The UK Stop Killing Games petition has reached 100.000 signatures
11mon 20d ago by sh.itjust.works/u/RmDebArc_5 in games from sh.itjust.works
cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/41402388
Please support the initiative of Stop Killing Games!
Awesome! Now let's get the EU one as well, much closer than before now. (840'000)
5 minutes later and it's 843k, almost 1k signatures per minute, not bad at all!
This is fucking bonkers.
I ran the math a few days ago, before this absolutely blew the fuck up, and I came to:
We'd need 11k sigs per day until July 31st.
... We're now apparently at more than double that and climbing exponentially.
Ho Lee Shit.
God DAMN has it been a while since I've seen something go actually, truly, organically viral.
I'm just worried some of them are botted, especially now that we're less than 100k away from 1m.
I mean, its not technically completely impossible, but the vast majority of EU countries require a valid name, id, address, etc, its usually a pretty dumb idea to bot spam an official government web portal, and I'm sure there will be a review process after July 31.
Also... its not like it hits a million and then just no one else can sign up to it anymore.
It'll stay open till the end of the month, could easily breach a million, maybe even two million if anything like this insane rate keeps up.
No need to do the math, this site has you covered: https://stopkillinggamestracker.pages.dev/
Right now we need 1669 per day remaining, though that number is probably going ot be smaller by the time you click the link.
Worth noting that the actual target is somewhere above one million, since there's probably some invalid signatures mixed in and the initiative needs a million even after these get removed. Still, it's looking really good.
23 per day atm :D
Edit: and DONE!
It's been like this for a while and the actual page where you sign the initiative is down right now apparently =D
844k now. Wow. I wonder what caused the sudden surge? Or is it just that most momentum can be gain at the start and towards the end like with Kickstarters?
After Ross announced the campaign is dead a bunch of YouTubers (and media, I think?) picked up the topic and started spreading the word far and wide. This is the result.
Here's what bugs me: Why didn't channels like GamerNexus and LTT cover the petition until after Louis declared it dead?
That's actually one of the most annoying parts about the whole thing. SKG campaign has been running for what, a year now? Barely anyone with an audience cared enough to even look into it, let alone spread the news. Now that things came close to failing suddenly everyone thinks it's an important topic and scrambled to make videos/posts/whatever. I'd like to give them the benefit of the doubt but I just don't have that in me any more...
We could've been in so much better place with awareness, petitions and general sentiment if people in the industry actually cared about these things from the start.
Better late than never, I guess. I just hope there's enough time to push through the EU petition as well.
Well, there's at least two aspects here:
Fucking Thor, PirateSoftware.
Up untill Ross posted his 'SKG is dead' video... Thor had by far gotten the most views of anyone with a video discussing SKG.
And Thor... well, he was anti-SKG, and had been spreading a bunch of objectively false bullshit about it, actual FUDD.
So... about half of Ross's video was dedicated to pointing out how Thor was wildly misunderstanding things, and fairly graciously and politely trying to correct these misconceptions.
So here's the two sort of things at play I see, in terms of 'why sudden surge now?'
- Thor was just shown to be objectively, factually wrong. Thus, the immediate effect of this would be to reiterate and clarify and reinforce with more specificity what SKG actually is... and that could directly convince people to give a damn, to believe in Ross's SKG over Thor's misunderstandings and mischaracterizations.
But uh, almost certainly much, much more relevant:
- Ross doing (1) created an absolute drama shit storm via the way youtube works now... which is very much just drama mongers and commentators reporting on e-drama. (1) kicked off an actual, organic, honest to god, truly viral explosion of many, many people who'd basically never heard of any of this before, mostly dogpiling on Thor for being such a disingenuous, egotistical asshole and liar, but also of course encouraging people to sign the SKG petition.
This kind of absurd, out of nowhere explosion of popularity of some topic, idea, meme, whatever, that spreads from person to person to person, from the ground up instead of top down... this is what something going 'viral' originally meant in the earlier days of the internet, 15 to 20 ish years ago.
You know, it spreads, from host to host, like a pandemic outbreak, shockingly rapidly.
These days we have everything hypermanaged by algorithms that silo you into your own content niche... and this was an exceptional enough of an event that it broke containment.
Videos like ... this entire topic/event/story... used to be what the YouTube trending tab looked like.... just totally random shit that for whatever reason, a bunch of people organically shared with each other, back when the algos were much, much more primitive.
...
Anyway... extremely ironically, a whole lot of the viral nature of this is due to Thor being just such an astoundingly massive piece of shit liar and manipulator.
He has a whole entire history of being astoundingly cocky, arrogant, dishonest, deceptive, intellectually inconsistent, rhetorically manipulative, etc, and it is genuienly... just astounding, i dont know what other word to use, to go through every single shitty thing Thor has done or said, not only in regards to SKG, but many, many other things Thor has done.
Basically, Thor is now a lolcow, a perfect person to milk by making content criticizing him, because he really is that much of an unbelievable, outrageuous idiot asshole.
Piewdiepie made a community post yesterday supporting it and asking people to go sign if that has still something to do with it.
Well whatever it was it seems to be working. 876k now. Crossing fingers.
910k and going.
He seems to be doing good stuff. Kinda giving whiplash
2 hours later and it's 860k.
2 more and it's at 880k holy shit
1hr more and its 890k
900k
909k now. signed ✅
918k now. Not European, but you guys give me hope for the future :)
944k!
955k now
962k. Incredible
978k
Uh oh I'm getting this screen now:
924k yeah this could reach the 2 million mark
WHAAAT LETSGOOOOO DABABY. Thank you PirateSoftware for the publicity :3
And fuck you too btw PirateSoftware :)
Wait untill people realize that Ross Scott has had a running show, 'Freeman's Mind', going back to basically the fucking machinima days, where he just does a playthrough of all of Half Life and voices Gordon's inner thoughts.
Its still on his youtube channel!
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6PNZBb6b9LvDWpI-5CPYUxG1Rnm-vr9V
We are going to need another petition to get Ross an honorary title, a goddamned bust of an upraised fist in an HEV suit, clenching a crowbar, with 'For Exceptional Valor and Dutiful Service in the Defense of Video Gaming' emblazoned on its base.
Let the memes flow!
I remember Freeman's Mind, but I have no idea who any of the people in those pictures are.
Ross is the dude with long hair and laser eyes.
On the right in the second pic.
Holy shit that's him ?
He my hero now
I came for Freeman's Mind, stayed for the Game Dungeon, got deadgamepilled in the process.
I highly recommend checking all of his stuff out.
Same! The next step is watching his monthly proof-of-life video chats while working on other stuff 😅
I kinda wish his next videochat is just him opening up a bottle of champagne, drinking it all without saying a word and that's it =D
Oh that's good. I like that.
Is this about the WoW incident? Or dit something else happen?
He has made videos and numerous comments directing his audience not to sign, claiming it will kill games.
Than he has really lost it. Leaving a game that people paid for in a playable state is the least a developer/publisher can do.
Whats wrong with PirateSoftware? He runs a ferret rescue which doesn't claim any tax incentives and he teaches people about security and ethics, I've never heard of him having beef with anyone.
Yeah he seems pretty positive and helpful, so did his bias mislead him on this one?
Also I wasn’t even sure he was still a huge fan of his former employer—but now that I think of it I guess he was really pleased with his time there, cuz he’s proud of his ban wave strategies and stuff
He tends to be condescending, toxic, and dishonest. I happened to watch this video the other day that covers a fair bit of stuff including the stop killing games petitions, if you've got 20 minutes.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=R-RaQZPzhqU
Things like
- completely misrepresenting the stop killing games initiative.
- bitching for quite a while that "someone" pulled a mob during a
world of warcraftraid causing a wipe, going back to see who it was to remove them, seeing it was himself and then justifying why it was now the right call. - running away from his group in world of warcraft in a fight claiming he has no mana, while he's wasting moves to drain the last of his mana and he has ways of getting around half of it back. This was during some kind of creater guild thing where if you die you lose your character. So abandoning his team to save himself and lying about it.
- banning/blocking everyone who criticizes or corrects him on these things
- DMCA'd and threatened legal action on an indie dev for a parody game that included him as a cockroach.
That video was really good, felt kinda Drew Gooden-esque in parts.
Never meet your heroes ig
OOF
Don't stop yet! They might still remove incorrectly filed entries.
Pedal to the metal on all fronts!
Peddle to the metal
Lol, nice pun, good one.
Honestly that was a typo on my part, I'm really tired rn lol
130k now with time left. I think we good.
Jesus what, a week or so ago this was dead in the water.
Who? I seriously have no idea who you're talking about.
I honestly think that the main reason this has kicked off is that up until about a week ago it wasn't really advertised. I didn't even know that it started the petition up again, I knew the original one failed because parliament closed and for some reason that meant the petition had to end.
PirateSoftware (Thor) is a streamer and a game developer who is a narcissistic asshole. He's been very against the SKG petition since I think the start since if it passed he would be forced to keep supporting his games once they fail (it's happened before) and made a video trying to torpedo the petition some months ago by spreading disinformation that's easily disproven with a halfway decent level of reading comprehension. Recently the guy who runs the SKG petition announced that Piratesoftware was successful, which caused a lot of big streamers and Youtubers to catch on and call PirateSofware out while endorsing SKG, including MoistCritikal. Since then the number of signings have skyrocketed.
Wait what's this story about him being banned from furry communities? That sounds like a really fun story to read lol
I'm glad I'm not online enough to know of this guy!
Like the McRib and chlamydia, we're back baby!
Don't forget measles
And herpes! The gift that keeps on giving!
And Fashism!
Why are we all sleeping on the plague?
What's funny about this whole thing is it's almost like PirateSoftwares days in EVE Online when he invited everyone to Pochven space cause he thought he was hot shit and then proceeded to get his ass handed to him and he rage quit the game. He brought attention to something that ended up having the opposite effect of what he wanted.
Granted he was absolutely shit at EVE regardless of what he's told his audience. couldn't fit a ship to save his life, ran for CSM and no one voted for him, then rage quit when everyone and even his own corp proceeded to kick his teeth in.
Wow, I hadn't even heard of that particular story of Thor being an egotistical asshat.
I'd been looking into the WoW debacle, then stumbled into other stuff, but nope, that one's new to me.
I was in his corp (my old one merged with his, I had no idea who he was for quite a while), and this... isn't exactly accurate. First, from what I remember, he left on okay terms with the corp.
There was a laundry list of issues with Pochven, a lot of them due to CCP just not bothering to fix issues that the players reported, and moving devs who did want to try and fix some of the issues to different areas of the game. It got to the point where it wasn't economically viable to live in the area, which reduced how many ships we could field, and the number of people even willing to join.
CCP also took forever to decide on how wormholes interacted with the region, and changed those interactions frequently. Some of these were great, for instance there was a point where most of the wormholes linked to wormhole systems, and it was a complicated (and dangerous) dance to get people in and out of the region undetected. CCP ended up going with the worst possible interaction: many wormholes directly linked to nullsec space, where massive alliances could easily find them and send massive fleets through with little effort.
He wasn't the only one to quit, to be honest I'm surprised he stayed for as long as he did given how he acts now.
Is Thor an egotistical narcissist? Absolutely. Was this a case of that? Not really
By the way, this is a statement he put out alongside the other two main groups in Pochven. I can tell you for a fact that 90+% of the players who spent most of their time in Pochven felt this move was absolutely justified*: 
Edit* And the other ~10% disagreed with the destruction of the citadels, not the sentiment of the statement
Well hey, I very much appreciate more info from someone who was actually there!
The worst part is that this are far from the only two events. He has been kicked from several other guilds, for exactly the same narcissistic and egoistic behavior. If everywhere you go it smells like shit, at some point you have to start checking your own shoes. He is just always adamant that it's other people's fault that it smells like shit, when he has full diaper.
Yep.
There's the whole... apparently when Thor was essentially high school to post high school age, he managed to cajole a younger SecondLife user, who was actually decently talented at creating like clothes and custom player models...
So in SecondLife, you can actually make real money that way, you can cash out the SecondLife currency for actual realworld money.
Yeah SecondLife was actually quite a pioneer in a lot of ways, from a technical and just 'what even is a video game' standpoint, lets say uh 'eccentric' community and reputation aside.
And Thor basically convinced this other SL user, who was like 5 years younger than him... that he could make them both more money as a sort of salesman, promoter, of this other persons user made content... if they profit share.
I may have some details wrong here, but basically... Thor did basically nothing in terms of promotion, yet he made a significant chunk of change off of this other person.
Because ... SL just has basically a universal market you can list things in.
Like uh, Escape from Tarkov, or FF14's auction house or what not, fully built into the game... but even more so as it actually allows you to cash out to real world money.
its not like you'd have to do some kind of technical wizardry to enable sales, its not like Thor whipped up some kind of gray/black market system / payment processor way back when PayPal was still a fairly new idea.
Alongside that, there were allegations of basically ERP going waaay too far.
Now, this other person has I think entirely denied any kind of ERP abuse, sexual or just normal relationship abuse, says everything was fine...
But a good number of people seem to think that the essentially digital labor theft Thor did, basically amounts to its own kind of grooming, exploitation.
... As best I can tell...
He actually, legally changed his first name to Thor.
And he has gone by Thor for... at least 5 years?... in his Twitch streaming career.
I fully agree this is an insult to the old Gods, but ... Thor is apparently literally his actual name.
His older username / online handle was 'Maldavius Figtree' or something like that, can't say I am aware of his actual birth name.
Haha, holy shit. Somehow I had never connected that Piratesoftware was Maldavius. Yeah, that explains so, so very much of this entire SKG debacle.
I dont get it, what's this got to do with the petition?
He was against it, which resulted in a lot of negative opinions about the bill and netting less votes because of it. It’s gone full Streisand effect.
PirateSoftware was critical of the initiative when it first started. Some people attribute its initial lack of success to his opposition.
He was later involved in some drama and his reputation fell, and the petition's creator finally addressed his claims. Now the petition is having a second wind in its final hour
He wasn't just critical of it, he spread misinformation about it. It was wild to watch someone be so completely and utterly wrong, then double and triple and quadruple down on it.
The Streisand Effect
Is there a clip of this somewhere?
Keep going! Who knows how many signatures will be ruled as invalid.
SIGN THE PETITION DAMMIT 
no worries, you can help as this will benefit you too. if you are on any online gaming comunities with Europeans, you can share the link.
Both are past 100k now! I want to issue a special "fuck you" to all the idiot streamers that tried to kill SKG. And of course a special "go fuck yourself" to PirateSoftware and Asmongold for being fuckwit right wing tools for corporations. You have a special place in my heart as illiterate lapdogs to shitty corporations and right wing shills.
Asmonpoop is a moronic bum and people went from "this weirdo is strangely entertaining" to " let me hear what my moronic hobo-idol has to say about this".
It is a little bit like how people supported Drumpf as a joke first.
Pirate Software too.
They're both such idiot trolls.
PirateSoftware is what dumb people thinks a smart person acts like. His audience can't even pay attention unless he draws boxes in paint. I do understand how he can seem initially likeable, but if you watch him for more than a couple of hours you'll see his knowledge is shallower than a spilled glass of water.
Still in disbelief people think SKG is going to work. The premise fucking genocides the MMORPG genre. You kill games by implementing this horrible understanding of how games work.
I have never seen more people support games who have no fucking idea how games work and it's the most frustrating shit ever. Pirate Software is right. It's not even a debate.
It doesn't.
It just requires that you provide a verson people can host themselves if you take your game offline.
And if a company refuses? They're dead anyway. This is not well thought out and PS called it out. You have no actionable solution but are calling for one to just appear.
If they refuse to make a totally reasonable addition to their game then yeah they can't publish it wow what a concept.
Lol so just kill all MMORPGs. Got it. You're so smart.
I can literally play WOW private servers right now. I can host my own private server and play it single-player.
What is being required is not complicated or difficult.
If a developer wants to destroy their own project instead of taking the extra week of work it takes to let people locally host then that sounds like a really dumb decision.
You're literally whining about nothing.
Oh okay then just make private servers for "dead" games. It's just that easy. What's your problem then?
You keep contradicting yourself and it's embarrassing
No, it's much more reasonable to make devs put the hosting oprions they use in the code of the game for others to use instead of a community having to reverse engineer the net code and build their own tool.
Your contradictions are destroying your argument dude. This is why nobody takes you seriously.
Lol you not understanding why that can't happen is what's sending me. There are so many issues with just the PREMISE of this that you don't even address.
At what point is a game considered dead? When is a company obligated to provide access? Will the company be legally obligated to release character profiles? If yes, how does one stop third parties from modifying it/cheating prior to hosting? If no, it's everyone expected to restart ion company death? How will this access be granted or hosted? How long will this need to be available for? Who pays to keep this information hosted for that duration?
There are so many fucking questions unanswered because you seem to think you can just throw fucking LAN ports on a game and it just work. Your brain is stuck in 2004 where all you needed was an IP address and port number. Games aren't that simple anymore and the ones that are, already fucking have it.
You not understanding the technology of game development has nothing to do with this fair ruling.
Games used to always come with an option to play somehow by yourself offline.
Sorry but this isn't a big issue, developers can do the bare minimum to make sure people are able to play a videogame they pay money for.
You're gonna have to go find someone else to whine at about this now because I'm done engaging with you.
"Games used to have it but I'm going to ignore why they don't now and demand it be like it used to be"
You're bitching about the evolution of games, demanding they return to suit your preference without explaining how.
Congrats, you're old and out of touch. Or just dumb. I don't give a shit which, just stop spewing misinformation.
Hold on there buddy! There's no reason to be derogatory towards hobos like that. I don't think I've ever been quite so offended on the internet as to have someone associate my good (user)name with the likes of Asmongold. If you don't bring that down a notch I'm gonna send the ghost of Woody Guthrie to haunt you until your dying days.
They tried to kill it? Really? Like, “we must stop this from going forward!” In that way? Why would anyone attempt to stop it?
I still think this is going to fail. But I’m not trying to stop it. I hope it succeeds.
I also find the debate bros involved to be annoying.
Yep they actively campaigned against the petition and fundamentally misrepresented it.
10 months ago PirateSoftware started a campaign against it starting here-ish: https://youtu.be/ioqSvLqB46Y
Also 10 months Asmongold did a react video that supported PirateSoftware: https://youtu.be/AhVsyhjcndw
PirateSoftware refused to acknowledge that he got several things wrong, and even refused to acknowledge it when confronted. He actively bans people with dissenting opinions in his stream so it wasn't surprising that he refused to acknowledge that he was wrong. About a week ago Charlie (aka Penguinz0) confronted him about it and he still refused respond to basic factual inaccuracies: https://youtu.be/6sJpTCitKqw
Ross did a video talking about the whole thing last week as well: https://youtu.be/HIfRLujXtUo
There's a lot more to it, but that's the broad strokes. I hope PirateSoftware's stream keeps declining until he is relegated to complete obscurity. Also, PirateSoftware can eat my entire ass.
I know about PirateDouchebag, but I am not aware of Asmongold's issue.
I apologize but, let's say that I've living under a rock
Asmongold is a megaphone for shitty opinions. Like I posted elsewhere he'll change his opinion if he gets called out, but the damage was done when he put it on the megaphone in the first place. His take on the "never play defense" is to not have any actual opinions when confronted then just go right back to saying other right wing bullshit.
I don't like Asmon but my understanding is he supports SKG. Am I wrong?
Also I saw a clip of SomeOrdinaryGamers, which indicated that he tempered his support with a dash of (wrong) both-sides-ism. But it was only a clip.
Asmongold does that. Like the dude doesn't have any real opinions other than what gets views. If he sees the winds changing he'll pull a 180 in order to take the heat off himself. He also has hoards of followers and youtube minions to make him seem far more centerist than he is. He's like the personification of the alt-right playbook for dummies.
I mean watch/listen to The Alt-Right Playbook series and tell me this is not what he does on a daily basis: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJA_jUddXvY7v0VkYRbANnTnzkA_HMFtQ
My understanding is that they misunderstood the petition, so this new one is rephrased in an attempt to avoid another misinterpretation
Politicians seem very good at misunderstanding things when it suits them.
It was extremely clear what the previous petition was, it was just they weren't interested in doing anything so they intentionally misunderstood.
Is that why they left “from” out of the title?
They didn't close it. They provided an answer early. That as they see it, existing trade and consumer law should cover games and they don't plan on carving out extra legislation for it but they will "keep an eye on it".
Now it is over 100k, it doesn't actually mean anything more than they "might" debate it in parliament.
Now, don't get me wrong. I signed the petition, and I think they SHOULD look into it. But, my old cynical bones tell me that even if they do have a debate in parliament. It will be at a time when there will be 5 MPs in there, who will have nothing to say on the matter and it will be swept under the rug with a further canned statement drawn up by some civil servant in whitehall talking about consumer law just like the statement before.
Most western governments are on the side of industry, and that includes game developers. I cannot imagine they care about this subject and will do the bare minimum lip service to move past it.
I hope I'm wrong.
I do have a bit more hope for the European parliament. Just a little. They do seem to be a bit more pro-consumer. That is the one that matters most IMO.
I don't think you're wrong, and I think the EU petition will go the same way, but it's still worth signing regardless.
Completely agree. It should not deter anyone.
As a Brit I have more faith in the EU parliament doing something good than ours.
If the EU petition makes it, then it will provide the UK petition support too as part of whatever debate goes on about it.
The UK petition ends before the EU petition so my guess is that they'll give us some canned response before the end of the month. In their heads that will end the discussion.
Parliament will have 7 days after it closes before their planned summer recess. You think they will work that quickly to churn out a boilerplate debate?
Yeah they won't even discuss it, we'll just get the same boilerplate response we got last time.
Good job UK ! Now cancel Brexit and vote for the EU one !
The hostility from the EU about the UK rejoining (especially from France) tells me that's not likely to happen.
Good. States shouldn’t be able to just go out on a whim and immediately go back in again like it’s a revolving door. The consequences should be severe for leaving. Otherwise voters in other member states will pull this shit as well, because they think they can just rejoin when the next pro EU government comes around. Also many voters in the UK voted for leave as a protest vote not because they actually wanted to leave. They didn’t understand the ramifications of their vote. Let the UK be the example of what a protest vote can cause.
Surely the opposite should be true. It just shows that countries cannot leave the EU because it is far too damaging to their economy
not quite sure how you expect to cancel anything which already happened
The Islanders finished there's, but the EU one still has a ways to go!
946,944 currently, it's almost there!
Its going quite quickly now though! 934k signatures
Fell asleep, woke up, suddenly there's only 30k left on the EU initiative.
Now it's just 20k
Only 4K!
Only -1800!
The EU page started 404ing for me right when it should have hit 1 mil; are we being trolled?
Edit: nvm worked from desktop. Maybe just hug of death.
It is still getting hugged, I guess people are rushing to add their names now that it is a won battle.
Edit: managed to load at 999,614.
I am a little worried that some of the surge in signatures has been botting, but I sincerely hope I'm wrong.
You need to identify yourself with a state issued form of identification so I doubt botting happened.
Not in every country. In about half of them, you only need to provide a name, address and date of birth.
Sheesh. Was jot aware of that. Still hope people were not dumb enough to bot it.
Some definitely were, but hopefully not too many. There's still almost a whole month left to build up a solid buffer.
Well to be honest if the only info needed is like name and date of birth I could just enroll my whole family and technically all would be legitimate signatures right?
Correct, although that would be technically illegal but no one will check. However, bots and trolls who spammed faked addresses will most certainly have their signatures invalidated.
Depends heavily on country.
Keep pushing. There are probably people using VPNs to sign the petition and those will get purged. Either from idiots who don't know better or AAA studios trying to get people to stop now that it's reached the goal. This is true for both the UK and EU petitions.
99.09%🙏🙏
Watched this, was very enlightening
I knew once kliksphilip makes a video about it would be one of the best ones to communicate the intent of the initiative.
Heh yeah!
great stuff!!!
I can't wait for this to effectively do nothing oe alternatively kill games that have an online only capability that refuse to devote work to force a single player model/release their netcode.
This is the stupidest, well intentioned movement I've seen in awhile and the fervor behind it is a waste. You know what you want but refuse to understand why it can't happen. You chase the past not realizing you can never go back.
This is most republican shit I've ever seen. "Make games great again!" Jesus.
No need to be so salty. Maybe instead just read what skg really is about because you obviously have misunderstood it completely.
People are sitting on PS for giving a completely correct take. I've read SKG and even listened to what the petition owners have said. I've stayed in the loop which is why it's so frustrating to watch people with noble intentions cannibalize people for telling you it's not only misguided but impossible.
Legislation will not compel a dying company to release code that will let any random person breathe life back into it on their own whim. Period.
Legislation will not compel a dying company to release code
Well I guess then it's a good thing that the petition doesn't demand that.
Upon reading the UK version over again you're right - it's even worse. It states that companies no longer be allowed to 'disable' games which they often don't do. They just stop maintaining them until the infrastructure for it disappears.
I expected at the very least gamers would have understood the problem they're complaining about but I got ahead of myself. The only thing SKG might accomplish legally is to allow third parties to host servers at End of Life but the counter argument to that is cheaters using their own servers.
None of this is thought out. You're demanding a solution be created AND implemented. This will go nowhere. Pirate Software was right and it's stunning.
Upon reading the UK version over again you're right
:)
it's even worse.
sigh
Why?
It states that companies no longer be allowed to 'disable' games which they often don't do. They just stop maintaining them until the infrastructure for it disappears.
You're close. Maybe read it again. Or something. I don't know.
Maybe instead of being the condescending dickhead you and yours project onto Pirate Software, you could instead point out specifics since you're advocating for it. I'm confident you can't though since I'm sure you haven't read shit, just listened to people slobber all over it.
Maybe we wouldn't have to be such condescending dickheads if you cared to not make up stuff.
the initiative seeks to prevent the remote disabling of videogames by the publishers, before providing reasonable means to continue functioning of said videogames without the involvement from the side of the publisher.
That's the core idea. Publishers should just make sure that after they milked their product it can somehow be run without their interference.
That doesn't require sources. In fact, this doesn't even state any method that is preferred. Could they release sources? Sure. They could also release server binaries. They could also patch out the connection to their servers and only leave people with local multiplayer mode or something. They could do whatever. The initiative doesn't care.
The practice of licensing a product indefinitely but then just disabling it remotely is hostile to consumers. If they really, really want to keep their business model, they should sell licenses that are limited to a certain timeframe right from the start. Selling perpetual licenses and then disabling them without leaving consumers with any means to still access what they paid for shouldn't be legal and probably isn't.
Also this right here:
The initiative does not seek to acquire ownership of said videogames, associated intellectual rights or monetization rights, neither does it expect the publisher to provide resources for the said videogame once they discontinue it while leaving it in a reasonably functional (playable) state.
Nobody wants your ip. Just don't break stuff you sold.
"The initiative doesn't care"
Right. There is no clear solution to the problem, only a demand for a solution.
"They could release sources/server binaries"
At what point? When is a game legally considered dead and a company legally obligated to provide that? What happens if they just shut down prior to fulfilling it?
"They could patch out their servers and leave local multiplayer or something"
Or something? This is what PS drilled into this initiative for. You don't actually grasp what you're asking for or understand what legal measures even exist to enforce them. You have a deep desire to go back to the early 2000s where your data wasn't really hosted on servers, it was just arena shooter and LAN parties.
Games today are not able to curtail to these absurd demands. Not because they refuse to but because the complexity of what they offer is not easily designed to be replaced.
You don't like the current model but fail to provide an alternative that can replace it. That's the critique. It's beyond childish to look at a problem, offer nothing, then get pissed when someone tells you that you don't know what you're talking about.
I don't like that I only own a license to play a game either, but what's the alternative? If you own the game, they can't release a patch to fix bugs or it would be a violation of the law for modifying your property. That's bad.
Right. There is no clear solution to the problem, only a demand for a solution.
Yes. Because that's how laws work.
At what point? When is a game legally considered dead and a company legally obligated to provide that? What happens if they just shut down prior to fulfilling it?
At the point at which they stop providing that service themselves. "What happens if they don't?" Yeah duh, what happens if you break a law? Then courts can enforce it. Is this the first time you heard about laws?
You don't actually grasp what you're asking for or understand what legal measures even exist to enforce them.
I understand it just well. You telling me I don't doesn't change that.
Games today are not able to curtail to these absurd demands. Not because they refuse to but because the complexity of what they offer is not easily designed to be replaced.
Bullshit. Also, as I said, they could just release their shitty server once they shut it down. You're taking one solution that doesn't require them to do that that I suggested, assume that games are just too complex for that specific solution and tell me that this assumption (which is also debatable at best) invalidates the idea of playing a game locally. What nonsense.
You don't like the current model but fail to provide an alternative that can replace it. That's the critique. It's beyond childish to look at a problem, offer nothing, then get pissed when someone tells you that you don't know what you're talking about.
I provided plenty of alternatives. If publishers or you don't like it, fine, then come up with your own. Again, laws work like that: they provide guardrails. The idea that people should be able to keep using what they bought has been the core of trade for millenia but suddenly it's insane to ask for that? What nonsense. Gog sells plenty of current ones without drm, so somehow it is still possible to compile games without attaching a shitty service model. But even if there's a some shitty game that the publisher absolutely doesn't want to release after they already milked it beyond profitability (what you say would be impossible, which I still think is bullshit), according to this initiative they could just stop selling perpetual licenses. At least people then know what they're getting into.
you own the game, they can't release a patch to fix bugs or it would be a violation of the law for modifying your property. That's bad.
What the fuck? No! Nobody wants a law that prohibits changing games. Games have been patched since forever. Where did you get that idea? You keep coming up with nonsense that has nothing to do with initiative. Just because a company can't shut down my car remotely doesn't mean they can't repair it! How do you come up with that crap?
"Yes that's how laws work"
No. That's not how laws work. Laws provide detailed steps and instructions that must be followed in specific scenarios. They're designed like that to avoid loopholes.
"At the point they stop providing service"
Great. So the company shuts down the same day, declares bankruptcy, and is immune to further legislation because it's dead. You can't sue the company, it doesn't exist anymore. Is this the first time you've tried to hold a corporation liable?
"I've provided plenty of alternatives"
Cite one. You can't "make guardrails" and expect companies to just figure it out you oaf. That's like proposing a law that nobody can walk to work because it's unsafe. How? Who cares! Figure it out everyone!
"GOG can still sell games without DRM"
What the fuck does that have to do with anything? DRM as of right now is how companies can legally allow you to play their game while still retaining the right to modify and alter it after the point of sale. Traditionally, you'd get a game - then nothing. No update. No bug fixes. No dlc. THAT IS WHAT YOU'RE ADVOCATING FOR.
"Games have been patched since forever!"
My brother in Christ, I've been playing since before games had online anything. Internet matchmaking in general was a free service included with certain titles. It can't be provided perpetually and you expecting them to basically open source their net code is absurd.
We have games that cannot work on a LAN model but you're intent on forcing that model on every game, even if it means killing those games or forcing them to not be made in the first place. That's what happens when you don't clearly outline legislation.
That's the critique. That your well intentions are just unstructured bullshit that can't be actioned on. You're just pissed Pirate Software called you out for not having a plan like he does every idiot. Condescendingly.
That's not how laws work.
It literally is. You pass a law that states that from 2035, cars must not emit greenhouse gases. The law doesn't state how that's accomplished. You can sell battery electric cars, you can sell hydrogen powered cars, you can even sell combustion engine cars as long as you make sure that they only burn biomass-based or green-hydrogen-based fuels.
Great. So the company shuts down the same day, declares bankruptcy, and is immune to further legislation because it's dead.
Okay, valid point, but that's the same for everything. It's literally how capitalism wants it to work. If somebody builds a house for you, messes up the process and then declares bankruptcy, you're fucked. If you want to change the system, fine, but that's not what this is about.
However, if those companies have to have a roadmap to work through after they stop providing the service for their game, it might make it even easier for a judge to just tell them to go through with it after they filed for bankruptcy. If anything, your corner case is at least a bit improved.
Cite one.
Release Server binaries.
Traditionally, you'd get a game - then nothing. No update. No bug fixes. No dlc. THAT IS WHAT YOU'RE ADVOCATING FOR.
Are you insane? Patches and expansions have been around since forever. Certainly way earlier than saas infrastructure. The ability to patch games has nothing to do with shitty service based business models.
Internet matchmaking in general was a free service included with certain titles. It can't be provided perpetually and you expecting them to basically open source their net code is absurd.
Nobody demands that. You're again arguing against your own strawman.
We have games that cannot work on a LAN model but you're intent on forcing that model on every game, even if it means killing those games or forcing them to not be made in the first place. That's what happens when you don't clearly outline legislation.
Bullshit. If a game requires a server that manages the connection between players then that server software can run on any computer just as well as the publisher's. There's no law of physics that requires EA to run a server just to have some jerks lust over loot boxes.
"You pass a law that states cars can't have greenhouse gasses by 2035"
Apples and oranges. Demanding cars transition to clean fuel alternatives is not the same as demanding game manufacturers design and implement systems that must be fully functional in an offline state. This would be akin to demanding nuclear reactors be retrofitted to use fusion by 2035. Despite it not being sustainable or commercially possible.
"Release server binaries"
How do you enforce that? Legally compel a company to publish the server binaries with every copy of the game? Are developers expected to eat the cost when copies are pirated and use third party servers? I love things like FiveM or private servers for dead MMORPGs but those are usually created as a niche for specific communities. Is every game expected to have third party servers? Sounds magical but under capitalism, that's an insane demand.
"The ability to patch games has been around since forever"
I'm not talking about the ability because yes it's always technically been possible, I'm talking in 9/10 cases you'd get a physical copy of a game and that was it. Unchanging. It shipped and it's done. You owned the disk, the data on that disk, and had full control over it aside from redistribution for profit. Actual updates that were delivered over the internet came around the same time as Steam and DRM programs.
I genuinely don't see how we can fully own our games while developers retain the legal ability to modify them. The law as it exists gives the consumer protections around owned property like that.
"You're arguing with strawmen"
I am deriving statements from insinuations you yourself are making. Consumer protections prevent companies from altering things they sell you. It's your property after the sale. It's possible you're unaware of that but it's an extremely strong reason why the industry made the switch. It wasn't just for giggles or greed.
"That server software can run on any computer just as well"
Okay explain to me what happens when Final Fantasy XI reaches end of life and all services that authenticate and host player data shut down? Who hosts that? Are developers who want massive open worlds going to be expected, by law, to program a world that plays itself? Bots for NPCs, taking the roles of players, pushing events automatically? I am begging for answers because it keeps feeling like I'm the only one trying to figure out what's going to happen to the games I play regularly.
Most online only games are online only because they focus on players interacting with other players on a grand scale. They're a social experience. Demands that it be playable offline defeats the purpose of it existing and we went over the server binaries thing. Nobody is going to jump at the chance to reset their progress for most of these games just for the shot to play it for however long this specific server is alive.
I hope I'm wrong but this entire thing seems like a well intentioned, misguided bomb intent to be dropped in the middle of the industry.
Demanding cars transition to clean fuel alternatives is not the same as demanding game manufacturers design and implement systems that must be fully functional in an offline state. This would be akin to demanding nuclear reactors be retrofitted to use fusion by 2035. Despite it not being sustainable or commercially possible.
Are you even listening to yourself? I'm pretty sure it's harder to redesign a car's engine and fuel system than it is to have counter strike call myshittyhomeserver.com instead of valvesmoneygenerator.com - and just the thought that you think it's about as complex to disable some stupid drm system (which has been done numerous times before by kids with too much time on their hands) as it is to design a fusion reactor is just insane.
But again: they do not have to be fully functional in an offline state. Just release the server if that's what's needed. You already sold me the game, you stopped providing the one part that you wanted to provide, now just give me that. Done.
How do you enforce that? Legally compel a company to publish the server binaries with every copy of the game?
No! No no no! It's after the game reached its eol! The idea is that the companies keep doing what they do, but once they're done they have some roadmap to leave the game in a functional state. Once they're done!
I'm talking in 9/10 cases you'd get a physical copy of a game and that was it.
Actual updates that were delivered over the internet came around the same time as Steam and DRM programs.
Bullshit. For games that ran from their ROMs (like snes-era) that was true because there was literally no way to modify them. But ever since they were used on media with write access, they got patched. You should just download a patch, point it to the directory where you installed the game and be done. If your connection sucked you'd buy a magazine that had patches on its CD or something.
Also, steam doesn't guarantee updates either. If a developer doesn't want to update their game, that's it. If a developer wants to update their game, great, that works without any such system as well. Can you force people to apply updates if the game isn't online? No. Does all of this have anything to do with the initiative? Not at all. This isn't about patching games that are still supported. This is about what happens long after the last patch was released.
Okay explain to me what happens when Final Fantasy XI reaches end of life and all services that authenticate and host player data shut down? Who hosts that?
That's not the question! If a developer decided to release server binaries after they shut down the service, at least I could host it. I could just run it locally, the community could come together to run an instance or whatever. This is about having such options, not about forcing publishers to keep hosting their stuff.
Are developers who want massive open worlds going to be expected, by law, to program a world that plays itself? Bots for NPCs, taking the roles of players, pushing events automatically? I am begging for answers because it keeps feeling like I'm the only one trying to figure out what's going to happen to the games I play regularly.
None of that is demanded! Nothing! And I have no idea where you're pulling those ideas from!
Massively multiplayer online worlds don't have to be populated by bots. Multiplayer games don't have to be redesigned. If a player opened a game to see a barren land, filled with no players and only dead npcs, that's fine. But hey, they could occasionally stroll through the forest that they met their spouse in or something. Just like looking at a painting in a museum with your friends is different from looking at it at home, this would be the case here, too. But at least you can still enjoy your painting, unlike the game that's been remotely disabled.
Most online only games are online only because they focus on players interacting with other players on a grand scale. They're a social experience. Demands that it be playable offline defeats the purpose of it existing and we went over the server binaries thing. Nobody is going to jump at the chance to reset their progress for most of these games just for the shot to play it for however long this specific server is alive.
This is true. Except it might not be nobody. We're talking about culture. Just like thousands of songs have been written to be forgotten, occasionally there are pieces that become culturally relevant. Sometimes even after the author dies. Imagine Franz Kafka writing his stories just to have Max Brod not publish them but lock them behind a shitty service that shut down after he wasn't profitable enough, immediately burning all copies that were sold so far.
This is not about keeping the original experience. This is about museums being able to show people works of art fifty years from now. This is about me showing my childhood memories to my kids. Would they see my old friend dragonhaxxor9999 run into battle with me? Certainly not. But would they get an idea and would I be nostalgic about it? Certainly. And why would the profitability of some stupid service be a reason not to have that? Just let me fucking run the software I paid money for! I own those bits! Have my processor execute them if I want to!
Hmmm? The UK isn't part of the EU anymore so they won't have much impact lol.
That's why it was a completely separate, smaller one
Just threw me for a loop for a moment that it uses the same name and that this page displays links to both.
thats fair enough, it was a bit confusing for me at first too.
Can we do a stop killing children now?
Because saving video games and stopping the killing of children are mutually exclusive???
I didn't say they were. They are particularly useful for "hiding our heads" and forget about the shitty world. They play a big roll keeping me sane and I respect the art very much. I would just like to see the same kind of effort put into to it.
After you edited it, it is more clear now. You should have phrased it that way to begin with.
Didn't edited mate but glad you read it positively.
But they yummy
This is a EU initiative but you're free to create one in the US.