The signatures are still coming and it's already making an impact
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Look I get it. The planet is dying, income inequality, it seems everything is unfair and going to shit. People yearn at an opportunity to help make things better. But yelling for simple solutions is the opposite of helpful. Because there are no simple solutions.
Saying to "just open source it" does not make sense.
What do you do about:
- proprietary codecs
- proprietary software that just does not exist as open source
- the fact you need a copy of the game engine to actually build the game from sources
- assets that have been bought on asset stores. Do the people who make those for a living not have a right to continue to make a living?
Making single player games without always online DRM: yes totally doable
Running game servers of online games forever: not really doable, as soon as all the libraries etc. they depend on are unsupported they will shut down one way or another. You need staff basically forever. Not even mentioning the maintenance headache that every legacy system always turns into.
Letting people run their own dedicated servers: sometimes doable, depends on the game though. Some games do not have "a server" but a whole infrastructure of stuff, look at foxhole. Some "servers" are a house of cards barely held together by duct tape.
This initiative all comes down to the definition of "reasonable". What is reasonable, actually? Running an infrastructure at a loss until bankruptcy? Or just keeping it online until it starts making a loss.
wrote last edited by [email protected]This has nothing to do with open source.
Nothing.
Open source has zero relevance.
None whatsoever.
Nada.
Their licensing will change so that it doesn't restrict keeping the game alive after servers go down or their license can't be used to kill an otherwise functional game. That's it.
Games will be designed to include the ability to do private servers after the company servers go down. It will be a cost of development just like anything else they are required to do. If they don't want to include that, then they can choose not to make an online game.
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If that's their argument, then the counterargument is simple: preserve the game another way. If hosting servers is dangerous, put the server code into the client and allow multiplayer w/ P2P tech, as had been done since the 90s (e.g. StarCraft).
What they seem to be doing is reframing the problem as requiring users to host servers, and arguing the various legal issues related to that. SKG just needs to clarify that there are multiple options here, and since devs know about the law at the start (SKG isn't retroactive), studios can plan ahead.
It's just a disingenuous argument trying to reframe the problem into cyber security and IP contexts, while neither has been an issue for other games in the past.
Yeah, I agree. We have been hosting servers at friend houses with consumer (mostly our own gaming PCs) forever.
The risk involved exists, but it's far from the threat they make it be.
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This isn't paying to see a concert, play, or musical. This is buying a book for amazon's e-reader, and them not allowing you to read the book anymore when they put out the book's sequel.
Or buying a physical book where they printed it with ink that fades after 2 years so it is no longer readable.
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Bold of you to assume such spec or docs exist. Usually it's all cowboyed and tightly coupled, with no planning for reuse.
wrote last edited by [email protected]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.
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They still will, this will just limit their ability to force you to move to the next one once the servers shut down.
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.
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FPS games with community servers coming back is my dream
Only server browser, no matchmaking.
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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.
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.
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When I pay to see a film in a theater, I don't own the film. I don't get to watch the film again after it leaves the theater.
While I pay to see a concert, a play, or a musical, I don't own those performances. I don't get to see them again. They generally aren't recorded (Although that is changing in some limited cases.)
I do think a game dying is terrible and I do think games should be clearly labeled (so people can make an education decision if they want to rent the game).
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.
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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.
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.
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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".
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The argument there is if a game is left online with no studio to care for it then they believe they would be liable for community content.
I don't think it applies to offline games at all.
Only applicable if they run the servers themselves, not if they let others run their own servers.
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I understood that from a IP and trademark stand point. It could be hard to retain your copyright or trademark if you are no longer controlling a product
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
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Why are publishers speaking for devs about how much choice devs would have? Why not get devs to speak?
wrote last edited by [email protected]Because sometimes publishers like to be the ones cuetailing dev choices
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"Won't somebody PLEASE think of the
childrendevs!?"The last refuge of a dying argument
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Much like every form of security measure, the intention is not to completely eliminate the possibility of an attack (which is impossible in most cases). Instead, the intention is to increase the amount of effort that's required to make an attack.
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.
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Curtailing developer choice is rather the point, no?
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
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"Won't somebody PLEASE think of the
childrendevs!?"The last refuge of a dying argument
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.
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This post did not contain any content.wrote last edited by [email protected]
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.
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Why are publishers speaking for devs about how much choice devs would have? Why not get devs to speak?
wrote last edited by [email protected]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.
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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.
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!
