Or buying a physical book where they printed it with ink that fades after 2 years so it is no longer readable.

Cool, so after they are legally required to then they will start creating the documentation.

The point is making them change how they do things when how they do it is shitty for consumers.

Most likely, if they are forced to allow public servers after they shut down the official ones, they will pull some other bullshit. Like claim the game is still available, but the 300$ cosmetics you bought are not allowed on public servers because they are separate from the game.

Only server browser, no matchmaking.

Honestly I'd even prefer that because it diminishes the value of in game purchases and would be a step towards getting rid of them as well.

Sure, you're paying for a performance when you watch a film or play at a theater. If I pay to watch a video game tournament, I'm likewise paying for a performance, not the game.

When you buy a film (DVD, Bluray, or Digital Copy) or a recording of a play performance, you own that copy and can watch it as often as you want for as many years into the future as you want. What we're saying is that video games should work the same way, if I buy a game, I should be able to play it whenever I want at any point in the future. That's it, it's the same thing as with a film.

They should be compelled to either make those cosmetics available for everyone or have some technical means to prove ownership (e.g. blockchain or cryptographically signed file). You can't lose stuff you bought just because the publisher shut down the servers.

Oh no?! It developer's choices vs purchaser's options. Who will win, it's a mystery only time can solve. Just kidding, we all know who the courts will side with, as it is never "the people".

Only applicable if they run the servers themselves, not if they let others run their own servers.

No, copyright isn't relinquished from any of that (not even any effect on damages if you still require players to have bought the game to use the private servers), and trademarks wouldn't be affected at all if you simply require that 3rd party servers are marked as unofficial

Because sometimes publishers like to be the ones cuetailing dev choices

"Won't somebody PLEASE think of the children devs!?"

The last refuge of a dying argument

What you're referring to is deterrence, and it doesn't apply to online gaming the way it does to theft of property. One cheater doesn't ruin the game for one other person, they ruin the game for dozens or hundreds of other players.

And the efficacy being so bad is the reason why client-side anti-cheat keeps getting more and more invasive to the point of being literally, by definition, a type of malware and system rootkit. And yet it's still not enough to defeat cheaters, because the cheaters have full access to the system itself.

And the guys writing the cheat software just have to put in the effort once to defeat the anti-cheat and then they sell it to people who install it like any other software. The cheaters who use the cheats have it easy.

Yeah just the choices that fucks over paying customers. They are saying they would like to keep doing that and this laws would curtail that.

Will someone think of the poor shareholders? /s

The devs would probably prefer if their work for several years wasn't thrown in the trash. It's the publishers and suits killing games.

This initiative sure would make things more complicated for the game publishers, yes.

Because they're currently not doing the bare minimum.

If they weren't so accustomed to not doing the bare minimum, maybe they would have different opinions! Just saying.

Edit: Just signed the petition. Didn't think this was necessary before because, as soon as I heard of it, Finland was already top of the list percentage wise. But I did sign it, just for the hell yeah of it.

Because most devs are just codemonkeys implementing what they're told to. This is pure manipulative propaganda from the suits who are already robbing wages from good devs.

It's not just for the hell of it!

Invalid votes will be removed when it's time for the final tally, so the initiative needs a solid buffer to still he over a million after.

There's been a talk of some people using bots to inflate the numbers in a misguided attempt to help the initiative, so every vote is still very welcome.

Also, I kinda want to see just how high Finland can go above the threshold.

Tell your friends!

But that still means an entire industry of people are going to have to change how they make things.

Companies do that all the time in response to government regulation. You like seat belts and backup cameras in your car? No sawdust in your food? Transparent pricing when buying internet access? Government regulation. None of those companies went out of business.

Whenever a large games company talks about "developer choice" you know they're referring to one of a few things:

1. Think of the shareholders!
2. Think of the rich CEO who adds zero value to the company!
3. The people don't know what they want and therefore we need to tell them exactly what they want and need!