An Xbox Live ban will mean losing access to (at least some of) your games on Xbox One

[Delta517]

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The ongoing ambiguity and dubious DRM practices of Microsoft at the moment are in some ways reaching long awaited conclusions. On Twitter, the official Xbox support account told one user that if you are banned from Xbox Live, you “will forfeit the licenses to any games that have licenses tied to it.” It’s okay though, because it’s “listed in the ToU (terms of use).”

You’d be right in pointing out that this isn’t far from Valve’s model – however, Steam accounts are never banned for etiquette or conduct reasons relating to player interaction. It is common for YouTuber’s to have Xbox Live accounts banned for ‘griefing’ videos, popular on the net.

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Support wouldn’t clarify disk-based games being banned, or if they could be re-redeemed on a new account, but I think it’s fairly safe to say that there will be long loop-holes – if any – in getting your serial-bound disk-based games redeemed on new accounts. That said, it isn’t entirely clear if any disk-based games would be bound to accounts, but Microsoft’s restrictions on the sale of second hand games will somehow, at least, identify the use of disks to certain user accounts.

It’s reasonable to conclude that in some cases, the use of disk-based games will be withheld upon the banning of your Xbox Live account.

It should also be noted that any family members who hold their own active accounts should, in theory, lose the right to play games that are tied to your account, and shared with them, upon your account being banned.
The moral of the story is this: don’t be mean on Xbox Live, and follow the terms of use stringently, unless you want to lose access to all your games.

That said, Microsoft still need to release a clarification statement on all things DRM, and related to the ToU and breaches of it. Hopefully we’ll have a user friendly info-graphic at some point, explaining exactly what rights we have – and to what extent – for our purchased products.


At this point, many people are asking: do we purchase our games to own? Or do we simply purchase the legal right to play them? Is this indefinite rental, or is it ownership?

Wow...Can they do this? Isn't this illegal? Its basically like they take away the games you have bought!

Twitter Status
Source

 

[WiiUBricker]

Fix: Avoid the Xbox One.

 

[Clarky]

Wow...Can they do this? Isn't this illegal? Its basically like they take away the games you have bought!

If people are daft enough to agree to the Terms of Use/Service, then yes, they can do this

 

[Devin]

Well uh,

Duh?

I lose access to my PSN games if my account gets banned, lose access to my Xbox Live games if banned from Xbox Live, and I lose all my Steam games when my Steam account is banned.

 

[Foxi4]

I don't see how the "Terms of Use" of the hardware in any way influence the licenses of the software. If you own the software and the license for it, you just own in and you following the ToU/ToS in no way influences your ownership of said licenses. Microsoft, you are drunk, go home.

Well uh, Duh? I lose access to my PSN games if my account gets banned, lose access to my Xbox Live games if banned from Xbox Live, and I lose all my Steam games when my Steam account is banned.

The problem here is that once your XBox One game is registered and installed, it makes the disc unusable. Unless the banning of the account also returns the discs to their original state server-side, you're also stripped of the ownership of the physical discs since they're rendered useless.

The games you have installed on your PS3 won't magically stop working if your PSN account gets banned - your only loss is that you can no longer log on PSN (since you didn't follow its Terms of service), so you may not be able to recover the games that you didn't have installed on the system (since that would require using the service that you're banned from using, Sony has no obligation to provide you with bandwidth if you're not a user of their service). You're denied access to the service, the software still works fine.

 

[kingsora831]

I have actually been thinking about this predicament lately, and I think I may have come up with a solution.
just make an account that will never access xbox live other than to register games on.
since your games can be shared by all users on one system, just have one account which you register games on and your real xbox live account.
so if your xbox live account gets banned (for any reason), all your games are registered on another account on the system and can still be used.
just never go on xbox live multiplayer with that account so their should be no reason for a ban.

but that's of course if gold isn't needed just to register disc games, but this is Microsoft so we will have to see.

 

[pokefloote]

I don't see how the "Terms of Use" of the hardware in any way influence the licenses of the software. If you own the software and the license for it, you just own in and you following the ToU/ToS in no way influences your ownership of said licenses. Microsoft, you are drunk, go home.


The problem here is that once your XBox One game is registered and installed, it makes the disc unusable. Unless the banning of the account also returns the discs to their original state server-side, you're also stripped of the ownership of the physical discs since they're rendered useless.

The games you have installed on your PS3 won't magically stop working if your PSN account gets banned - your only loss is that you can no longer log on PSN, so you may not be able to recover the games that you didn't have installed on the system. You're denied access to the service, the software still works fine.

That is very similar to Steam though, if I buy Borderlands 2 from Gamestop as a physical disc, it has a code to activate it on Steam, and the disc is useless once it's activated. If I'm banned from Steam the disc is still useless. (its basically to save download times but still)

 

[Foxi4]

That is very similar to Steam though, if I buy Borderlands 2 from Gamestop as a physical disc, it has a code to activate it on Steam, and the disc is useless once it's activated. If I'm banned from Steam the disc is still useless. (its basically to save download times but still)

You can always use a NoSteam patch - you still own the game and you can re-install it as many times as you deem fit. You own the software, it's the service that you're banned from.

 

[pokefloote]

You can always use a NoSteam patch - you still own the game and you can re-install it as many times as you deem fit. You own the software, it's the service that you're banned from.

Fair enough, I'd definitely do the same.

 

[chartube12]

This is equal to a bar taking away your ID/licences getting banned from their place.

 

[Foxi4]

This is equal to a bar taking away your ID/licences getting banned from their place.

Actually, this is the equivalent of the bouncer punching you in the stomach so hard that you "return" the drinks you drank in the bar and then escorting you to the door, giving you the empty bottles to play with since they're useless at this point anyways.

 

[Rydian]

If your Steam account is banned activations no longer work, but play offline should still, right?
You lose updates and such, but that goes without saying.

I ask because I've never heard of anybody's Steam account itself being banned from Steam. Only from Steam's online multiplayer game servers.

 

[Foxi4]

If your Steam account is banned activations no longer work, but play offline should still, right?
You lose updates and such, but that goes without saying.

I ask because I've never heard of anybody's Steam account itself being banned from Steam. Only from Steam's online multiplayer game servers.

I would risk saying that the games still work perfectly fine unless they're online-only since, again, you get banned from the service, not the games.

Microsoft seems to be confusing goods and services as of late.

 

[WiiUBricker]

The good thing about the Xbox One is that it arguably will be a big target for hackers.

 

[Rydian]

https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=7849-Radz-6869
Only mentions bans from VAC-enabled Steam multiplayer servers.

There is account suspension, but that seems to be temporary and in regards to legal/payment issues.

Has anybody here ever heard of a Steam account itself being banned? Seeing as Steam (unlike XBOX) sells games that most often do their own multiplayer server stuff without Valve involved (Terraria, etc.) I figured Valve takes a "That's your problem to manage bans, not ours" approach.

 

[Foxi4]

Let me explain my point of view with a wonderful analogy since I'm pretty hungry. Let's say that the console is a fridge, all the games I store on it are food that I legally purchased and the online service is electricity. If I don't pay the electric bill, electricity is cut (I get banned). Now, I can still open the fridge and eat the food, right? I mean, it's in my fridge, right?

NOPE! The fridge has a special lock that closes all my food inside because "herp derp, you didn't pay your electric bill!".

As you can probably see, this makes very little sense, defending a policy like this would be pretty futile because nobody's going to convince me that the electric company is in any way connected to my food purchases - they're a different matter altogether.

 

[Minox]

The thing about a Steam ban is that there are several kinds of bans. None of the used ones lock you out of playing any of the games you own.

The most common one is the VAC ban. This limits your multiplayer capabilities in VAC-enabled multiplayer games where you've been caught cheating. Some VAC-enabled games still allow you to connect to servers which has VAC-mode disabled if you're VAC-banned while some other games disables multiplayer completely.

The second kind is a Steam Trade ban. If you're found committing fraudulent actions through the Steam trading system then your trading capabilities may be limited by Valve.

Other than that there are various bans related to payment charge-backs which results in restrictions on your account (none of these prevents playing games you've legitimately purchased mind you).

There is account suspension, but that seems to be temporary and in regards to legal/payment issues.

Previously these kind of suspensions prevented you from logging in, but to my knowledge they don't intentionally lock anyone out of their account anymore, they just restrict it in various ways.

 

[Rydian]

Didn't even know about the trade ban, never done any real trading on Steam. I don't play any of the games that have Steam-linked inventories and crap.

 

[VashTS]

not positive but I think you lose your psn activation if not on for an extended period of time, hence the reason for reactpsn for us cfw users. we had to stay away from online for quite a while on 3.55 cfw, people lost their games access and someone created reactpsn as a result.

 

[Foxi4]

not positive but I think you lose your psn activation if not on for an extended period of time, hence the reason for reactpsn for us cfw users. we had to stay away from online for quite a while on 3.55 cfw, people lost their games access and someone created reactpsn as a result.

False. All your PSN-bought games work perfectly fine regardless of whether or not you even use PSN anymore or whether or not you're banned - the only "activation" that may become void would be a PSPlus one which is valid as long as you're a PSPlus subscriber.

Getting "banned on PSN" doesn't make your games unusable - you're banned from PSN only, you can't access the store or use Sony's online service in any way, but the games you have installed don't stop working.