Stop Destroying Videogames – European Citizens' Initiative • Hacker News Board

Re: Stop Destroying Videogames – European Citizens' Initiative

#31

Post by horsawlarway » Wed, Jul 31, 2024, 6:49 PM UTC

brigadier132 wrote: post #5

My problem with things like this is that they mandate labor from others without compensating them.

Only if the publisher has placed themselves into a position where labor is required to keep the game running...

The obvious and clearest response is simply this: If you as a publisher are so convinced that your game is obsolete... make the remote server source available under a permissive license to your existing license holders. Better yet - plan for releasing a copy of it at development time.

You don't even need to make the license permissive to everyone, or for everything (open source). You just need to make it possible for those who have purchased your product to continue to use the product, and there are MANY ways to do that which don't involve your consistent labor.

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Basically - To directly address your point: If the alternative is that the publisher does crap like completely disable single player experiences because they've shut down remote licensing servers... fuck them.

That's not a company I think should be allowed to exist. If we can't limit them this way... them I'd be fully in favor of mandating they return the full purchase price of the item to every purchaser.

That purchase price represent your customer's labor.

Re: Stop Destroying Videogames – European Citizens' Initiative

#32

Post by brigadier132 » Wed, Jul 31, 2024, 6:49 PM UTC

ToucanLoucan wrote: post #24

brigadier132 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Perhaps there is a disconnect between the policy intent and the understanding? Yes, I don't think they understand that running these games isn't free, modifying the games to be self hostable is not free, and giving away the code for other people to run it is ip suicide.

> Yes, I don't think they understand that running these games isn't free, modifying the games to be self hostable is not free, and giving away the code for other people to run it is ip suicide. And none of that would be an issue if not for the fact that so many companies are creating games that become paperweights when they shut down the servers. It used to be very commonplace to include server binaries with multipla…

And when the binaries inevitably stop working 50 years after release what should be done?

Re: Stop Destroying Videogames – European Citizens' Initiative

#33

Post by johnklos » Wed, Jul 31, 2024, 6:50 PM UTC

brigadier132 wrote: post #5

My problem with things like this is that they mandate labor from others without compensating them.

No, it doesn't. Programs need to be designed to rely on specific servers, with specific DNS host names, checking valid TLS certificates. They can just as easily (and trivially, I should add) be designed to allow for configuration with other servers.

If that's not desirable for a product because of the desire to make money, then allowing end user configuration should be something that comes with a fixed date (this product will require our servers for the first five years, then it's open to any servers, for example) or with an update when the company decides to stop running their servers.

Saying it "mandates labor" is inaccurate insofar as requiring that software not be used to facilitate illegal harassment, DoS, distribution of child porn, et cetera isn't considered "mandating labor". It's the cost of doing business, and suggesting that the cost is high is wildly inaccurate.

Re: Stop Destroying Videogames – European Citizens' Initiative

#34

Post by georgeecollins » Wed, Jul 31, 2024, 6:51 PM UTC

johnklos wrote: post #18

Common sense makes sense! I'd love to see something like this codified in to law. We need a complete rethinking of the actual terms, "buy", "own", "sell", and so on, so people can't use those terms incorrectly when they're technically just "renting". Case in point is "Redbox Revokes Access to All Previously Purchased Content After Bankruptcy": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41076807 How many times has Microsoft…

I think the real problem is platform holders like Microsoft, Apple and Google, that create a lot of rules (or APIs) it hard for software to continue working without constant updates. They will say it is to support new features or security, which is occasionally true. But mostly I believe it is because they like to have a lot of telemetry on users, want to keep apps sticky in their eco system and they like you go back to the store. The worst thing for them is an open source game with no online component that you download once and play forever.

The rest of it could be taken care of with consumer choice, but effectively you don't have a choice with the big platforms.

Re: Stop Destroying Videogames – European Citizens' Initiative

#35

Post by toomuchtodo » Wed, Jul 31, 2024, 6:52 PM UTC

brigadier132 wrote: post #12

babypuncher wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not free if you weren't considering this when designing your game. It's 100% free if you keep this requirement in mind when making your game in the first place. Some publishers having to spend money today because they played with fire by eroding consumer rights seems like a worthwhile price to pay.

Is everything a right now?

If made into laws collectively agreed upon through a political process? Yes, of course. Participation in the marketplace is voluntary. If you don't like the rules, don't sell into the marketplace, it's as simple as that. Consumers are entitled to protections, businesses are not entitled to revenue nor profits. Policy implementation timelines allows time for business to adapt to the new landscape, but they can also opt out of this market if they don't believe they can pass this cost along to their customers.

Re: Stop Destroying Videogames – European Citizens' Initiative

#36

Post by ToucanLoucan » Wed, Jul 31, 2024, 6:53 PM UTC

brigadier132 wrote: post #32

ToucanLoucan wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yes, I don't think they understand that running these games isn't free, modifying the games to be self hostable is not free, and giving away the code for other people to run it is ip suicide. And none of that would be an issue if not for the fact that so many companies are creating games that become paperweights when they shut down the servers. It used to be very commonplace to include server binaries with multipla…

And when the binaries inevitably stop working 50 years after release what should be done?

The oldest server binary I've used recently was for Freelancer, which was released in 2003. It required some elevated permissions but otherwise, both the server and the game itself ran fine on newer hardware and versions of Windows.

Failing that, there's always hardware emulation but to be honest, unless you're for whatever odd reason trying to run your server on AMD64, I don't think there's too much to be concerned about. And, if source code is released by the developer, the community that remains could see to continuing support.

Worth noting here that the self-hosting mod for Titanfall 2, called Northstar, already did all of that with nothing but reverse-engineering involved because Respawns servers were basically unusable for years.

Re: Stop Destroying Videogames – European Citizens' Initiative

#37

Post by brigadier132 » Wed, Jul 31, 2024, 6:54 PM UTC

horsawlarway wrote: post #31

brigadier132 wrote: post #5

My problem with things like this is that they mandate labor from others without compensating them.

Only if the publisher has placed themselves into a position where labor is required to keep the game running... The obvious and clearest response is simply this: If you as a publisher are so convinced that your game is obsolete... make the remote server source available under a permissive license to your existing license holders. Better yet - plan for releasing a copy of it at development time. You don't even need to…

Giving away the source does not protect the game creator and actively harms them since they are giving up trade secrets.

You are basically just saying "give up all rights to the ip you've sank a ton of money and time into"

Re: Stop Destroying Videogames – European Citizens' Initiative

#38

Post by nerdjon » Wed, Jul 31, 2024, 6:55 PM UTC

ToucanLoucan wrote: post #29

nerdjon wrote: post #17

We had a similar discussion about this before and I feel like this is an incredibly simplistic view of the situation. How many games actually only phone home and have been rendered unplayable for that reason? I am struggling to find any examples of this happening, but I am sure there are a few. Unless I am missing it, I don't even see an example listed here. If the game relies on servers for data, online play, or oth…

> If the game relies on servers for data, online play, or other things that is a completely different beast. That isn't just, "oh it was rendered unplayable". No it was an online game and the servers were shut down. It sucks but thats the nature of moving away from p2p online games. A non-exhaustive list of games I have operated servers for: Freelancer, Team Fortress 2, Half Life 2, Counterstrike, Space Engineers, Mi…

> Build games to be used after servers are decommissioned, or don't built games.

To my knowledge you are talking about games that all of the core data is stored on the client side and don't rely on updates being able to be applied to servers on data required for the game to work.

How would you propose WoW, FFXIV, or other MMO's continue to be run after? There are fan projects to make private servers for some of those but those rely on data and processes running on the sever's. Controlling bosses, NPC's, events, and other things.

It isn't realistic to expect that these companies would release the source code for their servers. Companies re-using code and components for other projects is very much a thing.

Re: Stop Destroying Videogames – European Citizens' Initiative

#39

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jul 31, 2024, 6:55 PM UTC

conradludgate wrote: post #16

brigadier132 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Perhaps there is a disconnect between the policy intent and the understanding? Yes, I don't think they understand that running these games isn't free, modifying the games to be self hostable is not free, and giving away the code for other people to run it is ip suicide.

The way I'm reading it is regarding single player titles. I've seen many single player games with an online mechanic stop being playable in single player after the online servers are taken down.

[deleted]

Re: Stop Destroying Videogames – European Citizens' Initiative

#40

Post by brigadier132 » Wed, Jul 31, 2024, 6:55 PM UTC

rimunroe wrote: post #13

brigadier132 wrote: post #5

My problem with things like this is that they mandate labor from others without compensating them.

Is this not how most regulation (and law in general) works? You make a rule to stop someone from doing some undesirable thing, often without compensating them for whatever they've lost as part of doing it. These things are (ideally) done because we see the benefit outweighing the burden.

This law is not stopping anything, it's mandating something be done. And yes, many laws are like this and that's why Europe's startup ecosystem does not exist. Laws like this are a pain for large companies but they are fatal for small ones.