Comment on The UK Stop Killing Games petition has reached 100.000 signatures
RealFknNito@lemmy.world 1 week ago“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.
Asetru@feddit.org 1 week ago
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.
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.
Release Server binaries.
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.
Nobody demands that. You’re again arguing against your own strawman.
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.
RealFknNito@lemmy.world 1 week ago
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Asetru@feddit.org 1 week ago
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.
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!
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.
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.
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 hits differently, this would be the case here, too. But at least you can still enjoy your painting, unlike the game that’s been remotely disabled.
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!