license agreements.

[DanDanger]

Why are license agreements always mostly in capital letters? It makes them really hard to read (on the occasion that I do read them).

Anyhoo, i'll be quiet now.

[princec]

Why do people even bother with them?

Cas :)

[baegsi]

It makes them really hard to readThat's normally the reason (its fine print for web pages)!

[mahlzeit]

Usually only the disclaimer of warranty is in uppercase. This is because it must be conspicuous: you aren't allowed to hide it in small print. A reasonable person must be able to notice it. Uppercase will do that. But it's true that uppercase makes the text harder to read.

[cliffski]

what reasonable person would read all that crap? Some are 50 pages. for a bloody GAME? gimmeabreak. I dont bother with them and amazingly I'm still in business.

[princec]

It's a terrible shame I didn't put a license agreement in Puppytron, because when the next Space Shuttle launches using the previous version of the game in its thruster controllers, it'll explode when they hit the smartbomb button at about level 12. And I'll be sued to kingdom come for not excluding its use in space vehicular technology. Bugger.

Cas :)

[Savant]

My understanding is that it's about covering yourself in the case that the user decides that your game did something to their computer and wants to sue for damages.

[princec]

Except that... no-one ever reads the license, and no-one signs anything to indicate that they've read it. The whole grey area of "shrinkwrapped license terms" has reared its ugly head again. Somehow the issue has avoided ending up in court yet to the best of my (limited) knowledge.

Imagine a license agreement at the start of Puppytron that says "Shaven Puppy Ltd reserves the right to blow up your space shuttle if you play past level 11 and use smartbombs" and the guy installing it on the space shuttle just clicked "next" to get rid of it.

Who's responsible?

Cas :)

[Daire Quinlan]

Imagine a license agreement at the start of Puppytron that says "Shaven Puppy Ltd reserves the right to blow up your space shuttle if you play past level 11 and use smartbombs" and the guy installing it on the space shuttle just clicked "next" to get rid of it.

Nah, that'd never happen, The space shuttle probably doesn't have a JVM installed. :)

D.

[Savant]

Except that... no-one ever reads the license, and no-one signs anything to indicate that they've read it. The whole grey area of "shrinkwrapped license terms" has reared its ugly head again. Somehow the issue has avoided ending up in court yet to the best of my (limited) knowledge.
Short of having people mail in signed forms, there's really no other way to do it right now. So, clicking "Next" indicates your acceptance. True, I think it could be overturned in court if you press hard enough and have a good lawyer, but that isn't free.

Actually, I think there has been a court case on it already but I'm too lazy to google around for it at the moment.

But why not at least make some attempt at protecting yourself? Why leave yourself wide open for legal abuse? All it costs you is the user clicking a "Next" button during your install.

[mahlzeit]

As far as covering your ass: I don't think it's a big deal if you leave out the warranty disclaimer. No game software ever has any warranty, so anyone suing you over this is just being unreasonable. No warranty is simply common practice in the software world (whether that's a good thing is something else entirely :)).

[cliffski]

Short of having people mail in signed forms, there's really no other way to do it right now. So, clicking "Next" indicates your acceptance. True, I think it could be overturned in court if you press hard enough and have a good lawyer, but that isn't free.

Actually, I think there has been a court case on it already but I'm too lazy to google around for it at the moment.

But why not at least make some attempt at protecting yourself? Why leave yourself wide open for legal abuse? All it costs you is the user clicking a "Next" button during your install.

Because my users want to play games, not read legalese, and I don't want anything coming between my users and the fun. That includes having to click acceptance of something they havent read. I think thats shows a lack of respect for the customer.

[baegsi]

As long as you don't create something like Manhunt I wouldn't care.

[Applewood]

...and I don't want anything coming between my users and the fun. That includes having to click acceptance of something they havent read. I think thats shows a lack of respect for the customer.
I usually agree with your 'no nonsense' approach to life, but I gotta disagree here. There's a difference between "no nonsense" and "cavalier".

The one thing that could come between not just you and your users, but you and your own home/car/other assets is infecting someones pc with a virus or fubarring his hard-drive through some odd crash, and some rich guy whos bored and likes litigation will tie you up in knots in court and there's nothing you can do to stop it. Nothing. Don't say he won't win because if you've taken no steps to protect yourself, he probably will. And yes, he'll fuck you up even if you got no money - some people are just like that.

Just cut and paste someone elses agreement so you could show 'reasonable steps' were taken to warn the user before the problem happened. He coulda not installed it then, but if he took the risk....