From the article,
2K games is delisting casual racing game Lego 2K Drive this week, but it’ll remain playable online for another year and work offline once support ends.
Assuming “work offline” means players don’t lose any game modes, this is literally a best case scenario. Stop Killing Games wouldn’t/can’t ask for any more. They could literally use this as an example of what should be done.
what if they were required by legislation to inform the consumer before purchase how long their game would have full functionality?
This is often something that can’t be known. They might be prepared to host the servers for a decade if it makes financial sense, or if there are only 20ppl online a week after launch, they’ll probably have to shut it down in a month, and possibly go bankrupt. As long as they don’t prohibit [those 20] buyers from continuing to play the game, it doesn’t matter. Stop Killing Games can’t make them know the future, but it can make them provide a way for the community to continue without them regardless of what happens.
iamthetot@piefed.ca 1 week ago
Stop Killing Games is selling legislation that would be satisfied by this scenario, correct. That does not mean that they cannot seek or want more, though. Ross often touches on this. Games don’t have to be designed this way. For example, peer to peer connections used to be more common in games. They are designed the way they are now largely so they can collect data from you. It is consumer hostile.
As for the second part, this again comes back to games not having to be designed that way. In Europe, consumers already have more lawful protections when purchasing software than in other parts of the world. And part of SKG’s argument to legislators right now is that game company’s terms are already illegal under EU law, or at the very least unclear.
If a game was designed with responsible end of life plans, for example, a company could absolutely make promises about how long a game will last. For example, guaranteeing one year of first party support and then release of necessary files for any third party support.
teawrecks@sopuli.xyz 1 week ago
You mean with centralized servers? No, it’s so they can be server authoritative to guarantee some level of stability, matchmaking, cross-game state, anti-cheat, etc. Ex. you would not be able to have the Arc Raiders experience with p2p servers. As for your data, they can gather that regardless, this would not be a cost effective way to do it.
No one here is disagreeing with the motives of SKG. The discussion at hand is whether this article you posted refers to a scenario that would be improved by the SKG initiative. And it sounds like you agree it satisfies what SKG wants. So the headline should read more like “2K is doing <blah> which is good. Reminder that SKG is trying to guarantee this.”
For SKG, all that matters to me is what becomes a government-enforced requirement. We can advocate for more all we want, but we were already doing that, and will continue to. Ross can believe whatever he wants about what a company should do, but if SKG isn’t advocating for it as legislation, then I don’t see it as relevant to the initiative.
iamthetot@piefed.ca 1 week ago
The headline can already be interpreted the way you say as it’s written. The point is that they are related events, and worth framing together.
You also seem quite dismissive of Ross’ opinion considering he spearheaded the movement for a decade or so before it really took off in the last year.
Anywho, we clearly agree on much just not the merit of the article it seems. Have a good one!
teawrecks@sopuli.xyz 1 week ago
Alright, yeah if that was the intention of the headline, then fine enough. I think I’m not the only one in this thread who didn’t read it that way.
Cheers.