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 would be the only type creative work that would be burdened like this.
I find it paradoxical that we’re trying to save the gaming industry by burdening (mostly) small developers. Larger studio will no longer be able to abuse the system, but complying will be easy for them.
For indies and small to medium studios though? They struggle enough as it is. Adding the burden of compliance on top is not a great idea.
If we could legally categorize studios in a meaningful way, and therefore target the big ones and leave indies alone, I would support such an idea.
It’s the only type of creative work that needs to be burdened like this, as all other types of works have always been “self-contained” (for lack of a better term) with no continued reliance on the publisher after the purchase.
Ditto with older games, BTW: you’ll notice that this “Stop Killing Games” movement didn’t start until the game industry started using tactics like DRM and “live service” architectures to forcibly wrest control away from the gamers. Before that, people could just keep playing their cartridges and CDs and even digital downloads, and hosting multiplayer themselves using the dedicated server program included with the game, in perpetuity and everything was just fine.
The industry got fucking greedy and control-freakish, and this is the inevitable and just attempt for society to hold it accountable.
I find it weird that you’re making what seems to me to be a strawman argument about “burdening (mostly) small developers,” as I’d say they are mostly not the ones trying to do this bullshit where they try to retroactively destroy art and culture because it stops being profitable enough. Indie studios typically don’t design their games to use publisher-operated servers with ongoing costs attached in the first place, let alone to self-destruct when they shut off!
Releasing source code isn’t without extra work. My point is, unless you make sure to specifically target the companies abusing gamers, you’re going to mainly hurt the part of the industry that is not the problem.
There’s no need to release any source code if your game doesn’t require an internet connection to your server to run in the first place.
Do you think only big studios make games that need an internet connection? Or why is this comment relevant?
The important part is “to your server”.
Mostly big studios/publishers put “always online” requirements in single player games for a start. And even if it’s not only big studios, those requirements can be omitted without effort (if anything it reduces effort to not put them in).
Multiplayer games are a different beast, but I’d argue that yes, small studios rarely make games that exclusively rely on the developer’s own servers for multiplayer. That is because they are smaller studios and server architecture for a multiplayer game is a big investment for them. Even if I’m wrong there, future games can be designed with the legislation in mind (this would not affect existing games retroactively) and don’t have to keep using centralized server architecture for everything.
Again, I never disagreed with the issue: (90%) solo games requiring an internet connection disappearing suddenly is a major issue in the gaming industry
I disagree with the solutions people want for it, which I find shortsighted.
And yes, such a legislation would force to rethink some designs, and force using one over the other not because it fits the final product better, but because it does not have the additional pressure of compliance. And that, I think, makes it a poor solution.
What I’d like to see is something similar to minimal warranty in the EU. So, a game has to provide X years of playability, clearly shown on the product page/box. They can guarantee longer if they wish. They then have a legal obligation to keep it online. Add to it a mandatory warning X years before shutdown.
Then the consumer is no longer deceived, and the studio has less pressure to comply with EoL requirements.
And why not make releasing the source code a viable way to comply with these requirements, and have a special label for “forever playable” games, either fully singleplayer or through code release.
Just don’t force every studio to release their codebase.
It’s not “extra” if it’s a legal requirement.
More to the point, I’m not saying it has to be licensed as Free Software or that it has to be made immediately public. I’m saying that a copy needs to be sent to a government archive, regardless of how messy it is, so that the government can make it public later when the company doesn’t care anymore.
This shows me you don’t work anywhere near software. It is not as easy as you think it is.
Don’t try being reasonable, the SKG people don’t understand reason.