I’m speaking from ignorance but isn’t the server backend often licensed and they couldn’t release it if they wanted, even as binaries? Granted, going forward they’d have to make those considerations before they accept restrictive licenses in core parts of their game. And the market for those licenses will change accordingly. So there core of your argument is correct.
Comment on The signatures are still coming and it's already making an impact
Decq@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
This is just pure fabricated bullshit. They themselves started limiting options. Remember the old days where you could host your own server with basically any game? They took that away, not us. So they themselves are 100% responsible for this ‘uprising’. Besides they could just provide/open-source the backend and disable drm. Hardly any work at all.
But of course it’s not about that. They just try to hide behind this ‘limits options’ argument. But they simply don’t want you to be able to play their old games. They want you to buy their latest CoD 42.
roguetrick@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Dunstabzugshaubitze@feddit.org 3 weeks ago
lots of licensed or bought code in development in general, but knowing that you’ll have to provide code to the public eventually, means that you’ll have to take this into consideration when starting a project.
SheeEttin@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
Which is doable, but is additional time and money.
Dunstabzugshaubitze@feddit.org 3 weeks ago
codifying in law that your customers must be able to run a server for your game, when you stop running them has the consequence, that you’ll have to buy licenses that allow you to give binaries or code for those things to your customers. every middleware or library that does not allow that won’t be a viable product anymore. It’s not more dev work, it will change how licensing in game development for middleware and such will be done.
BassTurd@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Why would coding something with less restrictions take more time and money?
Honytawk@feddit.nl 3 weeks ago
Making games online is also additional time and money.
Decq@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Maybe so, but that’s a decision they make. Surely I as customer shouldn’t be taken away what i paid for because of that? And if so they should have mentioned clearly upon sale that they would take away my product after 3-4 years (though maybe that’s the case in those dense ToS?) . Everything else should be considered illegal and fraudulent if they planned/knew it from the start. Which is the case if it’s a licensing issue
Besides, I’m pretty sure after those 4 years the code is outdated and they could renegotiate the license to be more open to release a binary.
FreeLikeGNU@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I remember the “old days”. That was when dialup internet was still popular and running a server usually meant it was on your 10Mb LAN. When we got DSL it was better and you could serve outside your LAN. This was also the time when games had dark red code booklets, required having a physical CD inserted or weirdly formatted floppies (sometimes a combination of these). You could get around these things and many groups of people worked hard at providing these workarounds. Today, many of these games are only playable and only still exist because of the thankless work these groups did. As it was and as it is has not changed. Many groups of people are still keeping games playable despite the “war” that corporations wage on them (and by proxy on us). Ironically, now that there is such a thing as “classic games” and people are nostalgic for what brought them joy in the past, business has leapt at this as a marketing opportunity. What makes that ironic? These business are re-selling the versions of games with the circumvention patches that the community made to make their games playable so long ago. The patches that publishers had such a big problem with and sought to eradicate. This is because the original code no longer exists and the un-patched games will not run at all on modern hardware and the copy-protections will not tolerate a virtual machine. Nothing has changed.
We can even go back as far as when people first started making books or maps that had deliberate errors so that they could track when their work was redistributed. Do the people referencing these books or maps benefit from these errors?
Why do some of us feel compelled to limit knowledge even at the cost of corrupting that knowledge for those we intend it for (and for those long after who wish to learn from historical knowledge)?
SheeEttin@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
Let’s be real, open sourcing it isn’t “hardly any work”. All the code has to be reviewed to make sure they can legally release it, no third-party proprietary stuff.
Wizard_Pope@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Oh but with the new rules they could do that before making their code work that way. The idea is not for the new laws to apply retroactively but for new games.
Jeffool@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I think your response is coming off as kinda “oh just do it different”. But that still means an entire industry of people are going to have to change how they make things. (And still spend time and money evaluating things at the end, just to be sure nothing slipped through.) I’m in favor of this at least being looked at and honest conversations happening, (which will not happen without this.) But there will certainly be an adjustment period where people on ground level learn and develop new “best practices”. And invariably someone will screw up. The companies are obviously only worried about money. They’ll get over it, is my opinion. But I think it’s worth communicating that we all understand new government regulation is likely going to be a pain in the ass. We just think it’s worth the pain/money.
AtariDump@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Companies do that all the time in response to government regulation. You like seat belts and backup cameras in your car? No sawdust in your food? Transparent pricing when buying internet access? Government regulation. None of those companies went out of business.
spankmonkey@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
When starting a new game, don’t include that stuff. Not including proprietary stuff without meeting their licensing requirements is already a step in the process.
truthfultemporarily@feddit.org 3 weeks ago
There is a reason it’s included though. Stuff like fmod, bink video etc. does complicated things that you otherwise need to implement yourself.
spankmonkey@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
When the law passes, the owners of proprietary functionality will adapt their licensing to meet the requirrments or go out of business when everyone stops using them.
SheeEttin@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
“That stuff” is often core to the game. Any anti-cheat library, for example. On the client site, libraries like physx, bink video, and others are all proprietary and must be replaced and tested before it can be released in a working state. Few companies would release a non-functional game and let reviewers drag them through the mud for it.
spankmonkey@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
None of those things will be affected because this isn’t about making games open source. It is about making games that have a design that allows them to potentially function indefinitely instead of allowing the companies to design them with planned obsolescence like tying single player games to server verification.
Sconrad122@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
So you’re telling me that this could disrupt the anti-cheat industry, which is currently responsible for a lot of the Windows platform lock in the gaming industry and is tied to a lot of potential security vulnerabilities because it goes to a much higher level of privilege than a reasonable user would expect a game to need? I already wish I was in the right geographic area to sign, you don’t need to sell me on it twice!
Bravo@eviltoast.org 3 weeks ago
This is why code should be written to be library-agnostic. Or, rather, libraries should be written to a particular open source API standard to make library agnosticism easier.
cecilkorik@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
It will be hardly any work once a law passes, because they’ll make sure it is. Everyone knows where the proprietary code is. It doesn’t just get merged in “by accident” unless you are a really shit developer (and to be fair some are).
Besides, no one is saying they have to open source it. To be honest, the outcome from this petition that I would most like to see is simply a blanket indemnity to the community attempting to revive, continue and improve the software from that point forward. If the law says that it’s legal once a software is shut down, for the community to figure out a way to make it work again and make it their own, and puts no further responsibilities on the “rights holder” at all, I think that honestly solves the problem in 99% of cases. It would be nice if they gave the community a hand, released what they could, and tried not to be shit about it, (and I know some of them will be shit about it, but we’re pretty resourceful), as long as they’re not trying to sue every attempt into oblivion I think we’ll make a lot of progress on game preservation and make the gaming world a much better place.
SheeEttin@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
Heh. You are still overestimating the average developer. Random code gets copy-pasted into files without attribution all the time. One guy might know, but if he gets moved to a different team, the new guy has no idea. That can be a ticking legal time-bomb.
Jakeroxs@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
Again, if you know going in that is an absolute requirement, processes can be put in place to ensure things like that doesn’t happen. (at least not as often) vs what you’re thinking of trying to do it after the game is already shipped.
Decq@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
That’s why i also said provide, not just open source. They can release a binary.
SlartyBartFast@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
Maybe they should have made sure their code was fully legal to use before releasing the game initially
wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
What? There’s a big difference between “legal to sell as a compiled binary” and “legal to release as source”.
SlartyBartFast@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
Just saying, if my highschool programming classes are any indicator, there’s a ton of released binaries out there that use copywritten and otherwise plaigarized code
SaharaMaleikuhm@feddit.org 3 weeks ago
It’s just one possible solution. They can just release a proprietary server application instead.
pupbiru@aussie.zone 3 weeks ago
honestly with online only games i’d be “okay” (not that it’d be great but okay) with them just releasing a bunch of internal docs around the spec. you’re right that open sourcing commercial code is actually non-trivial (though perhaps if they went in knowing this would have to be the outcome then maybe they’d plan better for it), but giving the community the resources to recreate the experience i think is a valid direction
SheeEttin@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
Bold of you to assume such spec or docs exist. Usually it’s all cowboyed and tightly coupled, with no planning for reuse.
spankmonkey@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Cool, so after they are legally required to then they will start creating the documentation.
The pont is making them change how they do things when how they do it is shitty for consumers.