Illustrating how few people pay attention to the terms and conditions of anything, UK retailer GameStation— as part of an April Fool’s gag—added a line to the fine print of its website that granted the souls of agreeing customers to the merchant.
The “Immortal Soul Clause,” as detailed by Bit-Tech, was slipped into a GameStation online sale promotion. 88.0 percent of the website visitors did not notice the clause and effectively signed away rights to an immaterial part of themselves (that may or may not exist).
Those who did notice the clause, and opted out, were awarded a £5 gift voucher.
For its part, GameStation said that it would not enforce the clause and plans to issue nullifications via email to those who were duped.
All in all, 7,500 customers reportedly signed away their souls.
|Image: Appalachian Soul Snatcher from Flickr|
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Price of Ignoring ToS Details: Your Soul
April 16, 2010
Shout box
DorthLous: Actually, nop, I did miss the emoticon for some reason (getting used to pics?) and I didn't know you changed it since (since I posted previous to my shout and it was still there.) Anyhow, thanks for taking it out!05/23/2012 - 6:01pm
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james_fudge: Well we were just testing it. but it is still on the submission to fight $pam.05/23/2012 - 5:48pm
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E. Zachary Knight: James, No I don't have it. I was just wondering who does and why. More curiosity than anything.05/23/2012 - 5:38pm
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james_fudge: Did you not see the emoticon and did you not see that it has already been changed back?05/23/2012 - 5:10pm
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james_fudge: LOL05/23/2012 - 5:07pm
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DorthLous: Why? Not shocked that people are barking to an additional hoop to jump through when posting from their already logged in account or just mentionning this to try to paint me as one always complaining?05/23/2012 - 4:45pm
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james_fudge: big shock there ;)05/23/2012 - 4:30pm
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DorthLous: I'll add my voice to those wanting it gone :S I'm already logged in, I don't need a captch'a. That's for those registering.05/23/2012 - 3:54pm
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james_fudge: Et tu EZK?!?05/23/2012 - 3:51pm
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Craig R.: I'm a One Man Quorum! And it's working for me now, thanks. :)05/23/2012 - 3:48pm
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E. Zachary Knight: How do we determine who get's the game/captcha thingy? Is there a certain posting threshhold users have to meet before it is turned off?05/23/2012 - 2:25pm
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james_fudge: Give it a chance, we're still adjusting it ;)05/23/2012 - 11:20am
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james_fudge: One does not a Quorum make Craig.05/23/2012 - 11:16am
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Craig R.: If I complete the stupid game, and it just deletes my comment, what's the point?05/23/2012 - 11:15am
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Craig R.: Ok, the little captcha game? You can get rid of it already.05/23/2012 - 11:13am
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Craig R.: FCC boss is giving the thumbs up to usage-based pricing for Internet access05/23/2012 - 11:08am
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Andrew Eisen: beemoh - Yeah, Miyamoto was awarded the Spanish prize for Communication and Humanities.05/23/2012 - 10:36am
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beemoh: UK READERS: Sky Arts to broadcast complete Video Games Live concert this Friday at 9PM. Repeat 7AM the day after.05/23/2012 - 10:09am
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beemoh: Miyamoto seems to have been awardsed something- he was just trending worldwide on Twitter, and all the tweets were in what looked like Spanish.05/23/2012 - 7:07am
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Michael Chandra: Think so yes, since the judge didn't allow them to add ips at will. :P05/23/2012 - 6:23am
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Comments
Re: Price of Ignoring ToS Details: Your Soul
Ctrl-Alt-Del have had the same thing in their footer fine print for ages now...
Re: Price of Ignoring ToS Details: Your Soul
Since I see the misconception thrown around a lot (and respecting jurisdiction of course) I thought I should mention that for the U.S. at least, EULAs are considered legally binding contracts so long as they pass the legal requirements surrounding contracts (this includes not violating any other laws).
There has been no ruling against *all* EULA contracts, only specific cases where the contract in question violated contract or other laws. There have also been several cases where EULAs have been held up by courts. In the US it's also relative to the specifc court district in question which way a case may go, unfortunate but true.
Re: Price of Ignoring ToS Details: Your Soul
...I'd sign away my soul in a contract. Surely some of the 88% that did sign it simply didn't care about ridding themselves of that pesky soul (like me)?
Funny story, though, hah.
-Optimum est pati quod emendare non possis-It is best to endure what you cannot change-
Re: Price of Ignoring ToS Details: Your Soul
I gotta say this was a clever april fools day joke.
http://www.magicinkgaming.com/
Re: Price of Ignoring ToS Details: Your Soul
I seem to recall a gaming magazine once doing a similar thing with its cover CD. The click-through EULA signed over the rights to your home, which was revealed in the following month's edition.
It's always worth reading the EULAs regardless of their legal standing. 30 seconds skimming paragraph by paragraph can tell you what sort of data the service will harvest from you/your computer, what they do with it, what the penalties are or may be for modding... that sort of thing.
Re: Price of Ignoring ToS Details: Your Soul
30 seconds? Have you seen how long some of those are? You're not gonna get much from too many of them, especially MMOGs, if you just spend 30 seconds on it. It can take that long just to scroll through some of them to the bottom so you can hit accept.
Saying that Jack Thompson is impotent is an insult to impotent men everywhere. They've got a whole assortment of drugs that can cure their condition; Jack, however...
Re: Price of Ignoring ToS Details: Your Soul
True, but in the modern world, people hide behind the fact that they aren't legally binding to get away with whatever they want.
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You KILL Vampires. You don't DATE them.
Re: Price of Ignoring ToS Details: Your Soul
I'd be more intrested to know how many people actually read those things.
Re: Price of Ignoring ToS Details: Your Soul
If the article is anything to go by, 12%
E. Zachary Knight
Oklahoma City Chapter of the ECA
http://www.theeca.com/chapters_oklahoma
E. Zachary Knight
Divine Knight Gaming
Random Tower: Game News and Commentary
Re: Price of Ignoring ToS Details: Your Soul
I'm amazed it's as high as 12%... I can't think of ANYONE who reads those things. I mean, when faced with the choice of reading a long, dry, document full of the standard legalese, or playing that awesome new game you got, I can't think of anyone who would choose the former.
Re: Price of Ignoring ToS Details: Your Soul
Assuming they were told of the 5 pound certificate right away it was probably lower. If it happened to me I would run to my friends and tell them to get to that site and decline the EULA for 5 pounds.
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Debates are like merry go rounds. Two people take their positions then they go through the same points over and over and over again. Then when it's over they have the same positions they started in.
Re: Price of Ignoring ToS Details: Your Soul
Well, considering that TOS and EULAS are not considered legally binding contracts, I doubt Gamestation would be able to get the souls anyway. Besides, they're going into Lucifer's turf, and he's got a killer legal team.
Re: Price of Ignoring ToS Details: Your Soul
Well, he DOES get most of the divorce attorneys.
Hunting the shadows of the troubled dreams.
Re: Price of Ignoring ToS Details: Your Soul
and the defense lawyers, and the RIAA lawyers....