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Comment on Statement on Stop Killing Games - VIDEOGAMES EUROPE

Absolute trash statement, I really hope this bites them.

They’re just repeating a lot of the same misinformation that Pirate Software had been saying, the exact things that had riled the gaming community and caused this latest wave of action. We’re already primed to discount the points they’re trying to make and it shows exactly how disingenuous they’re being.

Positively, I hope this reflects some true fear on their end.

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. In addition, many titles are designed from the ground-up to be online-only; in effect, these proposals would curtail developer choice by making these video games prohibitively expensive to create.

As has been stated over and over and over again, private servers used to be an option until the industry decided they weren’t any more. If the result of this is that it forces the industry to not make shitty, exploitative games, that’s still a win for the consumers. I would rather have no game at all rather than something that psychologically tries to exploit my FOMO and drains my wallet.

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Vittelius@feddit.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
It’s also a strawman argument. Because yes, developers have less to no control over the operation of private servers. Yes, that means they can’t moderate those servers.

But

This initiative only covers games, not supported anymore by the devs anyway. Meaning legally speaking everything happening to private servers would be literally not their concern anymore. And new legislation, should it come to that, would spell that out.

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- aksdb@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  Same for the “online only design” argument. The moment they decide it’s not viable anymore and they want to shut it down: what does it matter to them, what players do with it? As long as they offer the service themselves, no one is bugging them. (Although I would absolutely be in favor of also getting self hosting options right from the start, I am realist enough to accept, that this would indeed lower economical feasibility of some projects.)
  
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  - Vittelius@feddit.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    That part of the argument is slightly different. If I understand the press statement correctly, what they are saying is: “Some servers can’t, on a technical level, be hosted by the community”. And that’s not a straw man (arguing against something never asked for), that’s just a lie. We have access to all the same stuff as the industry (AWS etc). Hosting these kinds of servers might be very expensive, but the initiative only asks for a way to keep games alive not for a cheap way (though I would prefer a cheap way of course)
    
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    aksdb@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    I imagine it’s rather licensing. If they have to provide the software at some point, they can’t use components they are not allowed to distribute. And I agree, that this will impact development costs. But with the law in place, this is not an unexpected cost but one that can be factored in. Might be, that some live services are then no longer viable… but I don’t care. There are more games than anyone could play and games are cancelled or not even started to develop all the time for various reasons. One more or less is just noise.
    
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- audaxdreik@pawb.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  For sure, 💯
  
  secure players’ data: there should be no sensitive player data being stored on a private game server like that anyways, you’re connecting to a server, not logging into a service
  
  remove illegal content: not the developer’s responsibility in this case, it’s the responsibility of the private server (admittedly this could get messier with net neutrality and safe harbor stuff? unclear, but point remains, it’s still not the developer’s responsibility here)
  
  combat unsafe community content: ditto. Not the the responsibility of the developer but the private servers. It’s often been argued that the smaller communities of private servers do a BETTER job of moderating themselves)
  
  would leave rights holders liable: HERE IT IS! We can’t let you self host something like Marvel Rivals due to all the copyrights and trademarks and brand protections. How dare you!
  
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