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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

#81

Post by meheleventyone »

surgical_fire wrote: post #76
meheleventyone wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No I’m talking about the distribution of games. With physical media that’s all fine because once the license expires they stop making new copies. People that own a copy are fine. With digital distribution once you’ve EOL’d a product you still need to make it available right? Otherwise how do people that have paid for it get it? But that means you can’t distribute elements you no longer have the license to.

With online distribution games can be made unavailable for purchase. You are not distributing it anymore. Only people that previously purchased can still download the game. There are multiple such cases in stores such as Steam or GoG. I own games that are not available for purchase anymore. Those games were not killed. I can still download and play them.

Offering the game for download but not sale is still distributing it and you’d still need licenses for all the content you’re distributing. In the cases you mention the games still hold the licenses which is common but not universal.

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

#82

Post by meheleventyone »

surgical_fire wrote: post #77
meheleventyone wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If the licensing costs without fucking over consumers is prohibitive, then maybe those games should not exist. Wow, who is killing games now?

Absolutely, games that strip consumers of their rights should not exist. I am not going to defend predatory practices. You think you threw me a gotcha, but you are actually only exposing yourself.

The framing was your own so it’s not the gotcha you feel it is. I also don’t know what you think I’m exposing because I’m broadly in agreement that games at their EOL, particularly single player should continue to work. I am interested in discussing where that breaks down but I think that’s probably where we differ. You seem more interested in being combative and making up gotchas.

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

#83

Post by anton-c »

dgellow wrote: post #43
pointlessone wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Saas offerings are safe as they don’t let you Buy a thing. They’re very transparently a service. Same with timed licenses. It’s clear what you’re paying for. Most of the time. With games it’s often not the case. You buy them and then at unspecified moment you might lose a significant portion of functionality or the whole game. At the time you buy a game you don’t know if it’s for a time, what time, or what will stop…

When I bought WoW it was very clear to me I was buying a service. If blizzard decided after 2 years it wasn’t sustainable and to shut down the game at no point would I be entitled to own it. It was clearly a license to access their service, as long as it exists. Same for any other MMORPG

You can host offline servers of older mmos easily. I had my own lineage 2 private server in middle school. Private online servers too. Wow classic became a thing because private vanilla servers were incredibly popular.

You should be able to do this for any game. I understand them fighting it during the games lifetime.

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

#84

Post by dijit »

cwillu wrote: post #67
meheleventyone wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’ll make licensing more expensive because the net result is more permissive. Or in the hypothetical the content could be removed and replaced with something bespoke or cheaper to licence. But both of these options will make the game more expensive to build overall across its surface area.

If the law is that you can't do this, then those terms will just disappear from licencing agreements. It's not like there's a shortage of textures and sounds in the marketplace.

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 agreements are not perpetual either.

So, depends on context. There are examples where licensing opportunities dry up.

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

#85

Post by AnthonyMouse »

tehbeard wrote: post #30
hmry wrote: post #4

> Private servers are not always a viable alternative option for players as the protections we put in place to secure players’ data, remove illegal content, and combat unsafe community content would not exist and would leave rights holders liable. No? How would the "rights holders" be in any way liable for someone posting illegal content on a community-hosted server after a game has gone end-of-life? Also, community…

Because parents and the general public won't see that it's Bob's private server for $game. They see $game_name by $developer/publisher. Mojang (creators of Minecraft ) is an unfortunate good case study for this. It's sale to Microsoft is in part down to not being able to balance freedom for server owners and the PR issues caused by people scamming others, in this case children, while obscuring it under the Minecraft…

> Because parents and the general public won't see that it's Bob's private server for $game. They see $game_name by $developer/publisher.

That isn't how liability works. The judge isn't going to let you sue the wrong person because you're confused.

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

#86

Post by wizzwizz4 »

meheleventyone wrote: post #81
surgical_fire wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With online distribution games can be made unavailable for purchase. You are not distributing it anymore. Only people that previously purchased can still download the game. There are multiple such cases in stores such as Steam or GoG. I own games that are not available for purchase anymore. Those games were not killed. I can still download and play them.

Offering the game for download but not sale is still distributing it and you’d still need licenses for all the content you’re distributing. In the cases you mention the games still hold the licenses which is common but not universal.

You've signed a pretty shoddy license agreement if it requires you to refund all your customers, in full, after a few years. That's just bad business.

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

#87

Post by niemandhier »

An interesting side observation:

The usual inter country struggles in the Eu might actually play out in favor of customers this time. Game development is stronger in smaller EU countries ( measured in percent of the gdp ) so big countries will not block any initiatives.

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

#88

Post by surgical_fire »

meheleventyone wrote: post #82
surgical_fire wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely, games that strip consumers of their rights should not exist. I am not going to defend predatory practices. You think you threw me a gotcha, but you are actually only exposing yourself.

The framing was your own so it’s not the gotcha you feel it is. I also don’t know what you think I’m exposing because I’m broadly in agreement that games at their EOL, particularly single player should continue to work. I am interested in discussing where that breaks down but I think that’s probably where we differ. You seem more interested in being combative and making up gotchas.

> You seem more interested in being combative and making up gotchas.

Only because you are being purposely obtuse, gesturing at licensing as something that makes game development impossible without making games previously purchased by consumers unavailable.

If you make cakes that are poisoned with lead, and regulations say that you cannot sell lead-poisoned food, you cannot say "but all egg suppliers only sell lead-poisoned eggs, this will kill the cake industry".

If regulations say that games should be made accessible for people that purchased them past EOL, licensing agreements will have to adapt for it. Differentiating distribution as in "new copy being sold" and "previously sold copy being available for download".

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

#89

Post by surgical_fire »

meheleventyone wrote: post #79
surgical_fire wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> doesn’t matter whether it’s online or offline Then the solution seems simple. Making the game available offline does not seem to have any impact in terms of licensing.

I don’t think you’ve followed the discussion then.

Only in the sense that you are arguing against strawman versions of the idea in favor of the status quo.

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

#90

Post by AnthonyMouse »

dijit wrote: post #10
jjani wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't you know? If I cmd+S the HN front-end and throw my own backend behind it, host my own instance, and post something illegal on it, then YC is liable! Obviously they're not, but hey, just joining them in making things up. Protect the children!!

It’s more complicated than that. I work in games and in my last workplace I was CTO of a racing simulation; that means I was working with brands that were not only my own in a pretty big way. The stipulations that were put on us was pretty strong. For example (and it’s not just these guys), Mercedes will not permit you to allow the logo to fall off; If you have a damage model in the game this is annoying. Some won’t…

Honestly the "quagmire" here is created by dumb laws and/or dumb lawyers.

Mercedes is supposed to have a trademark for automobiles and you're making a video game. That's a different industry so you shouldn't have to license anything from them -- no one is going to be confused into thinking your video game is a motor vehicle and buy it instead of a Mercedes, and that's all trademarks are supposed to be for.

Make it clear that these things don't have to be licensed for video games -- which there is absolutely no sound for them to be -- and you won't have these problems.

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