GTA San Andreas loses high resolution modes, 17 songs, and breaks saves.

cageymaru

cageymaru

Fully [H]
Joined
Apr 10, 2003
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http://www.pcgamesn.com/grand-theft...-useless-removes-songs-and-resolution-options

Sounds like you really don't want Steam to update! Someone is working on a fix over here.

Missing in Action:
1920x1080 resolution.


PLAYBACK FM

"Critical Beatdown"

K-DST

"Running Down A Dream"

"Woman To Woman"

Bounce FM

"You Dropped A Bomb On Me"

"Yum Yum"

"Running Away"

Radio Los Santos

"I Don't Give A f*ck"

"Express Yourself"

Radio X

"Killing in the Name of"

"Hellraiser"

K-Jah West

"Ring My Bell"

"Don't Let It Go To Your Head"

Master Sounds 98.3

"Express Yourself"

"Rock Creek Park"

"Grunt"

"Soul Power '74"

"The Payback"
 
So glad I have this on DVD-ROM from back in the day... All those songs disappearing... Why?


EDIT: Nevermind, apparently music licenses do expire. It's just that prior to digital distribution, there was no real way of getting rid of songs already there. Interesting... It's suckage for sure - but still interesting.
 
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And this is the bad side of enabling auto-updates.
 
jbltecnicspro said:
So glad I have this on DVD-ROM from back in the day... All those songs disappearing... Why?
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Most probably something to do with licensing.

I'm guessing the resolution thing is a bug that may be hotfixed later, but I don't see those songs coming back if it's licensing issue :(
 
i would think if you bought it before the licenses expired that you should get to keep that version.

the resolution thng is kinda odd.
 
Bigbacon said:
i would think if you bought it before the licenses expired that you should get to keep that version.

the resolution thng is kinda odd.
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I agree, but it depends on what the terms of the license were. In the case of Steam, they're still selling the game, so that means that unfortunately the songs have to be removed globally. I don't think they're going to be making multiple file repositories to placate early purchasers any time soon.
 
jbltecnicspro said:
So glad I have this on DVD-ROM from back in the day... All those songs disappearing... Why?


EDIT: Nevermind, apparently music licenses do expire. It's just that prior to digital distribution, there was no real way of getting rid of songs already there. Interesting... It's suckage for sure - but still interesting.
Click to expand...

But the license only expires for rockstar to sell it's product with the music. If I purchased the product when the license was valid, I'm fully entitled to it until the day I die. The same way I don't have to return my CDs when the label's contract runs out with the performer.

It should only be removed from copies sold after the expiry. (Or rather the fair thing would be, to extend the licenses if they intend to keep selling the game)

But removing it for those who paid for it back in the day, I think is not just wrong, but raises legal issues too.
 
M76 said:
But the license only expires for rockstar to sell it's product with the music. If I purchased the product when the license was valid, I'm fully entitled to it until the day I die.
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The music is used, by Rockstar, under license. You are not a sub-licensee of the music.

I do not believe you are entitled to any such thing.
 
I'd demand a $17 refund for the music that was removed from my game.
 
wonderfield said:
The music is used, by Rockstar, under license. You are not a sub-licensee of the music.

I do not believe you are entitled to any such thing.
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But, you bought the game with those songs included. With their removal, features that you paid for have been removed. So you are technically entitled to some form of refund.
 
I dunno, not really liking the losing content because the licensing has expired for an already purchased product. What's next? Are old sports games going to revert to generic player names if that developer loses its NHLPA license?
 
Seriously this kind of blows, I bought the steam version a while back and haven't installed it yet. It would have been nice if they told us they were going to gimp it in the next patch so we could have downloaded the full version and stop auto updates of the game. Even though I am not really that concerned about this game, I am very seriously not liking the implications of it. I don't care what their "license" says, I bought it with that content included, they should NEVER be allowed to remove content because of their trouble with not being able to renew some 3rd party contracts. That should ONLY affect new buyers so Rockstar should have made a new steam title to sell not modify the old one to fit.
 
Zepher said:
I'd demand a $17 refund for the music that was removed from my game.
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wtf is wrong with you?

Don't you know these songs are worth like billions of dollars? Should be more like 17,000 dollar refund.
 
xIronCrossx said:
But, you bought the game with those songs included.
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You bought a license to use the software, not a license to the songs included in that software. Those songs were licensed for limited redistributable use by Rockstar (likely with the restriction that they be used in sequence), and that license has apparently lapsed.

As mentioned earlier, the advent of digital distribution and automatic updates enables things like this to happen when it wasn't realistically feasible before. It sucks, but I really don't think there's any restitution to be had here. If you feel differently, contact the EFF.
 
LurkerLito said:
That should ONLY affect new buyers so Rockstar should have made a new steam title to sell not modify the old one to fit.
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I agree with this. This has been really poorly handled by rockstar, and still no official comment.
 
This is very strange, why wouldn't they have worked out a deal for unlimited time? Apparently they knew that these songs would expire...
 
wonderfield said:
You bought a license to use the software
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Software that includes those songs. No, it doesn't give me the right to convert them to MP3s and listen to them on my iPod, but it does give me the right to listen to them in the game.
 
wonderfield said:
The music is used, by Rockstar, under license. You are not a sub-licensee of the music.

I do not believe you are entitled to any such thing.
Click to expand...

I'm not licensing music, I'm the owner of a copy of it for my own personal use.

Rockstar is not using the music, they bundle it with their product. If rockstar were a pub, where they play music for the players you'd be right.

A video game soundtrack falls exactly into the same category as any music CD you purchased. Or by this argument all the movies in my collection from before 2000 should have their soundtrack muted. That's ridiculous.
 
I don't quite get the music licensing thing. For instance in Rockband when the license expires they are no longer allowed to sell those music tracks. Anybody who purchased them before the licence expiring gets to keep them forever.
 
LurkerLito said:
Seriously this kind of blows, I bought the steam version a while back and haven't installed it yet. It would have been nice if they told us they were going to gimp it in the next patch so we could have downloaded the full version and stop auto updates of the game. Even though I am not really that concerned about this game, I am very seriously not liking the implications of it. I don't care what their "license" says, I bought it with that content included, they should NEVER be allowed to remove content because of their trouble with not being able to renew some 3rd party contracts. That should ONLY affect new buyers so Rockstar should have made a new steam title to sell not modify the old one to fit.
Click to expand...

Good luck trying to keep steam from updating a game. They don't even pretend that you can do that anymore, the update options are:
-Always keep this game up to date
-Only update this game when I launch it(this replaced the do not update option that never worked)
-High priority- Always auto-update this game before others

wonderfield said:
You bought a license to use the software, not a license to the songs included in that software. Those songs were licensed for limited redistributable use by Rockstar (likely with the restriction that they be used in sequence), and that license has apparently lapsed.

As mentioned earlier, the advent of digital distribution and automatic updates enables things like this to happen when it wasn't realistically feasible before. It sucks, but I really don't think there's any restitution to be had here. If you feel differently, contact the EFF.
Click to expand...

Bullshit. It was part of the software that they were selling licensed copies of, in fact it was a highly advertised feature because massive playlists were still a new thing in games. I also highly doubt that rockstar's contract with the labels requires them to remove the music from already sold copies, it's probably similar to other contracts for games like Mafia 1 that gave them limited distribution rights. With Mafia 1 they had to stop selling copies or keys of the game(or remove the music most likely) but copies and keys that the publisher had already distributed were still able to be sold and those that had the game on steam already are still able to download the games with all of the music still there. I don't think a contract that went beyond that would even be legal.
 
One of the few reasons Steam sucks. I do generally like them though. Those left crying will just track down a hard-copy of the game or get a pirated version.
 
Ebernanut said:
Good luck trying to keep steam from updating a game. They don't even pretend that you can do that anymore, the update options are:
-Always keep this game up to date
-Only update this game when I launch it(this replaced the do not update option that never worked)
-High priority- Always auto-update this game before others
Click to expand...
lol, when did they remove the don't update this game option? I never even noticed they removed it. I know I used it and it worked for me, but that was a long while ago when I blocked a torchlight 2 updates for some nerf they did on a spell I used a lot.
 
Ebernanut said:
Bullshit. It was part of the software that they were selling licensed copies of, in fact it was a highly advertised feature because massive playlists were still a new thing in games. I also highly doubt that rockstar's contract with the labels requires them to remove the music from already sold copies, it's probably similar to other contracts for games like Mafia 1 that gave them limited distribution rights. With Mafia 1 they had to stop selling copies or keys of the game(or remove the music most likely) but copies and keys that the publisher had already distributed were still able to be sold and those that had the game on steam already are still able to download the games with all of the music still there. I don't think a contract that went beyond that would even be legal.
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The problem with steam (and others) is that you are not buying the game. You are buying a non-perpetual license to play software provided by steam. Since you didn't buy the game valve or the publisher can screw you by changing the software or pulling it from your library.

Bottom line. You don't really own anything on steam. If you want to keep your games forever use a different distributor. If you think the risks are worth the price then enjoy while you can.
 
Mozex said:
Bottom line. You don't really own anything on steam. If you want to keep your games forever use a different distributor. If you think the risks are worth the price then enjoy while you can.
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Technically you don't own the software that you buy on a disk either. The difference is that they can't take it away from you that easily. But most of the games I purchased recently, in a retail store already use steam anyway.
 
Frankie said:
Software that includes those songs. No, it doesn't give me the right to convert them to MP3s and listen to them on my iPod, but it does give me the right to listen to them in the game.
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I don't think you're granted perpetual and interminable rights to any content Rockstar has a limited license to.

M76 said:
I'm not licensing music, I'm the owner of a copy of it for my own personal use.
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Not in this case, no. Rockstar is the music licensee. They have permission to use the music, which in this context means permission to sequence it into gameplay. Rockstar probably does not have permission to sub-license the music.

Ebernanut said:
I also highly doubt that rockstar's contract with the labels requires them to remove the music from already sold copies, it's probably similar to other contracts for games like Mafia 1 that gave them limited distribution rights.
Click to expand...
I don't think so either, but I do think they're within their right to do so. Their agreements with the labels/publishers probably predate digital game distribution anyway. Rockstar updated the existing game content rather than re-distributing a version with music removed, so what happened is the music was removed for all customers.

That doesn't mean there's any consumer recourse here. I don't think there is.

If you think there is, I suggest you contact a lawyer about filing a class action or contact the EFF who may or may not be willing to do so on your behalf.
 
Yar, this whole thing reminds me of the Hilarious House of Fightenstein music segments (with the Wolfman). Those were some of the best moments from the show and are usually cut from reruns due to expired music licenses.

I'm sure it won't take long before a savvy community member is able to unofficially patch the removed content back in. Still scary to me how content can be taken away due to an expired license or what have you, and it does give a hint at what an all digital distribution future could entail.
 
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