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Comment on Does anyone else find it suspicious that there wasn't any criticism on here about Stop Killing Games until after it hit 1.4M signatures?

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9bananas@feddit.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

The obligations only kick in once the game gets shut down

I’m afraid that’s a misconception: in most cases the obligations have to be considered during development.

in 95%+ of cases, you can’t “just release the binaries”, because the developers usually don’t own all of their assets/code.

modern coding, and especially game dev, is highly modularized.

you usually don’t build code from the ground up, if there is an existing solution for what you need. (some indie game devs still do that, but it’s usually because there isn’t an existing solution, or not enough budget; it’s not the usual approach)

so for example, you wouldn’t create your own networking solution for a multiplayer game, you’d just use an existing solution.

but because you didn’t write that solution yourself, that part of the code either needs to fall under a license that allows for redistribution, or it has to be removed before you “release the binaries”.

and removing such code after development is a huuuuge headache. this is something that needs to be planned for during development in most cases.

so yeah, there is some upfront cost associated with SKG, mostly in that the new regulations would need some rethinking about how to handle these code modules.

either through new or more open licenses, careful design that allows for the removal of problematic modules before release to the community, etc.

it’s not a big cost, but it is there. and creating new requirements for the code, integrating that into review cycles, testing the removals, and on and on the list goes. it’s mostly a management issue, but it’s by no means trivial.

not that any of this is a deal breaker, but it should be kept in my mind that these new regulations are not entirely free… it’s gonna cause some chaos in the industry. manageable chaos, but all chaos is somewhat expensive, when it comes to industry.

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sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
he obligations have to be considered during development.

They should be, but my understanding is that there’s only a penalty if they kill a game without an EOL solution, and what their EOL plans are don’t need to be complete or even stay the same during development. The wording is really flexible here and allows companies a lot of room to explore different options.

If a company can’t redistribute the server code, their options include (and there are probably more):

write and release a functional replacement

document the API spec for a functional replacement and help the community develop it as the EOL approaches

cut out the server bits, or have them gracefully fall back (e.g. for something like Dark Souls, drop the MP feature)

find a replacement that allows redistribution and make the necessary changes before EOL

That’s certainly easier to do at the start, but my understanding is that the obligation only kicks in once the servers are shut down.

And yes, it’s not “free”, but it’s basically free for an indie shop that likely built the server from scratch or used something FOSS. And that describes PS.
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- 9bananas@feddit.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  yes, that’s pretty much correct.
  
  and i think i misunderstood the part about the obligations only kicking in after service ends; you are right about that.
  
  yeah, there’s a lot of wiggle room; the proposal is pretty generous!
  
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