This should be more aptly named the "make some videogames unavailable in the EU" initiative.
I'd be on board with that, too.
Stop Destroying Videogames – European Citizens' Initiative
81–90 of 146 posts
Re: Stop Destroying Videogames – European Citizens' Initiative
#82OK as usual there's a ton of misunderstanding on this issue so I feel the need to summarize it: The goal is to require publishers to leave the game in a working state when they end support. For single player focused games, this means removing the phone-home verification or drm so it can function offline. For multiplayer focused games, this means allowing users to run their own server. It DOES NOT mean keeping officia…
See this is why I made the comment I did, nothing that you just said is at all clear from the petition and as it is written it doesn't conform to what you are saying here.
> For single player focused games, this means removing the phone-home verification or drm so it can function offline.
I really doubt that anyone would dispute that. If we are only talking about that, its just fine.
> For multiplayer focused games, this means allowing users to run their own server. It DOES NOT mean keeping official servers running forever.
This is where it gets confusing, since then you say:
> And also it needs to be clear this DOES NOT APPLY to games that have a monthly subscription fee like WoW, or games that are completely free to play.
That should be clear from the petition but why are those 2 a distinction? You have to buy WoW, its expansions, and pay a subscription fee.
Why is that inherently different from buying an online only game, that you just don't have to pay a subscription for? For example, Guild Wars 2. For any reason that mattered it is identical to WoW when it comes to the server side of things. Except it doesn't have a subscription.
If we really are going to make that distinction, it should have been in the petition. I had the same problem with the website that was discussing the Crew, critical information about what exactly we were talking about was missing and actually what we were talking about only came up after discussing it here.
> Because this is a bad practice that only recently started, and it needs to be stopped before it gets worse.
This petition also really needs examples of this, because I struggled to find an example so so far the only ones presented as games that are unplayable because of phoning home is NFS Underground and The Crew. When the petition is making it out to be a much larger and wide spread problem than it currently is.
Re: Stop Destroying Videogames – European Citizens' Initiative
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
Please stop with the analogies to life saving medical devices or polluting the planet with toxic chemicals. Not all situations are equivalent. It's obviously good to mandate that other people shouldn't be poisoned. That doesn't mean all mandates are good.
Your response was to me and yet I hadn't made any analogies to life saving medical devices. I wasn't using the example of dumping waste in rivers to illustrate an equivalence in severity with the video game issue. I was trying to show that drawing a distinction between forcing someone to stop doing something and forcing someone to do something is nonsensical in this context.
> drawing a distinction between forcing someone to stop doing something and forcing someone to do something is nonsensical in this context
My interpretation of your argument is as follows:
"Because we already have laws to mandate people to do things, saying it's bad to mandate people to do things is nonsensical."
I disagree, I think it's bad we have to mandate people to do things ever but in certain situations we should do it because the alternative is terrible. ie like preventing people from polluting the entire environment. Also keep in mind, we are talking about video games
Re: Stop Destroying Videogames – European Citizens' Initiative
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
And when the binaries inevitably stop working 50 years after release what should be done?
Why would they stop working?
Another commenter mentioned mobile devices getting constant security patches that make old software obsolete.
Also, software is not static. Do you really expect programs written today will work in 100 years?
Re: Stop Destroying Videogames – European Citizens' Initiative
#85My problem with things like this is that they mandate labor from others without compensating them.
They should probably allow companies to keep doing what they are doing now as long as they call it "rent" instead of "buy" in their marketing materials.
Normally this honesty would cost them money because their competitors would have better (more persuasive) marketing, but a law could force every company to be honest at the same time so that the relative ranking of each company does not change.
Re: Stop Destroying Videogames – European Citizens' Initiative
#86This should be more aptly named the "make some videogames unavailable in the EU" initiative.
People on this site repeat this meme every time there's an EU initiative to protect personal freedoms or consumer rights.
It hasn't happened so far, but I'm sure you'll be right one day and we'll all be collectively begging for mega-corporations' forgiveness.
Any entity that doesn't want to abide by these rules would be a good riddance anyway and it would give room for customer-respecting alternatives to flourish. That's a win-win.
Re: Stop Destroying Videogames – European Citizens' Initiative
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why would they stop working?
Another commenter mentioned mobile devices getting constant security patches that make old software obsolete. Also, software is not static. Do you really expect programs written today will work in 100 years?
I don't expect programs written today to run on the latest hardware and operating systems 100 years from now. But a machine from today, or its equivalent emulated in software, running the same OS should always be able to run the same programs.
Re: Stop Destroying Videogames – European Citizens' Initiative
#88The whole concept of putting software on someone’s computer, but you actually own and operate it, is kinda crazy to start with. Stallman isn’t wrong about the abuse potential of proprietary software.
Re: Stop Destroying Videogames – European Citizens' Initiative
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Do I really need explain why the majority thinking something is good does not make it good? Look-up tyranny of the majority. No, of course not, but if you look at what I wrote you'll note that I did not say that. Majority is obviously a terrible way to decide what's morally/ethically right. Within a democratic system though, it is the way we decide what rights to grant people. > I am always biased in favor of peopl…
> would be more important than anyone else The world will quickly go to shit if people stopped creating and building new things. Literally everything you own was built by someone's labor. Maybe stop mandating that these people do more for you? > If Blizzard updates their user agreement and sneak a clause in there where I agree to give away my house Where are you going with this argument? In what way does being biased…
> The world will quickly go to shit if people stopped creating and building new things. Literally everything you own was built by someone's labor. Maybe stop mandating that these people do more for you?
People don't create things in a vacuum. They exist within a society. People did not stop creating things in the US when we decided workers had to be compensated for injuries. In this (much less severe) case, the proposed legislation says that companies have to make "reasonable" efforts. I don't know how you think a reasonable effort would be enough to stop people from "creating".
> Where are you going with this argument? In what way does being biased mean I just agree with everything a group decides?
I'm genuinely trying to find out what you feel is a reasonable thing to expect someone to agree to. I assume you think people agree to have games disabled after they've paid for them because it was in an agreement they signed. Most people don't read such agreements thoroughly though. Elsewhere in this thread you said: "A lot of people thinking something isn't a good argument. Unless stated by the law your rights are what you agreed to when signing the terms of service for the game. Stop acting like people were duped when servers were shut off for a game that doesn't get played."
If you don't think the company should be allowed to take the home in the hypothetical: why? Is it the monetary amount involved? The amount of disruption to the homeowner's life? Something else?
Re: Stop Destroying Videogames – European Citizens' Initiative
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
Middle Earth: Shadow of War is a good example. It is a single player game with some minor and optional online elements, and used to have a pay to win store that needed internet access. It requires an online connection the first time you start it. If that server goes away - we're hoping the devs will patch it before that happens.
I was asking for examples of where a game is unplayable. I know that there are games that only phone home or require an online connection to play online like Kingdom Hearts (which is particularly frustrating on my steam deck). That part of this I am not disputing. From the way this is written it sounds like this is a big problem that keeps happening for single player games, but I am struggling to find a ton of exampl…
The poster answered your question.
The game is unplayable without an internet connection - it refuses to start.
In spite of the fact that the internet connection is only used to provide optional content, without an authenticating server this game which is otherwise fundamentally a single player, offline game will not let you play it.