It’s amazing what a difference a little bit of time can make: Two years after kicking off what looked to be a long-shot campaign to push back on the practice of shutting down server-dependent videogames once they’re no longer profitable, Stop Killing Games founder Ross Scott and organizer Moritz Katzner appeared in front of the European Parliament to present their case—and it seemed to go very well.
Digital Fairness Act: https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/better-regulation/have-your-say/initiatives/14622-Digital-Fairness-Act/F33096034_en
This is a masterclass in “pick your one thing in life and focus on that.”
I’m highly pessimistic that the spirit of this legislation, which I wholly support, can ever be enshrined in law with enough specificity that it works the way we want it to in the cases where we need it to, without becoming a truly undue burden on small developers or forcing all publishers to just work around it in some way: like taking everything to a subscription model going forward.
Yeah. I have similar feelings. And I don’t think the social media fervor is helping things sometimes. There needs to be a certain level of precision in what is being asked for, and I see lots of broad statements about what laws should prevent from happening from random individuals. Using words like “kill switches” when required servers are taken offline. Or demanding every game have a direct networking mode or LAN options in addition to matchmaking or platform facilitated matchmaking.
Yes it’s video games and people want what they want and always think it’s simpler to deliver than it is.
I imagine you see the undue burden as a mandate to keep running the game servers yourself when you have no income to do so.
Once upon a time, the norm for exclusively online games was to provide a hostable server so that any third party could host, because the game companies didn’t want to bother with hosting themselves, so at most they owned or outsourced a hosted registry of running servers, and volunteers ran instances.
Then big publishers figured out that controlling the servers and keeping the implementation in-house was a good way to control the lifespan of games, and a number of games kept it closed.
So the remedy is to return to allowing third party hosting, potentially including hooks for a third party registry for running game servers if we are talking more ephemeral online instances like you’d have in shooters. One might allow for keeping the serving in-house and only requiring third party serving upon plan to retire the in-house game.
I don’t see how this would put any additional burden on smaller devs. Small teams usually don’t make always-online type games because they’re very complex and expensive
Small teams and indies use things like photon to make multiplayer games.
Take Among Us. It is not some huge bullshit live service game, but it makes use of the internet. It was created by a small developer.
The game includes local network play which is a good thing because I assume it would have to under this law, so it can play “offline.”
Do we think that local network play was zero effort to include? Would it really have no effect on small developers if they all had to include this always?
I know what you mean about small indie games being simple but the reality is a little more complex than that image. Small developers do also create online games. They aren’t big shit shows like Fortnite but that doesn’t mean they don’t use the internet.
No one ever wants to hear that it’s more complicated than they think it is, but that’s the truth virtually all the time.
I understand the core case that this man wants to stop. But laws have to be written for all, with precise language, and can’t just say “you know the kind of game we’re talking about.”
And that’s where this gets difficult.
Uuh, more often than not, the small devs already make their games indefinitely playable and preservable, just out of a love for the medium.
No actual artist wants their work to have an expiry date.
Legal enforcement is only needed for the passionless big publishers that shutter games just to funnel players into purchasing their latest releases.
It’s mentioned in the parliament presentation. Only a small minority of game publishers engage in this BS, but it’s ALL the big ones, meaning the problem is experienced by the vast majority of consumers.
We’ve had the technology since stone ages, quit lying about this so called burden. All it takes is to not be greedy.
Spoken like someone who’s never had to implement regulatory measures in software.
The regulatory measure in this case is solved by “don’t make it require the player to be online”. That removes a complication, it doesn’t add one.
For multiplayer games it is solved by “make them like we already did in the fucking 90s, where players could run their own servers”.
I’d only be repeating myself.
Perhaps you could elaborate on what ‘regulatory measures’ you are referring to that would run counter to the argument. I can take that overly simplistic phrase a number of ways ranging from “doesn’t make sense at all” to “maybe I could discuss the nuance”, but it’s impossible to continue a discussion based on the dismissive vague comment.
I would, but it’s video games and the mood in the room is not one of curiosity and discussion, but of pounding fists on the table. But suffice it to say that people think they can explain a law like this in two sentences while I despair that it can even be written at all, even with 100 pages, and function recognizably.
If you want an example, take Texas SB2420, the recent age verification law which said “the App Store has to ask your age and then tell developers so they can only show age appropriate content.” And now go read the full text, which I did at work. And look up Apple and Google’s implementation guidance and API specs. A “simple” thing people think can be explained in a few words is much, much more complex underneath. Like I said, I don’t even think this law can be written and come out the way we want it to.
Kinda seems like you are pounding more tables than I am. Can’t wait for a future when little timmy needs to nag his parents any time a fortnite or roblox update happens. Almost like these laws are written by out of touch simpletons who don’t understand tech.
I wasn’t referring to you but rather the heavy downvoting that my comments are receiving. I know when I’m muddying the hive mind’s cherished narrative with complications from reality, and that’s a stoning offense, no mistake.
The difference in your scenario is that it is enforcing a regulation, rather than being bound by it.
Yes, enforcing a regulation, particularly with different requirements by geography is a nightmare. You have to translate the law to code, and make it conditional based on some mechanism of determining jurisdiction.
However, a regulation like “you will ensure you will not require online connectivity for single player games, or if multiplayer you will ensure that third parties are able to keep hosting to keep the experience whole once you stop” is not a nightmare of nitpicky local regulations to navigate. The law doesn’t need to map to code, it just governs the human behavior/decisions.
For example, there are various ‘password’ laws, and it’s no huge deal to comply, since you only have to honor some strictest common law and you don’t need software to implement the regulatory rules.
I believe you’re trying to make it sound like “no it would be simple, just don’t go out of your way to do the bad thing.”
I know people just want to root out only the most obvious most insidious cases where online is totally unnecessary so it can seem like a simple matter of not doing it. But what about all the rest of gaming? How are we going to define these concepts? Write this law so that it will work for Fortnite, Among Us, MOBAs, and Hearthstone. Just try.
If someone wants to write ten paragraphs defining “single player games” with due precision and “unnecessary online components” and the required remedies for games that do have online components I’d love to hear it. No one here will take this time even though ten paragraphs is a laughably small length for such legislation to be written.
This bound/enforce bit is a distinction without a difference. In each case you need to understand the letter of the law and dance around it. SB2420 has plenty of things to “simply not do” and any “ensure offline play” law would absolutely have things you must do.
You haven’t really adressed my points in any way. It’s of course up to you, but as long as you haven’t, there’s no reason to be smug.
All they have to do is give up the rights. If they can’t afford it, I guarantee I’m there is a web somewhere that will do it for free.