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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

#371

Post by throw10920 »

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #354
throw10920 wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

OTOH an indie dev probably isn't running some massive server farm with 20 linked microservices that would be hard to replicate.

Yes, that's true, but to be clear, even if the actual compliance isn't that much of a problem (as you correctly point out here), just determining how to comply is burdensome and may require expensive experts (or even lawyers) to verify - see the confusion around GDPR, for instance.

Again, I'm not saying that it isn't worth regulating, just that you need to design the regulation as carefully as possible. You'd probably agree that the best regulation is that that minimizes burden on companies while maximizing positive effects for consumers, no?

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

#372

Post by throw10920 »

Hojojo wrote: post #342
throw10920 wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[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. T…

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

That's a concession that you cannot defend your position.

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

There's very well-documented issues of corruption in both US and EU government, so no, this is not a "me problem" - yet more emotional manipulation and misdirection. The existence of that corruption also nullifies everything that you wrote above. If you're denying the corruption, you're part of the problem.

> I'm not tolerating your ad hominem attacks.

I never committed an ad hominem, and you know it.

> It's not suitable for this site and I wish you'd go elsewhere to be toxic.

You know what's not suitable? The falsehoods and emotional manipulation that you've repeatedly made in your comments. That is toxic - not calling it out. What a perverse thing to claim.

You need to learn to be able to make your points without emotional outbursts. Being mad does not make you right.

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

#373

Post by thrance »

throw10920 wrote: post #278
mouse_ wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

there are more games than ever, it's just that microsoft, ubisoft, etc are spending billions on actual psychologists to ensure the populace remains apathetic towards them. I don't care how smart you are, how much self control you have, whatever, in the face of billions of dollars, voting with your wallet does not stand a chance. The house always wins.

Huh, that's funny, I've never bought a Ubisoft game. I guess I'm the first person ever who's resistant to those psychologists.

Do you not understand that the people on HN, you and me included, are far from the average consumer? We care about things most people really don't.

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

#374

Post by valiant55 »

glimshe wrote: post #336

I agree with "Stop Killing Games"' vision of what games should be like. But I don't understand why people care to turn it into a movement... There is SO MUCH choice in games nowadays, including decades of classic games, that people should simply stop supporting player-hostile companies.

Vote with your wallet doesn't work when other people still fork over the cash anyway. Look at microtranactions, universally hated, yet developers/publishers make money hand over fist because enough people are willing to pay.

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

#375

Post by throw10920 »

thrance wrote: post #373
throw10920 wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh, that's funny, I've never bought a Ubisoft game. I guess I'm the first person ever who's resistant to those psychologists.

Do you not understand that the people on HN, you and me included, are far from the average consumer? We care about things most people really don't.

They said:

> I don't care how smart you are, how much self control you have, whatever, in the face of billions of dollars, voting with your wallet does not stand a chance. The house always wins.

Yes, you're totally right that HN users are far from the average consumer, but they weren't talking about the average consumer - they were making a categorical statement that all consumers have no self-agency and are mind-controlled by these companies, and I was pointing out how clearly insane that claim is.

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

#376

Post by jimmydddd »

---This seems like it's being overly complicated. Isn't one of their requested options just to say that it's a "subscription" or that it may be discontinued some day when you originally "purchase" the game? ---If that option is acceptable to the stop game killing folks, why all this talk about public/private servers, security, portability, etc. ---When you sell it, just say "you are really kinda buying a subscription and we might shut it off in the future, but we'll try to give you some warning.?" ---Why would the industry be against that?

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

#377

Post by techjamie »

bellgrove wrote: post #122

Having worked there in the past, Ubisoft is awful. When I was there previously there was an aggressive push for UPlay (now Ubisoft Connect) integration into all products. Then there were the bullshots for promos/E3/etc. There were often clashes with leadership who would fight against creativity / novel ideas in favour of cookie-cutter mechanics that would not add anything to the experience - certainly there was a men…

For Steam users, a reminder that you can go to a publisher's page and "Ignore" that publisher. The option is a little bit hidden, it's in the settings cog on the right-hand side of the page. It'll stop steam from recommending their games to you, and when one does show up, like in the Top Sellers list, it'll have a message on it saying that it's by a publisher that you ignored.

I have Ubisoft, EA, and Sony marked as such, personally.

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

#378

Post by techjamie »

dekrg wrote: post #248
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…

And if the end result of this legislation is that videogames in EU aren't licensed or sold but are instead all streamed and you are instead just buying access to stream a game, then what? TO me it's just amazing how the advocates for SKG ignore any possibility that it could make things much worse that they already.

If that business model worked so well, they'd all be doing it already. It'd cause piracy to cease, and (mostly) render the need for anti-cheat redundant, barring external image recognition cheats that are already tough to stop anyway.

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

#380

Post by conductr »

throw10920 wrote: post #306
conductr wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The correct path would be to establish/find a consumer protection group to help legislative bodies craft the documents in a way that held true to the spirit of what is driving this initiative. The industry will do the same to thing. So as the documents are drafted the feedback from the public’s standpoint continues to have a voice. Hopefully that happens but it’s too early in the process to say and it requires fundin…

> establish/find a consumer protection group to help legislative bodies craft the documents Yes, that's one of the ways to address this. Active consumer participation is still necessary, though, as the consumer protection group can still lose its way. > The hang ups can’t simply be nihilistic complaints about the government’s abilities without any solutions proposed. That’s an argument for doing nothing No, it's fact…

To correct your analogy to apply to prior comments, you didn’t like your soup so you tell the chef you have no confidence in their ability as a cook and should never even try to sell food because you have such little confidence in his abilities to create an dish anyone would enjoy eating. That’s nihilistic
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