"That stuff" is often core to the game. Any anti-cheat library, for example. On the client site, libraries like physx, bink video, and others are all proprietary and must be replaced and tested before it can be released in a working state. Few companies would release a non-functional game and let reviewers drag them through the mud for it.

There is a reason it's included though. Stuff like fmod, bink video etc. does complicated things that you otherwise need to implement yourself.

Which is doable, but is additional time and money.

So you're telling me that this could disrupt the anti-cheat industry, which is currently responsible for a lot of the Windows platform lock in the gaming industry and is tied to a lot of potential security vulnerabilities because it goes to a much higher level of privilege than a reasonable user would expect a game to need? I already wish I was in the right geographic area to sign, you don't need to sell me on it twice!

1.2 million as of now. So fucking proud to be European.

None of those things will be affected because this isn't about making games open source. It is about making games that have a design that allows them to potentially function indefinitely instead of allowing the companies to design them with planned obsolescence like tying single player games to server verification.

Good so that means they won't pre plan bullshit games that are money grabs destined to fail. Go fuck yourselves companies that do that.

That's why i also said provide, not just open source. They can release a binary.

When the law passes, the owners of proprietary functionality will adapt their licensing to meet the requirrments or go out of business when everyone stops using them.

codifying in law that your customers must be able to run a server for your game, when you stop running them has the consequence, that you'll have to buy licenses that allow you to give binaries or code for those things to your customers. every middleware or library that does not allow that won't be a viable product anymore. It's not more dev work, it will change how licensing in game development for middleware and such will be done.

once a developer enacts an end of life plan, their legal culpability is removed
What legal culpability? If you are not hosting anything then you wont be liable for anything. It is not like if you create a painting and someone defaces it with something that you become liable for that... That would be insane.

History taught us that corpos would literally burn the world for a few more bucks. And by history, I mean right now.

I don't care about publishers.

I don't care about studios.

One of my friend is a game developer in a big studio, he basically breathes game mechanics. He develops new mechanics in his spare time, repurposing board game elements he owns. He would do that even if it wasn't his job. He's awesome

I do care about developers.

Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh ya.....

First of all, the devs don't have any choice, the Pencil-pushers do

The only choice it really limits from the publisher is the choice to decide to stop supporting a game out of nowhere. This new plan would just make it so you have to eventually plan to sunset the game from its "live" elements.

Totally agree but the person they’re responding to implied they were some scrappy indie production. Ex33 (there are caveats/asterisks here but still) is a much better example. I think at its peak the whole team was like 40 people with hired hands.

It also means there will never be another F2P game. They have to make their money upfront from every user. They can't just turn it off when the profit slows and/or stops.

The original article completely misrepresents the initiative:

We appreciate the passion of our community; however, the decision to discontinue online services is multi-faceted, never taken lightly and must be an option for companies when an online experience is no longer commercially viable. We understand that it can be disappointing for players but, when it does happen, the industry ensures that players are given fair notice of the prospective changes in compliance with local consumer protection laws.

Private servers are not always a viable alternative option for players as the protections we put in place to secure players’ data, remove illegal content, and combat unsafe community content would not exist and would leave rights holders liable. In addition, many titles are designed from the ground-up to be online-only; in effect, these proposals would curtail developer choice by making these video games prohibitively expensive to create.

...

Stop Killing Games is not trying to force companies to provide private servers or anything like that, but leave the game in a playable state after shutting off servers. This can mean:

• provide alternatives to any online-only content
• make the game P2P if it requires multiplayer (no server needed, each client is a server)
• gracefully degrading the client experience when there's no server

Of course, releasing server code is an option.

The expectation is:

• if it's a subscription game, I get access for whatever period I pay for
• if it's F2P, go nuts and break it whenever you want; there is the issue of I shame purchases, so that depends on how it's advertised
• if it's a purchased game, it should still work after support ends

That didn't restrict design decisions, it just places a requirement when the game is discontinued. If companies know this going in, they can plan ahead for their exit, just like we expect for mining companies (they're expected to fill in holes and make it look nice once they're done).

I argue Stop Killing Games doesn't go far enough, and if it's pissing off the games industry as well, then that means it strikes a good balance.

Genshin Impact is a F2P game that makes stupid amounts of money. If it stopped making money, they could very well just stop developing for it and let it be as it is.