Game publishers respond to Stop Killing Games claim it curtails developer choice • Hacker News Board

Re: Game publishers respond to Stop Killing Games claim it curtails developer choice

#231

Post by akimbostrawman » Sun, Jul 06, 2025, 3:52 PM UTC

chickenzzzzu wrote: post #227

akimbostrawman wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>requiring companies to release server builds, client and server sourde code you did not read the initiative. they do not mention any of that and explicitly state that this won't be required (even if they wanted because of copyright laws).

Politics is a forward looking industry. As you can see with Trump, he went from talking about deporting so called illegal immigrants to deporting naturalized citizens. Do not be surprised when they go from something harmless to something punitive that forces small companies out of business.

punitive won't be "break there own laws to enforce others" but nice fear mongering. copyright infringement might as well be above murder in terms of politician interest don't worry.

Re: Game publishers respond to Stop Killing Games claim it curtails developer choice

#232

Post by shminge » Sun, Jul 06, 2025, 3:53 PM UTC

chickenzzzzu wrote: post #200

artemonster wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ah, yes, for example quake3 an extremely mediocre game that has server executable along with the client? what is this argument even about?

Ok, so your idea is that we will require all companies to release server and client builds, and also the source code as well (?), at some clearly defined point in the future, if they decide to terminate the live service? Will we also require the same of the smart fridge companies? Will we also require the same of companies that don't sell live services, such as toilets?

If I buy a smart fridge and the company that made them suddenly decided to turn them all off, then I'd definitely like the ability to turn mine back on, yes.

And no, there's no expectation of source code. That's been covered many times.

Re: Game publishers respond to Stop Killing Games claim it curtails developer choice

#233

Post by thrance » Sun, Jul 06, 2025, 3:53 PM UTC

umvi wrote: post #113

Vote with your wallet, there are thousands of games that don't do shady stuff.

Look where decades of "voting with our wallets" led us. How some people can still utter that sentence unironically is beyond me at this point.

Re: Game publishers respond to Stop Killing Games claim it curtails developer choice

#234

Post by chickenzzzzu » Sun, Jul 06, 2025, 3:53 PM UTC

pyrale wrote: post #207

chickenzzzzu wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And which company is that?

e.g. Factorio. e.g. Hades. Both games available offline and DRM-free.

How do they handle piracy, unless they don't? In which case, very good for them that they have such a great group of supporters. I am not sure if we should require every company to behave in such a way, and simply let consumers reward such companies with their money? This is just a fundamental economic model argument that I apply to any industry, except maybe baby formula or something.

Re: Game publishers respond to Stop Killing Games claim it curtails developer choice

#235

Post by willi59549879 » Sun, Jul 06, 2025, 3:54 PM UTC

chickenzzzzu wrote: post #139

I 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…

It seems you didn't read the initiative text. The initiative does not force game Devs to release the code or make specific technical demands.

Game Devs only have to make a plan for when the game gets shut down to still allow the users to be able to play the game. How that is archived can be decided by the developers. Of course the law could be different in the future.

But most people do agree that it is bad to intentionally break games that people payed money for. All they are basically are asking for, is that games are built in a way that they can be enjoyed as long as possible (maybe supported by the community). Is that not also in the intention of the game developers?

Re: Game publishers respond to Stop Killing Games claim it curtails developer choice

#236

Post by pyrale » Sun, Jul 06, 2025, 3:54 PM UTC

jt2190 wrote: post #142

rcxdude wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That is fine. Other companies will fill that void. There are plenty of small indy companies that make great single-player games, that could benefit from the attention.

Re: Game publishers respond to Stop Killing Games claim it curtails developer choice

#237

Post by chickenzzzzu » Sun, Jul 06, 2025, 3:54 PM UTC

mrangle wrote: post #222

chickenzzzzu wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you that there is a mountain of shit in the gaming industry. Is any other industry different? Are Instagram and Tiktok literally not brainwashing hundreds of millions of people? Do defense companies care that innocents are murdered with their weapons? Do airplane companies face any enforceable moral judgment that they encourage relatively rich people to engage in idle leisure in other countries rather th…

Points for the most insane answer possible, no offense. No idea what you are talking about. Given that you work for the video game industry, perhaps your comment is in a sense perfect.

The last part of it is just me going off the rails, but do you really think only the game industry is bad?

Re: Game publishers respond to Stop Killing Games claim it curtails developer choice

#238

Post by Ukv » Sun, Jul 06, 2025, 3:54 PM UTC

Mindwipe wrote: post #74

meheleventyone wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is a server executable? With a lot of modern games it could be a whole stacks worth of systems that neither the game client or server side game runtime will work without.

And which are not owned by the developer or available to be perpetually licensed.

To my understanding the idea is that if a company licenses some 3rd-party component for their game, the component would either need to be severable from the game while still leaving it reasonably playable, or the license would need to permit people who have purchased the game to use that component. This is going foward, not applying retroactively to existing games.

I think that's still fairly favorable to game publishers compared to most other purchased goods. If you manufacture an office chair and license a patented swivel mechanism, the license you acquire cannot require you to break purchasers' chairs after the license expires, nor even to go around their homes swapping out the mechanism (which analogously may still be permitted for games).

Moreover if the rightsholder for that patent had been licensing only under the terms that the purchased chair is destroyed after 5 years but then a change in consumer protection law prevents that practice, they'd need to license it out under more reasonable terms (like you can only sell the chairs with the mechanism for 5 years, but there's no limit on how long people can use the mechanism in their purchased chairs) - otherwise they'd get no business.

Re: Game publishers respond to Stop Killing Games claim it curtails developer choice

#239

Post by chickenzzzzu » Sun, Jul 06, 2025, 3:55 PM UTC

shminge wrote: post #232

chickenzzzzu wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, so your idea is that we will require all companies to release server and client builds, and also the source code as well (?), at some clearly defined point in the future, if they decide to terminate the live service? Will we also require the same of the smart fridge companies? Will we also require the same of companies that don't sell live services, such as toilets?

If I buy a smart fridge and the company that made them suddenly decided to turn them all off, then I'd definitely like the ability to turn mine back on, yes. And no, there's no expectation of source code. That's been covered many times.

How can we ensure that if we legislate the games industry, then we also legislate all other industries with no special carve outs? That would make me much more supportive.

Re: Game publishers respond to Stop Killing Games claim it curtails developer choice

#240

Post by throw10920 » Sun, Jul 06, 2025, 3:56 PM UTC

theptip wrote: post #184

throw10920 wrote: post #143

I 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…

> to leave said videogames in a functional (playable) state. Yeah, I like the general goal, but I worry about the corner cases; is an MMO “functional/playable” if you just release a localhost server? Are we forcing indie shops to pay for servers indefinitely now? Great way to ensure no more indie MMOs get built if that ends up being the text interpretation. And, as you say, the question you should always be asking ab…

> compliance can hit the small guys relatively harder and entrench the big guys

This is almost always the case, actually. Regulation and compliance are taxes on the productivity of an organization. And the "shape" of the tax is mostly flat - the burden is sublinear in the size of the organization, so the relative effects on smaller companies are bigger. And smaller companies already have significantly less available resources, and especially less legal resources (no lawyers on retainer), to handle it.

Obviously that doesn't mean that regulation shouldn't be passed, just that you have to write it very, very carefully - think embedded systems rather than web frontend - minimizing complexity and aggressively red-teaming it for loopholes and edge-cases.