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Stop Killing Games fails to secure EU law despite 1.3M signatures

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Re: Stop Killing Games fails to secure EU law despite 1.3M signatures

#251

Post by hobofan »

roblabla wrote: post #238
hobofan wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> WoW, FF14, Elder Scrolls: Online, runescape There are in total ~15-30mil paying subscriber that pay subscription fees to a single game. That's 1% of all gamers globally. But sure, let's slap a $5/month subscription fee on all upcoming games that would have the chance to be the next Among Us / PEAK, and let's see how well that works out for indie developers.

PEAK uses P2P networking as far as I can tell. AmongUs has multiple mods that allows P2P gaming[0]. Most indie games don't rely on servers for the gameplay loop because those are expensive and an indie studios can't afford it. They instead rely on P2P networking for the gameplay loop, and at most have a matchmaking server to both give a nice experience to find other players to play with, and to allow NAT traversal. Y…

> PEAK uses P2P networking as far as I can tell.

PEAK is listed as an example of using the Photon Fusion Shared Authority model[0]. AFAIK Photon Fusion doesn't allow for any proper P2P in any of their network topologies (apart from the fully offline single-player mode).

[0]: https://doc.photonengine.com/photon/v1/photon-products#the-q...

Re: Stop Killing Games fails to secure EU law despite 1.3M signatures

#252

Post by hobofan »

sensanaty wrote: post #234
hobofan wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> WoW, FF14, Elder Scrolls: Online, runescape There are in total ~15-30mil paying subscriber that pay subscription fees to a single game. That's 1% of all gamers globally. But sure, let's slap a $5/month subscription fee on all upcoming games that would have the chance to be the next Among Us / PEAK, and let's see how well that works out for indie developers.

Or, as SKG has been saying, make games like Among Us or PEAK have some way for players to self-host the games. It'd be absolutely ridiculous if the devs behind PEAK decided to one day say "Y'know what, we're shutting down PEAK and you can no longer play it" when nothing about the game needs to be tied to a persistent internet connection at all . Besides, PEAK has offline mode already built in, so no subscriptions nee…

> Besides, PEAK has offline mode already built in, so no subscriptions needed.

Yes, single player offline. SKG is specifically about deactivating the online/multiplayer component in games, so if PEAK were to deactivate their online coop mode, they would definitely fall under it (ignoring grandfathering).

Re: Stop Killing Games fails to secure EU law despite 1.3M signatures

#253

Post by skotobaza »

l23k4 wrote: post #240
skotobaza wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the commission did consult with the industry much more than with the initiative, they misrepresented the initiative and no balance was achieved...

And your solution is to exclude the industry from the process? That's what Frieren is proposing, and specifically what I am attacking.

Of course not. I'd rather the commission talked equally to both parties involved instead of preferring the one with the stronger lobbying.

Re: Stop Killing Games fails to secure EU law despite 1.3M signatures

#254

Post by skotobaza »

rafterydj wrote: post #236
maccard wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But you don't have to design the backend this way. You’re calling for legislating software architecture for a subset of software that is different to how it works everywhere else in the tech industry. > Some games that have been open sourced by the developers solved this issue by replacing such library calls with stubs. I think this is an acceptable compromise. The other commenter hit on the moving goalposts - I ag…

> You're calling for legislating software architecture for a subset of software that is different to how it works everywhere else in the tech industry. I am not even sure that's true, even in the limited scope of "we've already built this jumble of micro services that our thin client requires to do anything and a rewrite is impossible". I think the real goal of this would simply be clearer communication with consumer…

I personally think this is not a desirable solution for gamers. Some, if not most, publishers will put a label about "renting" (like they already do in the EULA) and won't change a thing.

Re: Stop Killing Games fails to secure EU law despite 1.3M signatures

#255

Post by hobofan »

thrance wrote: post #165
l23k4 wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

False dilemma. Riot could release the server binaries when they end League of Legends service, and no one would get thrown on the street.

All hundred different microservices? And I'm sure you also want docs for how to run them all together too?

Re: Stop Killing Games fails to secure EU law despite 1.3M signatures

#256

Post by skotobaza »

hobofan wrote: post #252
sensanaty wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or, as SKG has been saying, make games like Among Us or PEAK have some way for players to self-host the games. It'd be absolutely ridiculous if the devs behind PEAK decided to one day say "Y'know what, we're shutting down PEAK and you can no longer play it" when nothing about the game needs to be tied to a persistent internet connection at all . Besides, PEAK has offline mode already built in, so no subscriptions nee…

> Besides, PEAK has offline mode already built in, so no subscriptions needed. Yes, single player offline. SKG is specifically about deactivating the online/multiplayer component in games, so if PEAK were to deactivate their online coop mode, they would definitely fall under it (ignoring grandfathering).

> SKG is specifically about deactivating the online/multiplayer component in games

No, this is false. SKG also includes singleplayer games which require constant online connection.

Re: Stop Killing Games fails to secure EU law despite 1.3M signatures

#257

Post by hobofan »

skotobaza wrote: post #256
hobofan wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Besides, PEAK has offline mode already built in, so no subscriptions needed. Yes, single player offline. SKG is specifically about deactivating the online/multiplayer component in games, so if PEAK were to deactivate their online coop mode, they would definitely fall under it (ignoring grandfathering).

> SKG is specifically about deactivating the online/multiplayer component in games No, this is false. SKG also includes singleplayer games which require constant online connection.

Yes, you are right, but that's not the part in discussion here with GP.

Re: Stop Killing Games fails to secure EU law despite 1.3M signatures

#258

Post by l23k4 »

xinayder wrote: post #210
l23k4 wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> FWIW: People building games contribute something to society, playing them contributes nothing. if there are no players, there is no money to be made, developers will be fired. and besides, I'd rather put someone on the street if this is the multibillionaire CEO that exploits his devs, than a dev itself. And companies can, you know, slash their billionaire salaries and bonuses to comply with the law.

Yeah, but you don't get to choose where the money comes from and which projects get cancelled because of this last straw. These things have real costs which eventually affect many, many people who are not billionaire CEOs.

It would be absurd to disregard those costs and not consult the industry on them when writing laws like this.

Re: Stop Killing Games fails to secure EU law despite 1.3M signatures

#259

Post by hobofan »

sensanaty wrote: post #231
hobofan wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a LAN multiplayer mode (most match-based FPS/strategy games can do that Most match-based FPS don't do that anymore, as it's susceptible to DDOS. Whether a LAN-like mode is otherwise still feasible/acceptable by todays game quality standards is debatable. > Provide server binaries for self-hosted servers This is only feasible if the multiplayer backend is a simple server binary, which in many cases it's not anymore,…

> Most match-based FPS don't do that anymore, as it's susceptible to DDOS. Whether a LAN-like mode is otherwise still feasible/acceptable by todays game quality standards is debatable. How is LAN susceptible to DDoS? I think you're thinking of P2P, unless you're worried about your LAN buddies trolling you I guess. Regardless, whether the quality of LAN games is good or not is wholly irrelevant to the SKG initiative.…

> How is LAN susceptible to DDoS? I think you're thinking of P2P, unless you're worried about your LAN buddies trolling you I guess.

I didn't say that. Games don't to P2P anymore because it's susceptible to DDOS. LAN as alternative to Internet P2P may have seperate drawbacks (but may obviously disregard DDOS protection).

> The legislation is being discussed largely because of what EA, Activision, and Ubisoft do to games with millions of paying customers. Letting the hardest edge case set the ceiling for consumer protection is a convenient outcome for the people least affected by it.

Then propose some legislation that actually deals with that and doesn't in its communication ignore the cost of retrofitting games for all developers of games with any online component. But that's not how SKG riles up it's base of support.

> The implication that informed consumers are a problem for the industry is a pretty damning admission about how the industry currently operates.

This doesn't have anything to do with informed consumers / uninformed consumers. My comment was about the unwillingness of customers to pay for monthly subscriptions.

> consumers are a problem for the industry

They honestly are. My main reason for not going into game development is the incredible entitlement from the customerbase. I understand that situations like Control or The Crew suck, but those should be individual class action lawsuits. But instead everyone wants to impose legislation on essentially all online games, even those they purchase for less money than a coffee at Starbucks. And all that just to apparently be fine with buggy, laggy, borderline playable versions of the game, with worse matchmaking UX.

That things you bought stop working is not unique to video games with online components. I can run very few games that I bought as a child, because I don't have a CD-ROM drive or a Windows 98 machine anymore.

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