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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

#291

Post by skotobaza »

mvdtnz wrote: post #279
canthonytucci wrote: post #220

How about a “stop buying games” movement where people just don’t buy this live service garbage? It’s all shovelware. It’s all the same crap over and over. There are plenty of non live service games being released every day, buy those instead. If a game is actually important to people they’ll figure out a way to play it (as people did with WoW classic before classic). The idea that we should spend time and energy to r…

I'll keep buying whatever games seem fun to me. I rarely play a game more than a year or two, they become stale and boring to me. I genuinely, genuinely do not care if the game stops working in 12 years time. Could not possibly care less.

> I genuinely, genuinely do not care if the game stops working in 12 years time

That's very grim... I'm on the completely different side, majority of games I've been playing recently are fairly old.

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

#292

Post by skotobaza »

systemdev wrote: post #274

I’m so skeptical of the “making it work offline is too hard” argument, I’ve personally RE’d dozens of these titles with no source access, often with anti tamper, and succeeded. Very few titles are genuinely unpreservable to some extent. For example, the VAST majority of Unreal Engine games are trivially preservable unless the developers have taken steps to strip server code, and even when devs do take those steps “re…

It's very hard to reverse engineer something you don't have access to, i.e. server code. Sure, some of it is fairly simple, so it can be done, but when a lot of game logic is happening on the server and you don't have the server binary, then it becomes a step up in difficulty.

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

#293

Post by akramachamarei »

skotobaza wrote: post #289
akramachamarei wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is equivalent to the government making certain kinds of contracts unlawful. It's the same kind of situation as in prostitution and illicit drug markets. The government claims that certain kinds of agreements should simply not be available to customers and sellers. This is not the government's business.

But nobody is trying to block "certain kinds of agreements". You can still make whatever games you could make before. Nothing changes in that regard.

I think that is literally what SKG is doing. Correct me if I'm wrong, but my impression is that game companies often create games and sell them (i.e. sell licenses), and the terms of those licenses include some degree of revocability and nonguarantees of continued function—which I don't like, btw. Nonetheless, customers buy these games, agree to these licenses, having attentatively read those terms or not.

It's a bit of inference on my part, but here's my bottom line: the conduct SKG is lobbying against is permitted by the contracts which game sellers and customers have agreed to, presumably. Otherwise, a smart instantiation of the SKG idea would be bringing class actions for breaches of contract, I guess?

So I agree, nobody is trying to block people from making games certain ways, including in this sort of Mission Impossible tape way. That would be weird and draconian to outlaw. But I don't know how to interpret SKG other than to be outlawing the sale of such revocable/spontaneously self-destructing game services, which is to say outlawing the contracting between customers and sellers to exchange money for services usable under such terms.

I think a specimen case would be useful to understand. The infamous one seems to be The Crew. Presumably SKG would seek to outlaw something about the conduct of Ubisoft there, presumably the revocation or destruction of the service. Equally presumably, the right to revocation was in the terms that everyone signed. So either, the law trumps the contract, or the contract was unlawful in the first place. This effectively forbids some kinds of contract.

Anyway, that's just my interpretation, so if I'm thinking stupid, I hope my thoughts are laid bare, and that I have not lost your patience, so that you may poke out my errors.

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

#294

Post by skotobaza »

akramachamarei wrote: post #293
skotobaza wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But nobody is trying to block "certain kinds of agreements". You can still make whatever games you could make before. Nothing changes in that regard.

I think that is literally what SKG is doing. Correct me if I'm wrong, but my impression is that game companies often create games and sell them (i.e. sell licenses), and the terms of those licenses include some degree of revocability and nonguarantees of continued function—which I don't like, btw. Nonetheless, customers buy these games, agree to these licenses, having attentatively read those terms or not. It's a bit…

> my impression is that game companies often create games and sell them (i.e. sell licenses), and the terms of those licenses include some degree of revocability and nonguarantees of continued function

Yes, that's the case. But the absence of guarantees is not very specific, which opens a door for publishers to just drop support on a whim. It's not an issue with titles that have no online components, since you can just keep playing them. But a lot of games nowadays do require online connection, even singleplayer ones. So a publisher shutting down the servers for such game will render the game unplayable in any way. This is the crux, and this is what SKG is trying to solve.

> the conduct SKG is lobbying against is permitted by the contracts which game sellers and customers have agreed to, presumably

Unfortunately, publishers can change the agreements. They can promise you 10 year support for a game, and then drop support for this game one year after release (see Anthem as an example; Concord is even more obvious). This should definitely not happen.

> I don't know how to interpret SKG other than to be outlawing the sale of such revocable/spontaneously self-destructing game services

You can still sell them and deny access to the game after shutting it down, you just need to be prepared for legal actions. So no, nobody wants to outlaw the production of such games (at least nobody from the initiative talks about it in such way).

> The infamous one seems to be The Crew

Yes, it's the most popular. But there are hundreds of games like that that are already dead and cannot be played. You might think it's a very small number compared to overall number of games that have been ever released, but it will increase. Also, Ubisoft themselves told us multiple times that they don't want gamers to own the games.

> This effectively forbids some kinds of contract

It's nothing new. For instance, you cannot make a game that formats your system drive when you die in-game. Nobody is stopping you from developing such game, but you will be open to legal actions, since it can be considered malware. Even if you warn the players beforehand - it's still a malware. So the argument "they agreed to this" is not very sound. Like with real world Russian roulette - it's not OK to shoot someone just because they agreed to it.

Also contracts should not contradict the laws. But to prove if such practice contradicts the existing laws is quite hard as we can currently see.

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

#295

Post by joxdosba »

skotobaza wrote: post #266
kaycey2022 wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> SKG people are mostly immature and tend to overreact How so? What's immature about the desire to keep games functional?

I suppose the charitable interpretation is that those who would invest considerable time campaigning for this are deeply into gaming, which is an activity typically associated with younger people.

There’s also the fact that through events like Gamergate, the term “gamer” has become highly charged and is not something most adults would want to be associated with.

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

#296

Post by skotobaza »

joxdosba wrote: post #295
skotobaza wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> SKG people are mostly immature and tend to overreact How so? What's immature about the desire to keep games functional?

I suppose the charitable interpretation is that those who would invest considerable time campaigning for this are deeply into gaming, which is an activity typically associated with younger people. There’s also the fact that through events like Gamergate, the term “gamer” has become highly charged and is not something most adults would want to be associated with.

That's an interesting point of view. For me, people who advocate for preservation are usually older because they remember the times when you could just buy games and they would keep working forever. While younger people were born into the world where online games is the norm so they don't expect everything to last long.

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

#297

Post by l23k4 »

skotobaza wrote: post #290
l23k4 wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely they must have value at an individual level, for people are willing to pay to engage in those. The time you spend playing games does very little to help the society around you, and might in fact distract you from more productive activities. Perhaps gamers would go outside instead, and reduce the burden on the healthcare system. This essentially amounts to government intervention to reduce the already incredibl…

> Is that good public policy? Yes, because you will not be limited in time to enjoy a single title. Like it's the case with other media - books, music, movies, etc. This is good because future people (who haven't even been born yet) will be able to enjoy the same slice of entertainment that we enjoy right now. Just like we can still enjoy games made 40 years ago.

Everything is good policy if you're only willing to list the benefits, and not acknowledge that there are associated costs.

Perhaps the audience that would consume these old games simply won't be big enough.

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

#298

Post by skotobaza »

l23k4 wrote: post #297
skotobaza wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is that good public policy? Yes, because you will not be limited in time to enjoy a single title. Like it's the case with other media - books, music, movies, etc. This is good because future people (who haven't even been born yet) will be able to enjoy the same slice of entertainment that we enjoy right now. Just like we can still enjoy games made 40 years ago.

Everything is good policy if you're only willing to list the benefits, and not acknowledge that there are associated costs. Perhaps the audience that would consume these old games simply won't be big enough.

But we are interested in benefits first and foremost since we are consumers, i.e. people who use the product. Regarding the costs, nobody dismisses them. But saying that the costs of giving the game to community are tremendous is simply misguided. Developers and publishers have been doing this since the beginning, it's not something new.

The reason why publishers don't do this is also very clear - they want us to play their newer games and spend money there. They are not doing this because it's hard for me. They just want to maximize the profit, that's it.

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

#299

Post by drorco »

skotobaza wrote: post #277
drorco wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I have to watch ads, I personally prefer personalized ads as they waste less of my time if I happen to see an ad for something I would actually want. I think generally, scaring people with "oh noes they'll have your annonymuized data" is not that dissimilar from scaring about radiation radiation from their wifi router. Anyway, the discussion was about the harms of regulations and why developers would resist these.…

> I personally think this regulation does more harm then good for small businesses and players alike Are we supposed to just accept that games will die because of the profits of some game dev studios? > I saw how intentions were good, but execution was absolutely terrible, with so many holes that the ones who benefit the most are the big companies that can workaround these clauses So we are supposed to not do anythin…

I think regulation is a superweapon that should mostly be used in cases where there can be severe long-term damage (physical and health dangers, loans, etc.) or in cases where what it regulates is simple and easy to comply with.

For example, it makes a lot of sense to regulate gasoline so there won't be any lead in it. It also makes sense to standartize and simplify loans which can also have severe impact on people. I don't think it makes sense to regulate games to that degree, which are merely a form of entertainment and have no severe consequences on people, especially not SKG.

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

#300

Post by skotobaza »

drorco wrote: post #299
skotobaza wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I personally think this regulation does more harm then good for small businesses and players alike Are we supposed to just accept that games will die because of the profits of some game dev studios? > I saw how intentions were good, but execution was absolutely terrible, with so many holes that the ones who benefit the most are the big companies that can workaround these clauses So we are supposed to not do anythin…

I think regulation is a superweapon that should mostly be used in cases where there can be severe long-term damage (physical and health dangers, loans, etc.) or in cases where what it regulates is simple and easy to comply with. For example, it makes a lot of sense to regulate gasoline so there won't be any lead in it. It also makes sense to standartize and simplify loans which can also have severe impact on people.…

> If it would be so important for players to ensure their games stay alive, they'd just stop buying these games and they'd apply pressure on devs to do that

Unfortunately, it only works on paper. In reality publishers can add stuff after the release when people already paid money for it (classic bait and switch). So buying only "good" games does not guarantee that they will stay that way. Also, we did try "applying pressure", it didn't work, that's why we are here currently.

> I don't think it makes sense to regulate games to that degree

Nobody is asking to regulate the games themselves, only how they are distributed after their end of life.

> which are merely a form of entertainment and have no severe consequences on people

People make money using specific videogames. So there are consequences of shutting down games for good.

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