I feel... uneasy about the idea. Are games art?
If so, are you comfortable telling artists what types of art they can create? I know not everyone is going to agree with me here but it feels like a slippery slope.
Game publishers respond to Stop Killing Games claim it curtails developer choice
141–150 of 452 posts
Re: Game publishers respond to Stop Killing Games claim it curtails developer choice
#142> Even the singleplayer components [of Ubisoft’s “The Crew (2014) were unusable when the servers were turned off]: [Y]ou just wanting to race around cars in a world with you and other NPCs in it, is no longer viable. Essentially, you didn't "buy" the game, but in a sense were "renting" it for an indeterminate amount of time, a lease that expired due to the publishers and developers no longer wanting to provide that s…
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.
Re: Game publishers respond to Stop Killing Games claim it curtails developer choice
#143I 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 the DMCA, that had a reasonable purpose (made adjustments to the copyright system for the age of the internet) and a royally screwed up implementation that basically everyone can find a problem with.
It's easy to imagine that the laws that pass could be (1) completely neutered by corruption in the EU leading to regulatory capture (2) far too strong and written in a way that imposes unfair burdens on developers (which include indie devs too) or (3) bad just because of technical incompetence of the authors.
I know that there's not much I can do about those things, but that may explain the emotional reactions of some people like e.g. PirateSoftware - nobody actually knows what the resulting law will be like, and everyone familiar with the legislative system knows how bad the outputs can be.
Re: Game publishers respond to Stop Killing Games claim it curtails developer choice
#144> the initiative seeks to prevent the remote disabling of videogames by the publishers Nice way to make publishers stop making multiplayer services available to the EU in the first place because deactivating it is illegal when costs outweigh profits.
Great, maybe it will foster innovation among indie studios.
Re: Game publishers respond to Stop Killing Games claim it curtails developer choice
#145Vote with your wallet, there are thousands of games that don't do shady stuff.
Its not always obvious when you buy them which games will still be around a few years later. Some singleplayer titles from just a few years ago are no longer playable. (Hello, Ubisoft). Meanwhile there are MMOs like guild wars 1, released 20 years ago, still playable today.
Right, exactly. Game companies don't advertise when you buy a game that its single-player features will only work as long as the servers stay up. I'm sure they don't want to. But if players aren't made aware of that fact then it's hard for them to make informed purchasing decisions.
Re: Game publishers respond to Stop Killing Games claim it curtails developer choice
#146I feel... uneasy about the idea. Are games art? If so, are you comfortable telling artists what types of art they can create? I know not everyone is going to agree with me here but it feels like a slippery slope.
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
Re: Game publishers respond to Stop Killing Games claim it curtails developer choice
#147I 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…
So don’t even try because it might be bad?
Re: Game publishers respond to Stop Killing Games claim it curtails developer choice
#148Video games publishers don't want you to play the same game for too long without spending more money. They don't want to make games like Terraria where you have a $10 game you can play for a thousand hours. They'd much rather you buy multiple $60+ games, plus expansions, "micro"-transactions and subscriptions. They don't want games that last forever, they want to pressure you into constantly buying the next big thing…
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Re: Game publishers respond to Stop Killing Games claim it curtails developer choice
#149If this happened all multiplayer titles would turn F2P. People do not appreciate quite what a narrow path has to be walked by games from an IP standpoint. Code libraries, licensed property, per platform (and platform category) restrictions, general IP restrictions (not showing vehicles being damaged, or UI overlays on certain parts of licensed objects) and so on. This is why in the recent ROG Ally announcement Micros…
Those are all just decisions the companies made. For future games, the game developers and the companies licensing IP can simply make different decisions. If a large market like the EU creates strong incentives for them, they will make different decisions.
Now, this is not necessarily the case for existing games. Revisiting existing licensing deals can be needlessly difficult. But I'm assuming the proposed regulations will only apply to new games rather than trying to force changes retroactively.
Re: Game publishers respond to Stop Killing Games claim it curtails developer choice
#150I work for a game company. I am ardently opposed to this idea. All you will end up with, in the best case scenario that isn't even guaranteed to happen, is extremely mediocre games for which you will have the server executable along with the client. Whether you like it or not, thanks to piracy and competition (and yes I've heard Gabe Newell's quote on piracy), server authoritative video games that are eventually turn…
> If you like video games so much but don't like the terms of serivce and price, have you tried making your own?
This is such and odd thing to suggest. People want to play the games they paid for, _obviously_ they aren't going to make their own game.