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Stop Killing Games – European Citizens' Initiative

stopkillinggames.com

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Re: Stop Killing Games – European Citizens' Initiative

#21

Post by pawelmurias »

close04 wrote: post #17
oleganza wrote: post #6

People want to be hooked up on subscription because schools and parents do not preach long-term values (well, maybe only orthodox religious minorities do). We are in this situation because of a shrinking time horizon for the modern society (aka "high time preference"). People want instant gratification, buy-now-pay-later, pay attention to the packaging, not content. Most citizens are conditioned to live here and now.…

> Even climate change activists frame the issue (that is supposed to be about long-term thinking) on a very short scale: do something hysterical right now, otherwise the world's gonna end tomorrow. This looks more like a consequence of the issue you described previously, than part of the issue itself. If everyone is concerned only with the next 5 minutes (and even if they are with the next 5 years), how would you pos…

It's normal and expected that people won't care much what happens in 50 or 500 years. You will possibly be dead and it's too far away to reliably predict the consequence of event in that time span.

Re: Stop Killing Games – European Citizens' Initiative

#22

Post by irusensei »

Releasing source code or protocol specs for the server side software after the live service is put down would be a good PR bonus for any game corporation. Of course there might be third party IP involved but just publishing a document stating what the server should do is probably good enough to get some good guy points.

Besides it might keep the game alive and even generate some residual revenue even though you aren't spending a dime with server infrastructure.

Re: Stop Killing Games – European Citizens' Initiative

#23

Post by maccard »

Why does this only apply to video games? Why doesn't this apply to apps in general?

I don't want to suggest that I'm in favour of sunsetting every game once a publisher or developer is done with it, but there's got to be a middle ground between "you must ensure that your game can have all online components replaced" and what we have right now. And I think the sheer amount of work involved in the former for every game combined with perverse incentives from a very small subset of users that cause a disproportionate amount of hassle makes this not a good idea. It's a great example of a change that greatly favours existing companies who could meet the legislation, and will negatively effect smaller games and studios.

Re: Stop Killing Games – European Citizens' Initiative

#25

Post by exe34 »

maccard wrote: post #23

Why does this only apply to video games? Why doesn't this apply to apps in general? I don't want to suggest that I'm in favour of sunsetting every game once a publisher or developer is done with it, but there's got to be a middle ground between "you must ensure that your game can have all online components replaced" and what we have right now. And I think the sheer amount of work involved in the former for every game…

release the source and people will maintain it for you for free. you can't say it's not profitable anymore to keep maintaining something that people paid for and at the same time say it'd hurt your profit if you release it.

Re: Stop Killing Games – European Citizens' Initiative

#26

Post by MrGilbert »

stavros wrote: post #8

I've signed this, and, as an aside, I was extremely impressed that the Europa.eu site localized the CAPTCHA to the Greek alphabet. That's some commitment to accessibility by the general public.

I'm also impressed. I used the "eID" functionality, and it just worked flawlessly. I signed it in under a minute.

Re: Stop Killing Games – European Citizens' Initiative

#28

Post by worble »

Yeul wrote: post #18

As I understand it copyright on a videogame is 50 years but the vast majority of games- or all entertainment really- stops making money after a few years. It gets worse if your game has licensed music in it! I think piracy is the best method of preservation because it's removed from a financial incentive. Publishers just aren't going to spend a dime if it doesn't make a buck.

> I think piracy is the best method of preservation because it's removed from a financial incentive.

The problem is that piracy doesn't help for always online "games as a service" games where the game is killed after the server has shut down. You can't pirate the server because it was never available, and outside of being lucky enough that a few hackers dedicate a lot of spare time to reverse engineering it, that game is gone forever.

The point of this initiative is to ensure that game companies have a legal obligation that at the point of shutting down game servers they must either release the server software, patch the game to work offline, or do whatever else to ensure that the game continues to function.

It's worth noting that this would only count for games sold as goods i.e you paid a fixed fee at the time of sale with the expectation of owning a product indefinitely. Games with explicit subscriptions such as MMO's would not be subject to this since there was never an expectation of access to the product continuing after the subscription expired.

Re: Stop Killing Games – European Citizens' Initiative

#29

Post by pjc50 »

oleganza wrote: post #6

People want to be hooked up on subscription because schools and parents do not preach long-term values (well, maybe only orthodox religious minorities do). We are in this situation because of a shrinking time horizon for the modern society (aka "high time preference"). People want instant gratification, buy-now-pay-later, pay attention to the packaging, not content. Most citizens are conditioned to live here and now.…

Customers generally do not want to be hooked on subscriptions, that's a choice that's forced on them by the "you will own nothing and be happy" rentier faction.

> Even climate change activists frame the issue (that is supposed to be about long-term thinking) on a very short scale: do something hysterical

No need for "hysterical" in there. But the more and sooner action is taken the better the outcome.

Re: Stop Killing Games – European Citizens' Initiative

#30

Post by maccard »

exe34 wrote: post #25
maccard wrote: post #23

Why does this only apply to video games? Why doesn't this apply to apps in general? I don't want to suggest that I'm in favour of sunsetting every game once a publisher or developer is done with it, but there's got to be a middle ground between "you must ensure that your game can have all online components replaced" and what we have right now. And I think the sheer amount of work involved in the former for every game…

release the source and people will maintain it for you for free. you can't say it's not profitable anymore to keep maintaining something that people paid for and at the same time say it'd hurt your profit if you release it.

Again, why is this just for games? Why are Figma allowed to do this, but EA aren't?
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