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

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

#341

Post by _aavaa_ »

theptip wrote: post #289
_aavaa_ wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> legislate the that your license What we should be doing is applying the laws that already exist: when I purchase a physical book I own a copy of it and can sell it, lend it, modify it. Amazon and the publishers have zero say in the matter. Buying a digital copy should be no different. I more of this stupid “you bought a license to access a copy” crap.

Thing is, you are by default allowed to write mostly any contract / ToS you like (within the broad rules of contract law). So to implement this you need to explicitly ban “license for things that could be purchases”. And as I noted above the edge cases and market pressures make that non-trivial; do you also ban subscription services like Audible?

We already have subscriptions services for physical books and audiobooks.

They’re called libraries.

You don’t own the books when you check them out, and you wouldn’t own a digital copy when you check it out from audible.

As for market pressure, you don’t have to ban them. Require that if they want to rent digital copies out they must also allow for purchasing of them at a price that the average person would find resonable.

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

#342

Post by Hojojo »

throw10920 wrote: post #264
Hojojo wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This vague handwringing isn't any better. None of us know what the law will end up turning into. But we shouldn't let that stop this being addressed properly in our political institutions. That's what they're there for. Also, bringing up the DMCA is sort of rich, since it was always just a vehicle for the biggest content companies in publishing, film, television, music and software to protect their property online. N…

[flagged]

Based on how you talk to people, I see no value in discussing this with you any further after this.

> The correct thing to do is for the Stop Killing Games initiative to be more concrete and specify what features of the laws they want implemented to reduce latitude for the EU to screw things up. That's the outcome I'm hoping for - not that the SKG initiative doesn't pass.

They were as concrete as they needed to be. The people who wrote SKG aren't subject matter experts. They don't have to be in order to point out a problem that they want political institutions to discuss and address. It's not their place to specify the details. These people do not represent the wide population. They are not elected officials. This is what we elect political representatives for. Their job is to figure out the problem and the details.

If you do not believe in this process, that's not a problem with this petition. That's a you problem.

Don't bother replying. I don't care what you have to say anymore. I'm not tolerating your ad hominem attacks. It's not suitable for this site and I wish you'd go elsewhere to be toxic.

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

#343

Post by robertlagrant »

PaulKeeble wrote: post #28
gryn wrote: post #8

> many titles are designed from the ground-up to be online-only that's kinda the point, many users don't like having their single player game be online only because the devs thought it would give them more control. seems like 'video games europe' is gearing up to lobby/influence the lawmakers to distort this initiative. the bare minimum would be to ban these kind of things from describing themselves as products inste…

The game that kicked this particular petition off was The Crew, a game that you could happily play single player which Ubisoft made always online purely for DRM reasons its a prime example of the abuse of power that legislators should be doing something ab0out.

This isn't exactly an abuse of power - you can just not buy it. UbiSoft has transformed itself into a terrible, bloated company and it probably die soon, but the better way to do this is to have industry standards similar to PEGI that describe the game's future support, not to hit them with EU-specific regulations.

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

#344

Post by doctorpangloss »

DrillShopper wrote: post #156
mystraline wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

BG3 is quite possibly one of the most modable games of the last five years, and the multiplayer game is self hosted (peer to peer)

I’m not sure why you’re being downvoted. There is a lot of confusion about this, almost certainly from people who have never played the game.

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

#345

Post by snackbroken »

SpaghettiCthulu wrote: post #272
immibis wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would still be illegal to acquire a copy of a killed game. Their numbers would still dwindle, since they'd be limited to people who bought the game before it was killed.

Until copyright runs out.

And as we all know, the book, music and motion picture industries have all ceased operations due to the presence of copyright expiry.

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

#346

Post by robertlagrant »

archagon wrote: post #245
dijit wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For some things. For others you may not be able to license it. Example: have you seen a street racing game with Toyota’s in it? There’s a reason that Need For Speed games fell off after Most Wanted (original) and it’s because they themselves don’t get total artistic license on their works. And part of the agreements is a reasonable expectation that you will not assist anyone else to violate the agreement - and, the a…

Somehow game companies managed to deal with this when games were sold on CDs. They’ll figure it out again.

Yes - they started including DRM software on the CDs. They'll figure that out again.

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

#347

Post by doctorpangloss »

calibas wrote: post #137

Video 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…

I’m not sure “sellers would love to raise prices and have people keep buying” is the indictment that you think it is. Terraria and Modern Warfare, which is monetized the way you describe, are such different products…

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

#348

Post by ryandrake »

archagon wrote: post #249
foobarchu wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems pretty easy. If the license to the music goes for X years, then build that expiration into the game. After X years, licensed music goes away, and the game is still playable. This is completely in scope of SKG. Everyone understands that not every feature has to be retained to stay the playable game. That expiration date should, of course, be on the box. The consumer deserves to know.

That’s absurd. I can still pop in my Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater CD from decades ago and listen to the original soundtrack. TTL licensing should be illegal.

Yea, nobody seems to be addressing this: Content never expiring was the default for many years, when games shipped on physical media. Industry defenders are acting like this is impossible, where it routinely happened for a long time.

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

#349

Post by blargey »

robertlagrant wrote: post #343
PaulKeeble wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The game that kicked this particular petition off was The Crew, a game that you could happily play single player which Ubisoft made always online purely for DRM reasons its a prime example of the abuse of power that legislators should be doing something ab0out.

This isn't exactly an abuse of power - you can just not buy it. UbiSoft has transformed itself into a terrible, bloated company and it probably die soon, but the better way to do this is to have industry standards similar to PEGI that describe the game's future support, not to hit them with EU-specific regulations.

"Let the problem fester until the negative externalities build up so much it overcomes the coordination problem and companies are subject to the same coercion (but through 'market forces' so it's good), one day, eventually, maybe" isn't a meaningful argument against legislation.

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

#350

Post by ryandrake »

meheleventyone wrote: post #65
chithanh wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, even if the licensing agreement between the developer and the car maker ends, then according to first sale doctrine, the game buyers keep the licensed content. Removing it from user systems would be undue (but admittedly has happened such as with the in-game music in GTA).

The reason for that is that the game is continuing to be distributed and the nature of digital distribution is ephemeral so contents like music are removed from the distribution when the license expires. If you own the game on physical media or remove the connection to the digital distribution service (never patch it) then as a consumer you’re fine as you note with the first sale doctrine. It’s just legally the devel…

I don't think anyone is asking for developers to continue to distribute their games after they EOL them. They're just asking for a way to keep games that have already been distributed running.
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