Commission will engage with industry following European Citizens\' Initiative on the disabling of videogames by publishers
ec.europa.eu
The European Commission will engage with consumers and publishers by the end of 2026 to explore ways to improve industry standards, as a response to the European Citizens\' Initiative (ECI) ‘Stop Destroying Videogames\'.\u202F

Cross posted from https://feddit.org/post/31333476

Existing EU consumer law already provides for important safeguards protecting the economic interests of consumers. Video game providers must inform consumers about the duration and the conditions for terminating the contract before the consumers signs up for the video game. […]

However, to address players’ concerns, the Commission has committed to taking several steps.

First, it will initiate an exchange with the video game industry and consumer representatives with the aim to draw up an industry code of conduct on managing video games’ ‘end of life’.

Second, the Commission will work with consumer organisations and authorities to raise awareness about the applicable rights that protect consumers, including on safeguards protecting the economic interests of consumers

Edit: edited title for more clarity.

  • SleeplessCityLights@programming.devEnglish
    1·
    5 days ago

    They are down voting you because you are the one being reasonable. SKG unleashes the rabid horde of people that don’t understand math or budgeting. Stop Killing Games is actually “Kill All Indie Dev Studios” because only AAA can afford to stay in compliance. Do you people want to only have games from EA or Ubisoft? It sure does seem that people want to play Call of Duty games, because that is going to be the only thing left.

    • Frenchgeek@lemmy.mlEnglish
      2·
      5 days ago

      Writing a “best by” date on the store page is too taxing for studios who don’t want to provide the protocol documentation to create a dedicated server?

        • Frenchgeek@lemmy.mlEnglish
          2·
          5 days ago

          I mean that’s literally what’s asked for: Follow European sales laws by considering the game as a rental (so, monthly subscription), or provide a legally mandated end date before buying (legally considering the product as a perishable in short), or provide the means for the customer to continue to use their product (with either tools or documentation, you don’t have to keep running the servers forever).

          The fact big players in the industry try to dismiss to whole thing as an overreaction by out of touch kids when they already do the work that would make them compliant as a part of game dev is more an insult than anything else.

      • SleeplessCityLights@programming.devEnglish
        2·
        5 days ago

        You get x amount of money to make a game. When you release, you used all of that x amount of money to make the game. You don’t sell well and did not recoup the cost of making the game. Now you have negative dollars to make any changes in the game. The end.

        • Miaou@jlai.luEnglish
          1·
          5 days ago

          Quite a deep and complex comment, thank you for taking the time to write it out.

          You did omit the part where it is relevant, unfortunately

          • SleeplessCityLights@programming.devEnglish
            2·
            5 days ago

            What are your ideas on determining an expiry date? A studio has no idea if they are going to be supporting a game for 5 weeks or 5 years. There is no fair number. When you are out of money you are out of money. If you let the studios decide, they will pick 1 day. If you set it at 1 year, only the unicorns and AAA can afford to stay in business. It would probably be more profitable and better for business to forgo the EU release altogether. No exaggeration. It will even save a bunch of money on localization. The studios will weaponized capitalism.