Comments on: You don’t actually own your apps

By: Othermnuai

Othermnuai — Tue, 08 May 2012 04:09:00 +0000

They don’t remove your ability to play the game offline. This does.

By: Nicholas Gatewood

Nicholas Gatewood — Fri, 04 May 2012 09:51:00 +0000

You are such a whiner. Stop reading Slashgear if you think you’re helping anyone with your whining. That said, I’m sure you just use the site to get off to complaining.

By: Lace

Lace — Thu, 03 May 2012 18:31:00 +0000

UPDATE: EA Mobile reached out to let us know that the message users saw was an error. The game will still be playable. An EA spokesperson said, “Rock Band for iOS will remain live – the in-app message users received yesterday was sent in error. We apologize for the confusion this caused. We’re working to clarify the issue that caused the error and will share additional information as soon as possible.” [Slashgear]

By: guest

guest — Thu, 03 May 2012 18:08:00 +0000

EA Mobile has offered no official reason. Your complaint is lacking.

By: tastygroove

tastygroove — Thu, 03 May 2012 15:14:00 +0000

I am guessing the online servers for old xbox 1 games are no longer active either.

By: Axl

Axl — Thu, 03 May 2012 10:51:00 +0000

fucking bitches EA

By: Taras Dhedhi

Taras Dhedhi — Thu, 03 May 2012 10:41:00 +0000

As others have said, you technically only ever own a license to run the software. with 99.9% of programs, you have a perpetual license.

The major problem with stores, is that if they loose your account details or for what ever reason you can not re-download the apps your stuffed. That was one thing i love about symbian, you can download apps with out using a store front.

By: blizzard36

blizzard36 — Thu, 03 May 2012 10:36:00 +0000

Assuming EA has the same licence restrictions for mobile apps as they do on PC products, along with agreeing that you do not own the product you purchased, just licenced it, you also gave up the right to sue them or to class action. These are sadly industry standard terms for digital products, terms that will take national level action to change.

By: Rob

Rob — Thu, 03 May 2012 09:42:00 +0000

See my comment above, this has been the case for years for software on disc, games, etc. just read the licence agreement!
You never owned anything! Just a licence to use it.

By: Rob

Rob — Thu, 03 May 2012 09:40:00 +0000

I can see what you’re getting at here but this has been the case for games, software, music, movies on disc for years (just read the licence agreement).
True – the apps world can make it easier for devs to remove the app physically but I think this article is abit hyped and very anti-EA.

By: Mj

Mj — Thu, 03 May 2012 08:18:00 +0000

Not suprised. You don’t own that copy of windows either.

But them revoking it like that is just faggy.

By: Peter Green

Peter Green — Thu, 03 May 2012 08:04:00 +0000

Errr… To be fair, nobody _owns_ any proprietary software – it’s all just _licensed_ to you. Sure, it’s difficult for a company to revoke the ability to run software that you have a physical copy of (unless it requires Internet access to run, *cough* Ubisoft *cough*), but the company producing the software is the one that owns it.

Pretty sure there’s no legal recourse here…

By: Emre Çetinel

Emre Çetinel — Thu, 03 May 2012 05:23:00 +0000

That truly is messed up!

By: droidman101

droidman101 — Thu, 03 May 2012 04:20:00 +0000

By: droidman101

droidman101 — Thu, 03 May 2012 04:19:00 +0000

What I find interesting is that if you were to tell a car owner this after they’d paid off their car they would murder you.

By: Earl Cameron

Earl Cameron — Thu, 03 May 2012 03:14:00 +0000

class action lawsuit!

By: bibleverse1

bibleverse1 — Thu, 03 May 2012 01:57:00 +0000

If this game were 3 yrs old I would say no big deal it would be after most people would get a new phone.

By: Manuel Smirnoff

Manuel Smirnoff — Thu, 03 May 2012 01:49:00 +0000

I doubt EA will worry about an uproar. Just as the American political system keeps going because voters are dumb enough to keep voting Democrat OR Republican and castigate other people who try to change the system by voting third party, EA will have ITS cadre of similar idiots who will continue to buy their stuff in spite of all the abuse they get, and claim they love it. Self-flagellation: it’s the American way.

By: $8290949

$8290949 — Thu, 03 May 2012 01:05:00 +0000

I’d ask for a refund from EA.

By: RobertPerez1

RobertPerez1 — Thu, 03 May 2012 00:02:00 +0000

Who cares why? In fact, that’s part of his point. Companies don’t even NEED a reason.

EA is irrelevant. The larger point is that most people don’t even realize that the “buy” button is a misleading lie.

By: RobertPerez1

RobertPerez1 — Wed, 02 May 2012 23:57:00 +0000

Yeah, this sucks. In the old days with boxed software, you could sell it once you were done with it. With apps, you don’t really own anything. Screw the greedy bastards. It’s not even about the money, it’s the principle of the thing.

By: JohnJohnJ

JohnJohnJ — Wed, 02 May 2012 23:18:00 +0000

Author, unless you tell us why EA did this, your article is lacking.

By: Guest

Guest — Wed, 02 May 2012 22:58:00 +0000

I take that back, a quick glance at their terms and conditions states that you don’t own the app, you are licensing it. It doesn’t say anything about a specific time frame though. I’m wondering, is this even legal? Lol and if it is, that is some shitty business practice. No wonder they were named worst company of the year lol

By: Guest

Guest — Wed, 02 May 2012 22:53:00 +0000

I hardly think its because of a license. It’s happened on every platform, even on other iOS apps before, they shut down the servers because of cost. And considering the only thing to do on Rick band is play songs, and (if) the songs are Streamed, that would mean the game would become unusable.

By: soujisama

soujisama — Wed, 02 May 2012 22:53:00 +0000

I’m pretty sure it isn’t a personal grudge. I’m also certain the message is misleading, only meaning that the online capabilities will be crippled.

By: Ivealwaysgotmail

Ivealwaysgotmail — Wed, 02 May 2012 22:49:00 +0000

“no longer be playable on YOUR Device” Seems to imply that its only for this customer, We really need someone else to get the message and for it to be a diffirent date to confirm that its a rights issue/2 year “rental”…. MAYBE Apple should put “RENT APP” in the button instead of “BUY APP” ….

By: Charles

Charles — Wed, 02 May 2012 22:30:00 +0000

It’s EA, pushing out updates of any kind IS hard for them.

By: Snacks

Snacks — Wed, 02 May 2012 22:15:00 +0000

Thank god for the ability to side-load on Android.
As for for the concern about poor EA’s servers, it’s not very hard to push out an update the allows you to download the songs and store them locally (with DRM, duh, ’cause it’s EA), thus allowing you to continue using the app you purchased.

By: Guest

Guest — Wed, 02 May 2012 22:08:00 +0000

I believe this is a bit sensationalized. I am by no way defending EA, as they are terrible as a company, but it happens all the time on every platform. They don’t make enough money off of it to keep up with their costs for running the servers, etc. so it doesn’t make sense to keep them running. So, they shutdown the servers, and since that’s how songs are loaded, the game becomes unplayable.