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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

#101

Post by skotobaza »

maccard wrote: post #96
skotobaza wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> games that have required a bunch of different standalone services just for core logic But you don't have to design the backend this way. Especially if you know that you will have to share the binaries when the support for the game ends. > This effectively bans any third party non redistributable libraries (of which there are many), using many open source licensed projects for the backend Some games that have been o…

> 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

Not really, it will be the consequence of requiring the game to be given to the community after the EOL.

> the community are free to reverse engineer the service it relies on

While that is true, it is much harder than receiving the code with the most logic intact. We already do reverse engineer the binaries, including the server protocols, so we know how hard it is. And that's why we know that it's not the way to go.

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

#102

Post by one33seven »

trinix912 wrote: post #97
one33seven wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what can you do? they have billions and we have signatures.

You can vote for someone else the next time. Sadly the EU parliament elections turnout is still relatively low in many member states.

okay so how do we convince enough people to vote correctly? And what is the correct choice?

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

#103

Post by suddenlybananas »

hobofan wrote: post #91
nairboon wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For this argument to work, you'd need to show that a generic politician is somehow immune to misinformation campaigns/lobbyism.

It's reasonable to at least expect that. It's their job after all, while for any single voter there is a lower standard you can realistically hold them too and less time available to verify/debunk claims. On top of that, there are also instruments that help the voters track whether politicians are engaging in corrupt lobbyism like voting records + donation / campaign contribution records, though few countries do that…

Why is it reasonable to expect that? What mechanism makes politicians immune to disinfo?

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

#104

Post by drorco »

acron0 wrote: post #92
drorco wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a developer of a mobile indie game and it's not true. Just to get started you need to implement tons of third part SDKs like Meta Ads, AdMob, Google Analytics, etc. These require actual handling of player choices, data sanitation etc. disregarding the loss of revenue with not being able to serve personalized ads, or even ads at all to large segments of players. And I'm talking about strictly optional rewarded ads…

Maybe don't fill your games with ads and release them on restrictive, exploitative platforms?

Did you ever build a commercial project or any business yourself? The nature of your comment implies to me you haven't. I highly recommend you give it a try, it might actually change your mind!

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

#105

Post by adrian17 »

pdpi wrote: post #76
drorco wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're actually curious, to gate a taste of the cost of compliance, I recommend taking a look into the different standards for website accessibility, GDPR, etc. On paper it sounds great, who doesn't want a accessible websites or privacy? But in practice it's a total drain of resources, real legal risk even if you genuinely try and be compliant, and often you just pay a lot of $$$ for legal, compliance advisors etc…

The GDPR is almost trivial to comply with if you’re not harvesting data willy-nilly. Likewise, the legal risk for small indie games here rounds to zero. Most such games will, at worst, lose access to online leaderboards if their developers shut them down.

> The GDPR is almost trivial to comply with if you’re not harvesting data willy-nilly.

I buy a VPS. I apt install nginx. Is it okay that by default, opening http://IP/index.html logs the IP address to /etc/log/nginx/access.log? Maybe yes, maybe no, maybe yes but I need a privacy policy (for an empty index.html). Maybe I need to ask a lawyer (who usually errs on side of caution) because people have been arguing about it for 10 years (and please don't answer here). And in the end, even if I didn't need to do anything, it sure is _some_ nonzero drain of my resources to have think about it at all (completely ignoring whether it's justified or not).

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

#106

Post by hobofan »

acron0 wrote: post #92
drorco wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a developer of a mobile indie game and it's not true. Just to get started you need to implement tons of third part SDKs like Meta Ads, AdMob, Google Analytics, etc. These require actual handling of player choices, data sanitation etc. disregarding the loss of revenue with not being able to serve personalized ads, or even ads at all to large segments of players. And I'm talking about strictly optional rewarded ads…

Maybe don't fill your games with ads and release them on restrictive, exploitative platforms?

aka "don't make games that anyone has the chance of playing"

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

#107

Post by suddenlybananas »

hobofan wrote: post #82
skotobaza wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The groups hit hardest by this are going to be small-medium developers who are just trying to build a game How so? Smaller developers don't usually build games that require huge online components that will be hard to release to the public. That's mostly AAA publishers that do so (at least I can't remember the opposite from the top of my head).

> Smaller developers don't usually build games that require huge online components that will be hard to release to the public. Yes, they do. Small developers disproportionally have to rely on online services to make their multiplayer games work to a playable standard acceptable to the users, as they can't afford to write them from scratch (and couldn't even afford to do the devops work that comes with a self-hosted a…

If the law were to be passed, surely Photon would be incentivized to make a self-hosting alternative, no? Something that uses the same API but is self-hosted.

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

#108

Post by skotobaza »

maccard wrote: post #100
skotobaza wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Small developers disproportionally have to rely on online services I'm not convinced that that's the case. If you're talking about cloud providers then the cost can become very high very quickly, so smaller developers have to carefully manage the budget. To my knowledge, cloud services are usually used for simple stuff like logs and analytics, and games don't really need that to play the game. Also, don't forget th…

Most of the cloud providers have generous enough free tiers that small developers fit into them. Look at EOS, Playfab, Steam. You can run a backend for free for edit: > To my knowledge, cloud services are usually used for simple stuff like logs and analytics Respectfully, you’re wrong here and this is the problem that me and many others have with this line of defense for SKG. No small developers who are managing thei…

The question remains - how does any of this prevent small developers from releasing either the binary or the code in the modified form? Again, that has already been done with variety of games (not just popular ones as you assume), so it's not something extraordinary. The developers definitely have the resources to do so since they were getting money for the game, and the least they can do for their game and its community is to give it to them after they stop supporting it themselves.
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