The SKG movement should become the Stop Buying Games movement if they don’t listen.
EU Commission meets behind closed doors with Ubisoft, other corporations, and exhibits blatant corruption.
Submitted 3 weeks ago by godsammitdam@lemmy.zip to games@lemmy.world
https://www.techspot.com/news/112802-stop-killing-games-lost-biggest-battle-despite-13.html
Comments
SkunkWorkz@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
atro_city@fedia.io 3 weeks ago
Gamers are less capable of self-control than heroin addicts. Trying to get them to stop buying games is a fools errand.
godsammitdam@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
Looking at you sports and COD gamers 👀
takeda@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
We can all start with ourselves, which is easier first step.
The only games I purchase are from GOG with 2 exceptions of 2 portal games on steam.
SteveNashFan@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Boycotts don’t work when John Gamer spends hundreds of millions on microtransactions. I could never buy another EA Sports game for the rest of my life, and all it takes is one whale to wipe out ten of me boycotting. The economy of boycotting games is completely broken at scale when whales exist, and companies know how to cater to them.
Trail@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
But if the whale does not have 10 other people to play with and show off their whaling, then they won’t whale no more on that game.
You are the plankton accompanying the whale (wtf am I typing while shitting in the morning) even if you are not paying directly, you support the ecosystem. No other players to play with, then suddenly it’s a boring game.
Deconceptualist@leminal.space 3 weeks ago
Or “Stop Renting Games” since we only get a digital license on most platforms that can be revoked.
MagnificentSteiner@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
This is not true. Don’t spread this false “you don’t own your games” narrative.
You buy a perpetual license for a copy of the game. It’s called a license because you are not buying the actual game but a copy. It’s exactly the same way other software works as well as music and other media.
The whole point of SKG is that we do own our games but publishers are trying to act otherwise.
Here, Ross who started SKG explains it better.
Strider@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I support skg but also I stopped buying (aaa) games a long time ago, and I can’t be the only one. We’re the people who have enough disposable income but simply won’t support shit but beancounter managers are too stupid to realize it would be easy to get if they’d just show a little decency.
🤷
zqps@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
Yeah. There was a statistic about Steam a while ago showing that the percentage of recent releases by playtime was steadily declining. People have their classics, they outgrow competitive games, they don’t want to upgrade their PCs as much with current prices. This was masked for a time by overall steady growth in the gaming sector, but this is slowing down.
mecen@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
No buy from gog and show that there is money in being consumer friendly
DillDough@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
The Nazi storefront? How about just fuck all corps, either steal it or do the transaction directly with the devs.
kablez@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I stopped buying and playing Ubisoft games years ago. Far Cry 4 I believe.
LunarLoony@lemmy.sdf.org 3 weeks ago
Think the last one I bought was Rayman Origins
Crashumbc@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
that’s decades
Washedupcynic@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
If I buy a physical board game, I can keep playing it as long as I still have the game in my possession. Video games should be no different.
eleijeep@piefed.social 3 weeks ago
Before the internet was widespread, that’s exactly how they worked.
taiyang@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I mean, until their internal ram failed and you needed to do a full RPG in one sitting, but I guess that’s true of board games losing pieces or breaking.
PixellatedDave@feddit.uk 3 weeks ago
Yup and games were fully formed because when you got that tape/cd that was it, the whole game. None of this “oh we will be adding blah blah”
godsammitdam@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
Games (and software) are one of the few forms of media and free speech that are subject to this.
Hence why streaming, e-books, etc come in to push in convenience while removing ownership/independence.
I see it tangentially related in how it operates similar to fossil fuels/renewables. The industry wants you to keep buying. They can’t control the sun, wind, etc, so you don’t need to rely on them.
Same kinda thing here, they want you to rely on them and keep buying the newest thing. And if they delete your old version, welp, guess you better come get the new one (especially when they “remaster” it with 0 effort and slap it on a new digital storefront.)
I just hate the profit motive lol
daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
EU institutions are for the lobbyist, not for the people. We already knew that.
I wrote all my EU representatives in the parliaments about the chat control topic, and NONE of them answered. They are an elite above normal citizens, they do not care about us. They are aristocrats.
CommanderCloon@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
The commission is famously bad for this, but the EU also has the Parliament whivh is much less of a problem
Squizzy@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
🙄
cookiecoookie@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Have a new government get rid of them. They only keep power because people give it to them.
sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
I’m still counting this as a very broad win.
The corruption is hilariously obvious now, they had no other choice.
They’re afraid.
Them being afraid, the lying and bullshit being undeniably obvious to anyone with ~+90 IQ, and there now being actual substantial public awareness and concern, and real organizations dedicated to combatting this corruption?
Should have been that way a decade ago, but better late than never.
RightHandOfIkaros@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Does the EU have a process to report this to their parliament?
ampersandrew@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
They’re aware.
JustEnoughDucks@feddit.nl 3 weeks ago
Everything is working as designed.
CommanderCloon@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
Isn’t the Commission a famlusly corrupt place? Nearly all popular measures from the EU came from the Parliament, iirc
ynthrepic@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Europe seems to be doing alright. Democracy is doing better there than anywhere else right now. There are much worse organizations and regimes, and we need more unity in the world, not less, right now.
I dear too baby people take the stability of the modern world entirely for granted. Do be you want the US to remain the hegemon? China? Russia? Who?
pressanykeynow@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Democracy is doing better there than anywhere else right now.
Switzerland?
radiouser@crazypeople.online 3 weeks ago
atro_city@fedia.io 3 weeks ago
@stopkillinggames should make a list of killable games so that people can be aware of which games they are buying may end up killed and useless.
godsammitdam@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net 3 weeks ago
So the “blatant corruption” is that they met? With interested party? Yes, I’m sure meeting the CEO of Ubisoft was dream come true for EC…
Seriously people, EC passed GDPR against Meta, they passed DMA against Google, they have excellent track record on regulating corporations literally hundredths of times bigger than Ubisoft. I know people here think video games are the most important industry in the entire world but the reality is that EC most likely simply doesn’t care.
Yes, it’s sad that 1M signatures was not enough. Turns out it’s pretty much impossible for a organic movement like that to change the laws on a continental level. It takes lawyers, it takes consumer groups, it takes political backing, it takes funding. SKG simply didn’t have a good enough case here.
placebo@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
I don’t find your examples particularly relevant and convincing, but that’s off-topic. You’re totally right that communicating with involved parties is normal and does not ‘exhibit blatant corruption.’ To be fair, the original article doesn’t claim that it is. OP just wanted to rage bait everyone.
Lemmert@reddthat.com 2 weeks ago
I was a bit surprised this was mentioned so far down in the comments. Especially since the article is sparse on the details for obvious reasons.
RightHandOfIkaros@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I don’t want to be that guy, but aren’t Meta and Google American companies, while Ubisoft is European?
ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net 2 weeks ago
EU also banned ICE cars against the lobbying of all the European car companies. Auto industry is ~$600B in EU, video games are ~$80B. Sure, EU relaxed the rules in the end but again, you really think they are able to regulate auto industry but are folding immediately when video games lobbyist show up?
cookiecoookie@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
The commission should be afraid of siding with the corporations mainly for what we’ll do to them if they do.
HrabiaVulpes@europe.pub 2 weeks ago
Nothing?
cookiecoookie@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
These are gamers we’re talking about so plenty of free time for real life COD:MW
TheEighthDoctor@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
This is a valid point against SKG: “In addition, increased cybersecurity and safety risks may arise for players once publishers cease supporting those games, (which in turn can also create or increase reputational risks for publishers).”
I know the game was no longer supported by the company and they had no responsibility, and you know that too, but what about all the mainstream that will read only the title in Facebook or Google News that says “5 million computers hacked because of Grand Theft Auto”
Jako302@feddit.org 3 weeks ago
That’s a somewhat valid argument against letting servers run indefinetly, but SKG is about a lot more than just that.
They don’t have to delist their games, making them unobtainable, when there is single player content you can do. They also should be forced to remove allways online requirements that are solely there as an anti piracy measure when they shut down the authentication servers.
As for multiplayer only, people have reverse engineered server protocols for some games just so they can spin up dedicated servers themselfs after the official servers shutdown. It would be trivial for a game company to ship a dedicated server file with their game so people can still play it.
The “cybersecurity risk” argument is about equivalent to the “think of the children” argument that’s always used for online age verification. It sounds completely plausible only as long as you don’t read past the headline, but can be dismissed fairly easy after that.
bigmclargehuge@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
To touch on the multiplayer aspect: it used to be standard procedure for PC games to come bundled with the dedicated server so you could host one yourself.
Even with Battlefield games up to I think BFV, we could at least rent servers (meaning that software is out there somewhere) so hosting them ourselves after a studio drops support should be easy. You can still find servers for basically every old Source game if you look hard enough, same with the og Battlefield games, older CoD titles, etc.
MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz 3 weeks ago
You’re right.
Burning the book in case it might offend some future reader is reasonable.
/D
godsammitdam@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
Have you seen the state of older COD games on steam? Hacks that crash your pc, add malware, etc just by walking by a person, crazy stuff.
EA seems to be doing just fine.
RightHandOfIkaros@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Minor correction: Call of Duty is Activision, not Electronic Arts.
leave_it_blank@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
“Support for all games cannot last forever.”
…
Again and again and again… Sigh… Sadly I’m sure many of the comission will just believe that shit…
But then again, the big companies are obviously scared, that’s a good sign at least.
RightHandOfIkaros@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
SLG isnt even asking for support to last forever. They have repeatedly been very clear about that.
Katana314@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I wrote a Python script that says “lol” last week.
50 years from now, it’ll still be runnable, and it’ll still say “lol”.
Unless I update it to say “Ubisoft sucks dick”.
errer@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
If you don’t update it to say “Ubisoft sucks dick,” you don’t support games!
squirrel@cake.kobel.fyi 3 weeks ago
lol
kwarg@mander.xyz 3 weeks ago
lol
DeadDigger@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
If you don’t update it I doubt that.
unwarlikeExtortion@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
Well yes. Publishers of physical books absolutely cannot not put a piece of explosive inside their physical book, whose only point os to burn the book obce said publisher claims it’s impossible to not set off the explosive after 25 years of “support”.
Neither games nor gamers don’t need “support”. What they need is to not actively be belittled, castrated and mutilated by publishers.
If this was done in the physical realm wirh equivalent tactics, there’d also be outrage.
BeardededSquidward@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 weeks ago
That active modding and coding communities exist to keep older gamers working into the modern era is reason enough to show people just love games.