Stop Destroying Videogames – European Citizens' Initiative • Hacker News Board

Re: Stop Destroying Videogames – European Citizens' Initiative

#11

Post by babypuncher » Wed, Jul 31, 2024, 6:40 PM UTC

brigadier132 wrote: post #8

toomuchtodo wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This initiative calls to require publishers that sell or license videogames to consumers in the European Union (or related features and assets sold for videogames they operate) to leave said videogames in a functional (playable) state. > Specifically, the initiative seeks to prevent the remote disabling of videogames by the publishers, before providing reasonable means to continue functioning of said videogames wit…

> Perhaps there is a disconnect between the policy intent and the understanding? Yes, I don't think they understand that running these games isn't free, modifying the games to be self hostable is not free, and giving away the code for other people to run it is ip suicide.

It's not free if you weren't considering this when designing your game.

It's 100% free if you keep this requirement in mind when making your game in the first place.

Some publishers having to spend money today because they played with fire by eroding consumer rights seems like a worthwhile price to pay.

Re: Stop Destroying Videogames – European Citizens' Initiative

#12

Post by brigadier132 » Wed, Jul 31, 2024, 6:41 PM UTC

babypuncher wrote: post #11

brigadier132 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Perhaps there is a disconnect between the policy intent and the understanding? Yes, I don't think they understand that running these games isn't free, modifying the games to be self hostable is not free, and giving away the code for other people to run it is ip suicide.

It's not free if you weren't considering this when designing your game. It's 100% free if you keep this requirement in mind when making your game in the first place. Some publishers having to spend money today because they played with fire by eroding consumer rights seems like a worthwhile price to pay.

Is everything a right now?

Re: Stop Destroying Videogames – European Citizens' Initiative

#13

Post by rimunroe » Wed, Jul 31, 2024, 6:41 PM UTC

brigadier132 wrote: post #5

My problem with things like this is that they mandate labor from others without compensating them.

Is this not how most regulation (and law in general) works? You make a rule to stop someone from doing some undesirable thing, often without compensating them for whatever they've lost as part of doing it. These things are (ideally) done because we see the benefit outweighing the burden.

Re: Stop Destroying Videogames – European Citizens' Initiative

#14

Post by ldoughty » Wed, Jul 31, 2024, 6:41 PM UTC

toomuchtodo wrote: post #7

brigadier132 wrote: post #5

My problem with things like this is that they mandate labor from others without compensating them.

> This initiative calls to require publishers that sell or license videogames to consumers in the European Union (or related features and assets sold for videogames they operate) to leave said videogames in a functional (playable) state. > Specifically, the initiative seeks to prevent the remote disabling of videogames by the publishers, before providing reasonable means to continue functioning of said videogames wit…

Who will pay devs to convert World of Warcraft into a single-player game?

This is probably covered by "reasonable means to continue functioning" and the answer will be "there are no reasonable means".. but the comment parent's point somewhat stands.

Even moving a DLC check can be complicated. When you game is done, do you disable all DLC since you can't verify someone purchased it, or do you make it freely available? Who will pay for that additional data streaming (assuming it's not on something like Steam) ?

I am not disagreeing with the wish of the initiative, just providing some food for thought on the potential costs to a company.

Re: Stop Destroying Videogames – European Citizens' Initiative

#15

Post by Lucasoato » Wed, Jul 31, 2024, 6:41 PM UTC

hartator wrote: post #4

> This initiative calls to require publishers that sell or license videogames Does that mean it can apply to open source license as well?

This problem doesn’t apply to open source videogames (granted that open means truly open).

Re: Stop Destroying Videogames – European Citizens' Initiative

#16

Post by conradludgate » Wed, Jul 31, 2024, 6:41 PM UTC

brigadier132 wrote: post #8

toomuchtodo wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This initiative calls to require publishers that sell or license videogames to consumers in the European Union (or related features and assets sold for videogames they operate) to leave said videogames in a functional (playable) state. > Specifically, the initiative seeks to prevent the remote disabling of videogames by the publishers, before providing reasonable means to continue functioning of said videogames wit…

> Perhaps there is a disconnect between the policy intent and the understanding? Yes, I don't think they understand that running these games isn't free, modifying the games to be self hostable is not free, and giving away the code for other people to run it is ip suicide.

The way I'm reading it is regarding single player titles. I've seen many single player games with an online mechanic stop being playable in single player after the online servers are taken down.

Re: Stop Destroying Videogames – European Citizens' Initiative

#17

Post by nerdjon » Wed, Jul 31, 2024, 6:42 PM UTC

We had a similar discussion about this before and I feel like this is an incredibly simplistic view of the situation.

How many games actually only phone home and have been rendered unplayable for that reason?

I am struggling to find any examples of this happening, but I am sure there are a few. Unless I am missing it, I don't even see an example listed here.

If the game relies on servers for data, online play, or other things that is a completely different beast. That isn't just, "oh it was rendered unplayable". No it was an online game and the servers were shut down. It sucks but thats the nature of moving away from p2p online games.

To be very clear here, I agree with this when it comes to single player games. But as its written, it has the potential to conflate 2 massively different issues (as the Crew discussion did last time) that it should be very clear on those distinctions and I would love examples.

Re: Stop Destroying Videogames – European Citizens' Initiative

#18

Post by johnklos » Wed, Jul 31, 2024, 6:42 PM UTC

Common sense makes sense! I'd love to see something like this codified in to law. We need a complete rethinking of the actual terms, "buy", "own", "sell", and so on, so people can't use those terms incorrectly when they're technically just "renting".

Case in point is "Redbox Revokes Access to All Previously Purchased Content After Bankruptcy": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41076807

How many times has Microsoft done it with music? How many times have companies that are still in business disabled older devices that are still perfectly functional in hopes to sell newer devices and/or get people to sign up for subscriptions, while not allowing end user access to their own devices?

California and Massachusetts have made some steps to correct this. I'd love to see more.

Re: Stop Destroying Videogames – European Citizens' Initiative

#19

Post by Lucasoato » Wed, Jul 31, 2024, 6:43 PM UTC

brigadier132 wrote: post #5

My problem with things like this is that they mandate labor from others without compensating them.

I’m compensating you with my money to buy a game and you want to retain a kill switch to turn it off anytime you want? Imagine if I did that to your pacemaker.

Re: Stop Destroying Videogames – European Citizens' Initiative

#20

Post by anon_cow1111 » Wed, Jul 31, 2024, 6:43 PM UTC

thmsths wrote: post #2

Video games is a good starting point, but this should basically apply to all software.

To expand on this a little, the author of the petition felt that it HAD to be limited to just video games on its face, the idea being to sneak a toe in the door through innocuous legislation. In reality, this would set a legal precedent for preserving everything from phone games to major enterprise software.

This was not the immediate goal though, because if it gained any traction it would get so much pushback from the major industry players that passing new regulation would be effectively impossible.

A TL;DR of the whole situation is, there are currently no laws that keep publishers from selling you software and intentionally breaking it, leaving you with nothing. Games are a unique version of this; you can't just download an open source clone because there almost never is one due to copyright issues.

(this does not apply to subscription-based software, the license terms are clear that your use expires with the subscription)