My software can't be taken away. Not even by me
On September 1st, Sony is deleting 551 movies out of PlayStation libraries in the UK and Europe. Terminator 2, Apocalypse Now, both Paddingtons. People bought those. The licensing deal with StudioCanal ran out, so they're going, and there are no refunds.
Sony did the same thing to customers in Germany and Austria back in 2022. They tried it with over a thousand seasons of Discovery shows in December 2023 and backed off after the noise, but the deal they cut only guaranteed access for another 30 months.
Ubisoft delisted The Crew that same month. The servers went off in March 2024 and then they revoked the licenses of people who had paid for it. That's what started Stop Killing Games. It got 1,294,188 verified signatures across the EU, and in June the European Commission said no. No law. They suggested a voluntary code of conduct instead.
Everyone calls this a gaming problem. It's a software problem. Games just got hit first.
Buy is the wrong word
The button says Buy Now. The agreement underneath says you're getting permission that can be taken back. They know which one is true. They print the other one because it sells better.
If a dealer sold you a car and towed it off your street two years later because his agreement with the manufacturer expired, would anyone call that a licensing issue?
California already did something about this. Since January 2025 you can't put buy or purchase on a digital storefront there without telling people it's a license that can be revoked. That should be everywhere. One state isn't enough and companies aren't going to do it on their own.
This is already on your desk
A lot of software people paid for once has to check a license server to install or activate. That check is a switch. Company gets bought, or has a bad year, and the check stops working.
If it phones home, you're renting it. Doesn't matter what the checkout page said.
Subscriptions aren't the problem
Subscriptions won for real reasons. Somebody has to pay for the work that happens after launch. Windows updates break things and security holes need patching, and that work costs money in months when nobody buys anything. A company that sells a subscription and calls it a subscription is being straight with you.
The middle is the problem. You pay a purchase price and the thing still dies when a server does.
What I do instead
Mad Fable software runs on your machine. Your files stay on your drive, and there's no server that has to be up for the program to open. There's nothing to switch off, including by me.
So here's what I'll put in writing.
What you buy keeps working. On your machine, offline, after I stop selling it, and after I'm gone.
The programs run start to finish on your own computer. Most of them work with the internet off.
Your files stay on your drive. I never see them.
Every demo is the real software. Use it as long as you want before you pay.
If I ever shut Mad Fable down, the last version of everything goes out unlocked. Everything you paid for keeps working.
That's the standard I'd hold anyone to. If someone pays for a program, that copy should keep working on the machine they put it on, after the company stops selling it and after the company is gone. Sell the next version at full price. Charge for support if support costs you money. The copy that's already paid for belongs to whoever paid for it.
Want to see what I'm working on? It's all at madfable.com. The demos are the real software and they don't expire.
