Most people just click through installations without actually reading what they say — especially if there’s some long, boring end user licence agreement attached. But sometimes it pays to do a little reading, as some meticulous Steam players found out.
Spotted by Quarter to Three, the new enhanced Steam version of Divinity: Original Sin came packaged with a small, extra surprise. Hidden in the small print was this:
16. Special Consideration. A special consideration in material or immaterial form may be awarded to the first 100 authorised licensees to actually read this section of the EULA and contact LARIAN STUDIOS at info@larian.com. This offer can be withdrawn by LARIAN STUDIOS at any time.
Larian Studios, the developers behind Divinity, considered this text an experiment that would test out just how many people actually read EULAs. They were surprised to find that yes, some people do actually read those things. At least 100 people, in fact.
“Our lawyer feels good about this,” Larian joked on Facebook. “[Our lawyer is] also revoking the consideration because we’re making him pay for every mail we get.”
So, what did those eagle-eyed players get? Steam keys for other Larian games, it turns out. Not bad at all. Maybe I’ll start reading some more EULAs in the future.
…oh, who am I kidding?
Comments
6 responses to “Smart Steam Players Read This RPG’s Fine Print, Got Rewarded For It”
Yourself. You are kidding yourself.
Oh! I get it now
It’s humorous to answer rhetorical questions.
Its also humorous to get a bite when bait is placed.
I usually skim the EULA, but since I’m not a lawyer and I’m not likely to pay a lawyer to examine it with me to make sure I catch all the loopholes, exemptions and allowances not specified in the document, there’s not a whole lot of point to doing that anyway.
Chances are if I violate a term in the EULA, or the party presenting the EULA violates a term, there’s nothing I can do about it anyway, short of spending my life savings on a court case.
This one might have been a good catch if I’d skimmed it, but I didn’t install the EE until well after launch, so I would have missed out anyway… and I already own all the Larian games I want anyway 😉
This is the equivalent of those test you used to get in school… where the final question was “only answer question number one”.