The signatures are still coming and it's already making an impact
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1.2 million as of now. So fucking proud to be European.
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"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.
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.
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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.
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Let's be real, open sourcing it isn't "hardly any work". All the code has to be reviewed to make sure they can legally release it, no third-party proprietary stuff.
That's why i also said provide, not just open source. They can release a binary.
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There is a reason it's included though. Stuff like fmod, bink video etc. does complicated things that you otherwise need to implement yourself.
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.
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Which is doable, but is additional time and money.
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.
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Choice to do what?
These are their two points:
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.
I feel like the first is fair enough at the moment, but with accompanying laws it could be resolved. Eg once a developer enacts an end of life plan, their legal culpability is removed. Plus give the right tools for moderation and the community can take care of it.
Second is just a cop out I think. "Many titles are designed from the ground up to be online only" - that's the whole point. It's not retroactive, so you don't need to redesign an existing game. But going forward you would need to plan for the eventual end of life. Developers have chimed in that it can 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. -
Companies would still be cutting flour with chalk if they had their way. "It's limiting blah blah blah" that's the point you corpos, consumer rights are about the consumer not the bottom line
History taught us that corpos would literally burn the world for a few more bucks. And by history, I mean right now.
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Even if this would be true (which it isn’t, it’s made up bullshit): I do not give a crap.
No, I do not care about the publisher.
No, I do not care about the studio.
No, I do not care about the developer anymore too.
I do not give a single fuck about any of them anymore. I want to own the game I buy. I don’t want anyone being able to pull the plug. I also want to own the hardware or console I buy. I am ready to watch their existence to crumble as long as I get what I want.
These people lied and conned this hobby of mine into monetised shite. I hope a lot of them somehow crash and burn. Would laugh and dance when they croak. I can play Factorio and Terraria until the heat death of the universe. Your new Assassins Blood Pack: Revenge of the Fortnite 2 Deluxe Bundle MMO-Life Service Definitive Expansion Season Pass DLC Dark of the Moon Surprise Mechanic won’t be missed anyway.
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.
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Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh ya.....
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First of all, the devs don't have any choice, the Pencil-pushers do
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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.
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BG3 being DRM-free and playable indefinitely also demonstrates that you can have plenty of success and not break your own product to do so.
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.
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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.
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.
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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.
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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.
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.
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We saw the depths a nepo baby from Blizzard would go for this initiative to fail, can't imagine what could happen with a body comprised of people from the biggest worms in the industry (Epic, EA, Activision, Microsoft, Ubi et al.)
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Which is doable, but is additional time and money.
Why would coding something with less restrictions take more time and money?
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"curtail developer choice" is such a weak argument because you could equally apply it to literally every piece of regulation ever passed. Of course it curtails choice, that's almost the dictionary definition of an industry regulation.
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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!
Anti-cheat is a necessary evil for competitive online games. No one wants to play a game against cheaters since they typically have an unfair advantage. If you can't combat cheating then you might as well not make the game since no one will want to play it. Fine by me since I don't care for such games but I could imagine people who like playing them might prefer to play against as few cheaters as possible. What are the alternatives?
