GaaS is a service because developers continue to support the game after the initial sale or free download (often for years). Every new patch and new piece of content released for a GaaS meets the 2nd criteria of a service (i.e. a general expectation of when the service is completed). Because the service is ongoing the consumer is not clear exactly when the service is completed, but they are being served. And often times they are being served for free if they haven't paid for any microtransactions.
Which all three parts fails to satisfy all 3 of the conditions he set forth in the conceptual portion of the video in regards to how service in literally every other industry is termed. Remember, he isn't arguing that games as a service do not exist - World of Warcraft is one example that perpetually keeps coming up that satisfies the definition of service.
Remember, he's arguing that "GaaS" are only
called services, but are actually being sold as goods (that's what makes it fraud in his eyes), and then those goods are being destroyed when the company feels like it. He has no problem with games that actually
are services and are treated accordingly, like World of Warcraft.
He even says this isn't proven, so it's sketchy for him to claim that because the Supreme Court hasn't ruled on it yet you own the digital goods your purchase.
If this was true, wouldn't cheaters in Fortnite, PUBG, etc. have a legal argument to sue Epic and Bluehole for them being banned from the game after they bought it?
No, but there is nevertheless significant legal precedent on it, not just in america's courts, but around the world. It is significant that the supreme court hasn't ruled on it yet, but that doesn't make the preceding legal declarations irrelevant. If anything, all that says is that the issue is becoming more significant if these things are goods, but companies are infringing upon customer rights, so higher courts in the US should make a ruling on it. But as far as I can tell, the higher courts of other countries have ruled in favor of consumers here.
As for your question, that's a good point and I'm not sure what the exact answer would be here, but my guess would be no. To draw an example he used in the video, a forest perservation offers you the service of allowing you to go into the preservation for a fee. However, if you go into the forest preservation and decide to try and start a fire, you cannot claim that it's your right to stay in the preservation because you paid the fee and it likely wouldn't be refunded to you either, since you were abusing the property. So you can have your right to service revoked if you act inappropriately. That logic would likely carry over into the digital environment of fortnite (if fortnite was a service, rather than a good).
It's completely OK and his concern for game preservation is paranoia. If people still want to play and the pub/dev is still making money then their service will continue. By the time the service ends and the servers shut down the community has left the game and moved onto something else after spending hundreds if not thousands of hours playing that game. He even says that not all games needs to be saved and definitely not all GaaS games need to be saved either.
Well, first off, jsut to be clear, he made those exceptions because he wants to cover his basis in terms of it being a favorable legal argument. He is in favor of saving most games, if not all of them, but he is willing to compromise in order to set standards on how future games should be saved, even if those standards are minimal. And he has infact played games he has seen die, and witnessed the turmoil of fandoms who had to watch their favorite games die. The only case he said he is alright with games dying is 1. if nothing in them was sold as a good and 2. if they are just so bereft of any artistry that there is legitimately nothing lost with them.
However, your favoring the interpretation that the games in question are the services they say they are, and the premise of the video is the contention of that. If they are goods, then that argument is moot: the company that renders the game unplayable is destroying your property, even though preserving the game in question is almost effortless on their part while totally unrealistic for a consumer to be expected to repair it. And even in the case of actual service games, that still applies to a lesser extent. Ultimately, this is an issue of destruction of art, or atleast products that are artistic, and there is an argument to be made htat even games that truly are services should have end-of-life plans that keep them functional.
And to just top all this off, and this is another point he addresses, even if we were to agree that, for whatever reason, all these exceptions should be made and developers are legally allowed to just destroy games as they want, this only broaches the bigger issue: Why the fuck should they be? Games are unique creative experiences that countless people work to bring to life and serve an artistic good and the effort that would have to go into preserving them is minimal and basically there is no downside to it while there is signfiicant downside to killing them. What argument is there that this is a good thing?
In theory, laws are made because enough people agree that something is good and should be mandatory or bad and should not be allowed. That's their function in society. Obviously, that's not how it always pans out in practice for various reasons, but on a conceptual level, laws are made so that society does good things. If this all is legal, then I would argue everything presented in the video is still a strong case for why it SHOULD be illegal.
