Stop Destroying Videogames – European Citizens' Initiative

> "Because we already have laws to mandate people to do things, saying it's bad to mandate people to do things is nonsensical."

That's not my argument. My argument is that it's wrong to claim this law is different from any other type of law in that it requires people to do additional labor. Unless a law literally has no requirements (is that even a law?), it has to require some people to do additional work.

> I think it's bad we have to mandate people to do things ever but in certain situations we should do it because the alternative is terrible.

Many of us do think it's terrible for people to have a product they paid for become inoperable because a company decided they would take their authentication servers offline without releasing a patch first. This erodes consumer trust and can lead to a market of lemons.

> Also keep in mind, we are talking about video games

We're talking about laws, which are serious things and deserve serious discussions. The proposed legislation is likely a test balloon for other consumer protections, so reasoning through the effects is a good exercise.

Okay, then consider implied warranty laws. If you buy an item and it breaks, there are laws concerning the implied warranty of merchantability, and the implied warranty of fitness for a particular purpose.

The government might require that certain classes of products, like a washing machine, or laptop, work for at least a given period of time.

If it fails, it must be fixed or replaced.

This is a legal mandate for the seller or manufacturer to provide labor, the cost of which is factored into the purchase price.

That sort of warranty mandate is close to the goal of this effort, and shows that the labor costs can be handled similarly.

That doesn't mean all mandates are good, just like how implied warranties are not unlimited.

Warranty laws are not fatal for small companies. They are fatal for companies that cut corners and abuse their customers.

> WoW only charges the base monthly subscription fee for 90% of the game, you don't actually buy the game+old expansions. The very newest expansion costs something, which could be tricky to fit into the law criteria, but everything else is included with the monthly bill.

> For GW2, any new regulations would apply normally because you bought a product(the game), not a service(a subscription). So yeah, they'd have to let you host a sever when they shut official servers down.

That distinction doesn't really make sense. If your argument is to stop killing games, why do games like WoW get an exception? You still are loosing access to something you paid for, before you ever put in your credit card for a subscription. It's irrelevant how they bundle expansions or make some free later, if you were subscribed from the beginning you bought a lot of expansions and the base game.

To be clear here, I think its fine that GW2, Wow, and any online only game could shut down and you loose access to it. As a consumer you should well understand that some things are online only, it is built to be online and if the servers shut down you should understand that. If somehow we can make an exception that WoW is fine, clearly consumers understand online only games regardless of how it was paid for.

Not talking about phoning home, but an actual online game.

I just don't understand how you justify the distinction of how some online games are somehow different from others. It weakens the entire argument to carve out exceptions that have no basis on the underlying technology on why something isn't realistic.

> If you thought the wording on the petitions is confusing, you might want to tell the guy behind it directly.

It is less that it is confusing, my point is that is conflating 2 very different things.

Phoning home, and truly online games.

The reason I responded to you is you started your first post seemingly from a place of authority or understanding of this:

> OK as usual there's a ton of misunderstanding on this issue so I feel the need to summarize it:

That implies that you know something that we don't, further enforced by you mentioning things in your original post that is nowhere to be found in this petition.

If that is not the case and your original post was your own understanding of what is written but not from a place of having any additional information than that makes this conversation very different.

>That implies that you know something that we don't, further enforced by you mentioning things in your original post that is nowhere to be found in this petition.

I "have additional information" in that I've watched the videos that have led up to the petition(s), and although the goals are stated within the petition page, it's more of a condensed semi-legalese which might be difficult for a random reader to extrapolate (and it may be too condensed).

>why do games like WoW get an exception?

Again, payed expansions for subscription games are a tricky area. If you bought additional content beyond a monthly fee, imo a good compromise might be issuing a refund within a certain time period. That's an issue for government to debate though. If I ONLY signed up for Wow's base subscription and bought nothing else, it's pretty clear-cut that I'm only entitled to service for the payed period and nothing else.

>If somehow we can make an exception that WoW is fine, clearly consumers understand online only games...

Most consumers clearly understand how a subscription works, that you stop paying and stop getting service.

Most consumers also understand that if you buy something as a one-time payment only, it shouldn't be taken away arbitrarily, this is how most multiplayer games have worked for the last... 30 years or so? If Wow's payed expansions get a pass here, it's ONLY because running a server might require unreasonable hardware for an individual (believe me, I'd prefer not to give them a pass).

Anyway, here's a list of fully-dead games on pc. This includes a bunch of F2P games, which may or may not be a subject of this regulation depending on the game specifics

https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Category:Unplayable_games

And here's a list of physical-copy games that can be considered at-risk: https://www.doesitplay.org/index

Anything that lists "no" under offline mode is pretty much going to die, anything with "download required" is potentially dead unless someone figures out a patch when the server shuts down.

We "mandate labor" all the time, that's how the countless laws & regulations work.

- Providing warranty service is mandated labor.

- Going through workplace safety inspections is mandated labor.

- Getting your product certified by the relevant authorities is mandated labor.

- Following cybersecurity compliance regulations is mandated labor.

- Following proper food safety guidelines in a professional kitchen is mandated labor.

- Ensuring that your premises are accessible to the disabled is mandated labor.

There's nothing special about this case of "mandated labor". You don't get compensated for being "nice enough" not to defraud your customers. That's just your half of the social contract that allows you to participate in society in the first place.