounts to much more.

So you're saying if you bought a car with smart electronics, then suddenly the manufacturer updates it so that the electronics no longer work properly, you wouldn't take issue? Or how about a credit card with rewards you work toward amassing, then another company buys the company that makes the card and wipes your rewards?

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