The EULA that accompanies delisted Ubisoft games requires players to destroy their purchases. Stop Killing Games is fighting to keep titles working after companies abandon them. A major representative for EU publishers opposes solutions like support for third-party servers.
IANAL but wasn't that text just some "standard" legalese relating to the way they license software and it was basically unenforceable anyway? I know it's cool to pick on ubisoft for being a shit company, but BG3 had a similar requirement in the game's EULA:
I read it the same way you did. If you want to terminate the EULA, then they request you remove your copies of the game. In that snippet it says nothing about them arbitrary demand you delete all your copies.
Exactly this. And it's kind of logical actually, when you go crazy like writing Larian "fuck this shit I hate the game, you can shove it up your ass" it's no surprise you're fed up with the game and don't want to have it anymore. It's like when you literally destroyed diskette/CD/DVD back then in a rage (or fighting addiction).
I can't find it on GOG's but I wouldn't be surprised if it's in most EULAs. I've seen emails saying "confidential, if you are not the intended recipient of this email you must delete it." There's no way to enforce that. Ubisoft isn't coming to your house to review the contents of your drives. I'm guessing it's to stop some loophole like "you said I can't resell your game so instead I sold my hard drive (that has the game installed on it)".
It seems like the relevant section in the Ubisoft EULA says
"Upon termination for any reason, You must immediately uninstall the Product and destroy all copies of the Product in Your possession."
I read this wording of this to be stricter than the BG3 example you shared, because the BG3 one seems to be saying "if you don't agree to this EULA (or if you agree, but later terminate that agreement), then you must uninstall the game". Whereas the Ubisoft one seems to include Ubisoft terminating the agreement, rather than just the user. That's just my interpretation of these snippets though, as someone who is not a lawyer. It's possible that the BG3 EULA also includes other parts that would mean similar to what people are unhappy about on the Ubisoft EULA
Because a good lawyer looks for any sort of far reaching authority they can legally get away with, and will continues to push boundaries as legally far as they can until they get challenged. All in the name of protecting their clients from liability.
I don't like it, but I get it. And these things can fall apart when challenged in court or public opinion.
Makes me think of the guy who died from an allergy at Disney land and Disney tried to say he couldn't sue because of his Disney plus agreement.
Lawyers put in all kinds of legal clauses specifically to try and avoid any and all liability on anything imaginable or unimaginable. Most times it's beyond what anyone would call reasonable. But we aren't dealing with reasonable people.
Say I broke a game disk that they told me I had to destroy and I cut myself on it, deep enough to need medical attention. I wonder if I could sue them for the costs, since they specifically told me I had to break my game.