Rovio says my kids can't have their promised paid for games

[GunsMadeAmericaFree]

Back at the end of 2013, I bought my kids a bunch of Rovio games for Christmas on their game PC. These included Angry Birds, Bad Piggies, A.B. Star Wars I, Angry Birds Seasons, & A.B. Star Wars II. When I purchased the games, Rovio provided a 16 digit key code to register each, and they also promised that I could download each of the games 2 more times.

Our hard drive failed, & so we lost the games. Now I'm installing Windows 7, and I see that Rovio stopped supporting new updates for their Windows PC games towards the end of 2014. Not only that, but they also seem to have removed download links, which for all practical purposes seems to mean that they are not allowing us to do the 2 additional reinstalls that were promised for each key when we bought them.

I have not yet heard back from Rovio. I understand that they don't want to support the PC side of things any more. When I heard that they would no longer sell the PC games, I never would have thought that meant they were also going to renege on their specific promise of 2 additional downloads and installs made at the time of purchase.

So I'm sitting here with a page full of the hard copy printout I made with the games and their 16 digit registration key codes. My kids are asking when I'm going to reinstall the games, and I just don't have an answer for them. Are there any places that archive the old versions of the PC game, so that I could download them and then enter our registration codes, or am I essentially forced to download a pirated copy of the games so that they can play? (even though we paid for them!)

If any of you have any suggestions on how to make my kids happy without breaking the law here, I would appreciate the help. Thanks!

 

[MeldarthX]

I'd see what Rovio says; though I really don't have much hope after reading some of the CEO's comments; he's a tool....

if they don't give you the games they are breach of contract and you'd be able to get your money back; but that still doesn't help you with kids.

How old are the kids? There are other games out there but I know kids seem to enjoy angry birds hehe...

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Internet downloads are transient things. Always save the installers.

Lesson learned. Make the kids go play outside.

 

[The Green Bean]

Torrents? You legally own the game. You could try your 16 digit code once you get the files instead of a "crack."

 

[PrincessFrosty]

Torrents? You legally own the game. You could try your 16 digit code once you get the files instead of a "crack."

Or use the crack, there's nothing illegal about that in most jurisdictions if you own a licence to play the game already.

 

[sweenish]

I'd see what Rovio says; though I really don't have much hope after reading some of the CEO's comments; he's a tool....

if they don't give you the games they are breach of contract and you'd be able to get your money back; but that still doesn't help you with kids.

How old are the kids? There are other games out there but I know kids seem to enjoy angry birds hehe...

It's not a breach of contract. Any game these days is leased to a customer by the publisher. They're covered in situations like this.

 

[MeldarthX]

Sweenish unless the contract says lease; aka like Creative Cloud; nope he owned the software at least in the US - and has first rights of sale; though they'd like you to think you don't.

Doesn't matter they've tried to drop support; they still have a contract with him and do owe him those downloads or its a breach of contract. EULA already been thrown out courts as BS..... he's got a few choices; go down route; contact Rovio and keep contacting them until they answer him.

If they continue to ignore him; take them to small claims court for the month and pain and suffering.....*they would most likely settle out of court after showing you're serious as they would be at fault*

three......find a place to dl them see if his keys or or cracks.....all up to him; he legally owns them.

 

[sweenish]

The contract you cite is the EULA. Which makes the game a lease.

First right of sale with regards to software is still a mess, it's not nearly as cut and dry as you make it out to be.

EULAs have been thrown out before, but has this one? If not, it's still legally binding as an agreement entered into by the company and customer.

Rovio owns the game, the OP only owns license, which entitles them to be able to play the game.

At this point, I'd personally just torrent the games. It's not as if I'm trying to defend the company in this regard. You're just not right about this whole contract thing.

 

[DeathReborn]

If you were in the UK they'd be liable for breach of contract as they are supposed top provide the service for 6 years after release. Not many people actually use these laws as they aren't well known but using them I did get my money back on several GFWL products after that service was withdrawn.

You could try reddit/usenet to see if anyone has saved those downloads which avoids much of the legal quagmire of torrents/cracks.

 

[GunsMadeAmericaFree]

I thought I'd update this - Rovio helpfully provided me with a link to the final versions of the PC Angry Birds games that we had purchased. I downloaded them to a flash drive, installed to the kids gaming PC, then temporarily hooked up a wifi dongle so that it could register the license codes.

Everything worked! The kids were happy. Then I noticed that it somehow keeps 'forgetting' that the games have been registered, and asking me to enter the license to activate again and again. Finally, I got suspicious, and noticed that when the wifi dongle is installed, it does not seem to forget that the games have been activated. Evidently on the latest versions of the games, Rovio must have activated some sort of copy protection that regularly and actively logs in to their online server to make sure that your game is licensed. Without an active internet connection, the games all effectively 'deactivate'.

These games worked fine before, so now I just wish I could somehow find the earlier versions we had installed and that the kids were playing offline. I purposefully don't have their games pc connected to the internet, to protect it from malware, viruses, and the kids from things they shouldn't be getting into online. Plus, our internet is the slowest speed that Time Warner offers, so we really need to limit it to only one device getting on.

In a nutshell, I'm happy that they provided me with a link to the game downloads, but annoyed that the games themselves won't remember that I have successfully activated them without us constantly being online.

 

[JeffMD]

Guns, it is not unusual for games to do serial checks every time it starts. Most however don't "forget" the number just because the check failed. This shoddy coding is probably one of many reasons the pc versions were abandoned.

As for your whole not connected issue.. just sounds lazy to me. plenty of white list DNS servers for safe web serfing, and it does not consume bandwidth just sitting there.