Comment on Stop killing games
NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip 2 weeks agoAccursed Farms themselves have said variations of “We’ll figure out the specifics later”
Without “the specifics”? You are not proposing legislature or even “an initiative”. You are just writing the kind of MoveOn petition where Obama will have to do Hot Ones if you totally get ten million signatures.
And… that really matters for reasons we have already seen. You and I think Jack Thompson was a hack and a moron. But we semi-regularly see people talking about how loot boxes and gacha games need to be outlawed without even considering the underlying skinner box/operant conditioning aspects.
But hey? How about “stop corrupting gamers”? Gambling is bad and it ruins lives. So let’s get some legislature. Oh noes, now there can be no kissing or depiction of blood in any game because sex ruins lives and so does murder!
THAT is the difference between a child screaming into the void and actually trying to enact positive change. The former is vague “gimme what I want and figure it out for me”. The latter is “We want X, Y, and Z because of reasons A, B, and C.”.
Because
Leaving a game in a reasonably functional state without intervention from the game’s publisher is pretty specific,
Yes. Nothing more specific than “a reasonably functional state without intervention”.
As for what actually would be specifics?
- Instanced multiplayer games with less than 128 players per server require either a dedicated server to be released or for support for listen servers": This is “reasonable” because… that is literally how these games are running. Under the hood, a CoD lobby is not much different than a UT server was back in the day. But, as you scale up the number of players you start sharding (see: Planetside) which begins to become something that would be nice but also might not “exist” outside of “run the entire backend”. And the obvious loophole is that we are suddenly going to get a bunch of 130 player Overwatch games.
- “Games where N% of the game simulation happens on the customer’s computer must have an offline mode”: This is stuff like Dark Souls and Arkham Suicide Squad and The Crew (the game EVERYBODY totally loved…) and whatever. Ironically, games like Splinter Cell Conviction would be broken by this (because that is the DRM it used) but… fuck them? And the obvious loophole is “Well, we simulate N+1% because we stream this texture or some shit?”
But once you get beyond that? You start getting into messes of things like MMOs where there are a lot of very valid reasons for not wanting the entire server infrastructure to be running on a single player’s computer. And the reality ends up being you have things like all the WoW and Everquest private servers that literally charge players money to play a pirated version.
Specifics are good. Vagueries are just how you get dicked over by lobbyists and special interest groups.
ampersandrew@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
It is a citizens’ initiative for the EU. Ross has been consulting with legal experts and even members of parliament in these territories in order to get this off the ground. This is not some feel-good change.org thing; this has legal ramifications, albeit with an absurdly high threshold to clear.
This is a strawman. We do legislate gambling already. Several countries have legislated loot boxes already without adding violent content on as a rider.
This initiative, which again, has actual legal implications unlike most petitions you’ve ever heard of, can only ask for so much before it’s in lawmakers’ hands. Terminology like “reasonably functional” is used all over laws on the books, and courts rule on what is reasonable or not. It would be reasonable to say that a video game is no longer functional if you can’t play it anymore. Lobbyists and special interest groups are why we have an industry subsidized by legalized gambling for children and other ways of fucking us over.
NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
And vagueries that will be interpreted by courts that likely have no knowledge of what a vidya game even is will resolve that?
ampersandrew@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
We have to hope they do, because the industry would love to never resolve this on its own. So far there are reasonable laws on the books in places in places like Belgium and Australia for things like loot boxes. Also, you do your argument a real disservice by using childish language like “vidya games” and “oh noes”.
NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
Hoping things will turn out great is for idiots.
So rather than advocate for some vagueries that are primed to be corrupted… maybe actually start with those specific actionable laws to establish precedent that can be worked on.
Because a judge who has no idea what a vidya game is: “Oh, my grandson plays that gotchinson impact game. He is a good kid so clearly this is a different problem and this case is trash”. Or, more likely “Minecraft?!?! THAT IS THE GAME WHERE YOU HAVE UNCENSORED SEX WITH PROSTITUTES AND THEN MURDER THEM!!!”. Because the vast majority of court cases don’t have proper experts involved but still lead to precedent that can cause problems down the line. Hence why there is a lot of pressure to settle when “tech” ends up in court.
Also: If your only argument is that I am not taking the “Stop Killing Games” movement seriously enough? You don’t have one. Which… is par for the course.