The original article completely misrepresents the initiative:
We appreciate the passion of our community; however, the decision to discontinue online services is multi-faceted, never taken lightly and must be an option for companies when an online experience is no longer commercially viable. We understand that it can be disappointing for players but, when it does happen, the industry ensures that players are given fair notice of the prospective changes in compliance with local consumer protection laws.
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.
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Stop Killing Games is not trying to force companies to provide private servers or anything like that, but leave the game in a playable state after shutting off servers. This can mean:
- provide alternatives to any online-only content
- make the game P2P if it requires multiplayer (no server needed, each client is a server)
- gracefully degrading the client experience when there’s no server
Of course, releasing server code is an option.
The expectation is:
- if it’s a subscription game, I get access for whatever period I pay for
- if it’s F2P, go nuts and break it whenever you want; there is the issue of I shame purchases, so that depends on how it’s advertised
- if it’s a purchased game, it should still work after support ends
That didn’t restrict design decisions, it just places a requirement when the game is discontinued. If companies know this going in, they can plan ahead for their exit, just like we expect for mining companies (they’re expected to fill in holes and make it look nice once they’re done).
I argue Stop Killing Games doesn’t go far enough, and if it’s pissing off the games industry as well, then that means it strikes a good balance.
Natanael@infosec.pub 1 day ago
And “would leave rights holders liable” is completely false, no game would have offline modes if it did
sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
Exactly, and that also includes online games like Minecraft. Nobody is going to sue Microsoft because of what someone said or did in a private Minecraft server, though they might if it’s a Microsoft hosted one.
lazynooblet@lazysoci.al 1 day ago
The argument there is if a game is left online with no studio to care for it then they believe they would be liable for community content.
I don’t think it applies to offline games at all.
Bravo@eviltoast.org 1 day ago
If server code is released such that people can run private servers after the official servers are shut down, then legally the people running the servers should be the ones liable for illegal activity that happens on them.
sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
That kind of already exists, you can buy hosting for Minecraft and other games. AFAIK, moderation isn’t a part of it, but many private groups exist that run public servers and manage their own moderation. It exists already, and that should absolutely be brought up as a bill is being considered.
Natanael@infosec.pub 23 hours ago
Only applicable if they run the servers themselves, not if they let others run their own servers.
Lv_InSaNe_vL@lemmy.world 1 day ago
I understood that from a IP and trademark stand point. It could be hard to retain your copyright or trademark if you are no longer controlling a product
sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
They retain copyright based on existing law, and trademark is irrelevant since it’s defended in courts, not EULAs.
Natanael@infosec.pub 23 hours ago
No, copyright isn’t relinquished from any of that (not even any effect on damages if you still require players to have bought the game to use the private servers), and trademarks wouldn’t be affected at all if you simply require that 3rd party servers are marked as unofficial