Buying software online through platforms like app stores is convenient, but there may be long-term consequences to keeping your installers for games and other software in the cloud.<\/p>\n
The advent of digital distribution opened up a global marketplace to software developers, while giving end users\u00a0the convenience of buying software at any time \u2013 without the worry of a store running out of stock.<\/p>\n
It also allowed for obscure or niche games and apps that have a small audience in South Africa to obtained locally, and legally.<\/p>\n
But what happens if your favourite digital distribution service goes dark? If one of the online game stores you use \u2013 such as GOG, Origin, or Steam \u2013 shuts down, what happens to your titles?<\/p>\n
Additionally, what happens if a store isn\u2019t shut down entirely, but the company decides to remove one of the titles from their catalogue?<\/p>\n
\u201cIn all of these instances, you don\u2019t own the software,\u201d said Nicholas Hall, an attorney\u00a0Michalsons<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n \u201cYou just have a licence to use the software, and that licence can be revoked at any time. Unfortunately, there is not much you can do if they decide to stop providing that service.\u201d<\/p>\n Using a digital distribution platform today is almost unavoidable, and even hardware that you own might be dependant on a manufacturer\u2019s online services.<\/p>\n In 2009, Amazon remotely deleted<\/strong><\/a> copies of Orwell\u2019s 1984 from Kindle readers because the company selling digital copies of the book did not have the rights to do so.<\/p>\n Mid-2008, Stardock released Impulse \u2013 a competitor to the popular online marketplace Steam. In 2011, Stardock sold Impulse to GameStop, and by 2014 the service, then known as GameStop PC Downloads, was shut down.<\/p>\n In 2016,\u00a0Pebble was acquired by Fitbit and the companies made it clear that Pebble\u2019s servers would be switched off. Fortunately, the companies\u00a0released a patch<\/strong><\/a> that breaks Pebble smartwatches\u2019 dependency on the servers.<\/p>\n More recently, Samsung published\u00a0a remote kill switch<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0for the Galaxy Note 7 in the form of an update that would prevent the device\u2019s battery from charging.<\/p>\n When you buy digital goods or connected devices, you should place your bets carefully. Choose a digital distribution platform or manufacturer that is least likely to be shut down or mess with your purchases down the line.<\/p>\n This article first appeared on MyBroadband<\/a><\/strong> and is republished with permission.<\/em><\/p>\n Buying software online through platforms like app stores is convenient, but there may be long-term consequences to keeping your installers for games and other software in the cloud.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":163,"featured_media":80507,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_enabled":true,"_sma_x_custom_text":"","_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2226,6,3,11681,4],"tags":[175,2084,24343,5641,1851,85,733,5975,697],"class_list":["post-117237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mobile","category-nintendo","category-pc","category-playstation","category-xbox","tag-ea","tag-gog","tag-michalsons","tag-nicholas-hall","tag-origin","tag-steam","tag-ubisoft","tag-uplay","tag-valve"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117237","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/163"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117237"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117237\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":117251,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117237\/revisions\/117251"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}This is not alarmism \u2013 it has happened already<\/h3>\n
Now read:\u00a0Valve kills Steam Greenlight and introduces Steam Direct<\/a><\/strong><\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"