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Game publishers respond to Stop Killing Games claim it curtails developer choice

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Re: Game publishers respond to Stop Killing Games claim it curtails developer choice

#271

Post by skotobaza »

dandersch wrote: post #265

Having followed this initiative quite extensively from the beginning, the most baffling thing has been the underwhelming support from developers themselves, both from studios and individual devs. You would think the very idea of years of your work being rendered unplayable in an instant would be enough incentive to signal boost any effort against this industry practice. Instead, developer discourse has revolved aroun…

I think that most developers are just afraid to voice such anti-industry opinion. Gamedev is fairly small industry, so if you piss off wrong people, you might be left without job opportunities.

Re: Game publishers respond to Stop Killing Games claim it curtails developer choice

#272

Post by SpaghettiCthulu »

immibis wrote: post #256
SamuelAdams wrote: post #205

At a macro level, killed games are a good thing for gaming companies. It creates a shortage of playable games so that new games sell and continue to make money. The biggest competitor to the video game industry is movies (Netflix, Disney plus, etc) and past games. Think about it - what does the gaming industry look like 100 years from today? If players can play thousands of high quality games for free, why bother pay…

It would still be illegal to acquire a copy of a killed game. Their numbers would still dwindle, since they'd be limited to people who bought the game before it was killed.

Until copyright runs out.

Re: Game publishers respond to Stop Killing Games claim it curtails developer choice

#273

Post by skotobaza »

chickenzzzzu wrote: post #258
happymellon wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is forcing manufacturers to state that they are planning to bork your game in the future "increasing the barrier of entry"?

If the only thing that this initiative seeks to achieve is clear and fair labeling when purchasing something, I'm all for it. If in the future, if anyone (including this initiative) requires the release or maintenance of server builds or code, I am against it.

> if anyone (including this initiative) requires the release or maintenance of server builds or code, I am against it

Why? What do you personally lose because of that?

Re: Game publishers respond to Stop Killing Games claim it curtails developer choice

#274

Post by throw10920 »

thrance wrote: post #233
umvi wrote: post #113

Vote with your wallet, there are thousands of games that don't do shady stuff.

Look where decades of "voting with our wallets" led us. How some people can still utter that sentence unironically is beyond me at this point.

Your claim that there has been "decades of voting with our wallets" is laughable. Nobody I know who plays games decides to buy them or not based on ideological reasons - they just buy the things that are popular or that their friends play. There's extremely little engagement on these issues.

Re: Game publishers respond to Stop Killing Games claim it curtails developer choice

#275

Post by dragonmost »

jt2190 wrote: post #142
rcxdude wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe they just stop adding hard requirements for online connectivity to their single-players games, which is something which takes more effort to do in the first place?

I worry that they just stop completely shipong single-player mode as that seems easiest.

This might happen to so extent but a big part of the market is single player games, so those companies would also lose a large portion of their profit

Re: Game publishers respond to Stop Killing Games claim it curtails developer choice

#276

Post by throw10920 »

simion314 wrote: post #121
umvi wrote: post #113

Vote with your wallet, there are thousands of games that don't do shady stuff.

>Vote with your wallet I bought Minecraft from Mojang, years later I am forced to setup a Microsoft account to play the game, or risk downloading a cracked version. They did not offer a refund. Minecraft is a video game where you need to login even if you do not play online. (maybe things changed , I think this MS account thing was a few years back, it worked for my account but I read of people having big issues beca…

I was forced to not only setup a Microsoft account, but hand over my phone number - after creating an account without a phone number and transferring my Minecraft license over, they immediately locked my account.

Someone at Microsoft should go to jail for this.

Re: Game publishers respond to Stop Killing Games claim it curtails developer choice

#277

Post by skotobaza »

subjectsigma wrote: post #176

Seems pretty obvious to me that if this passes, big game companies will either re-label all new releases as “subscriptions” and/or just never make a single-player game again. And mostly nothing will change. If you don’t like companies like this, don’t buy their games. There’s literally thousands of indie game companies that don’t abuse their users.

> don’t buy their games

Not a solution. Other people will buy them and outvote you with their wallets. This has already happened. People did buy The Crew, and I doubt that most of them realized that it will be closed 10 years later.

Re: Game publishers respond to Stop Killing Games claim it curtails developer choice

#278

Post by throw10920 »

mouse_ wrote: post #164
elitepleb wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's fewer games to vote on every year, as conglomerates like Microsoft out vote your wallet a billion times over every time they buy a game studio to embrace, extend and then extinguish.

there are more games than ever, it's just that microsoft, ubisoft, etc are spending billions on actual psychologists to ensure the populace remains apathetic towards them. I don't care how smart you are, how much self control you have, whatever, in the face of billions of dollars, voting with your wallet does not stand a chance. The house always wins.

Huh, that's funny, I've never bought a Ubisoft game. I guess I'm the first person ever who's resistant to those psychologists.

Re: Game publishers respond to Stop Killing Games claim it curtails developer choice

#279

Post by mainde »

donatj wrote: post #159
artemonster wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what a strawman. its not about "you cannot draw this" but its more like "please dont use dyes that offgas deadly fumes", a technical regulation not about substance

Talk about strawman, it's literally "I paid for something I don't like, there should be a law!" And you're comparing it to poison gas

IMHO the incentives are disproportionately in favour of everyone doing something that hurts consumers (= "something that I don't like"), thus regulation in favour of consumer rights is appropriate.

There isn't a scenario where, at scale, someone can offer a product that respects consumer rights and is successful, because it's too profitable to not respect consumer rights just like it wasn't in many other cases.

Re: Game publishers respond to Stop Killing Games claim it curtails developer choice

#280

Post by kmeisthax »

throw10920 wrote: post #143

I think very few people (outside of the industry - important caveat) are opposed to the stated goals of the initiative: > This initiative calls to require publishers that sell or license videogames to consumers in the European Union [...] to leave said videogames in a functional (playable) state. The concern that I have is that I have no idea what the actual text of the law is going to be. You can look at laws like t…

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