Louis Rossmann's response to harsh criticism of "Stop Killing Games" from Thor of @PirateSoftware

I'd go even further: developers ought to be required to submit reproducible builds to the Library of Congress in order to be eligible for copyright in the first place.

(And copyright ought to be shortened back to its original term length, by the way.)

This reminds me of warzone 2100. After its publisher (punpkin) ceased trading, some dedicated ex-employees and community members managed to liberate the source code in 2004.

Now it's available in some of the major distros and is still updated to this day.

Every line of code needs to be Open Source. The people or businesses responsible can buy a subscription to keep it from the public. No more money => Publicly overseeable sources + FOSS licensing.

He's showing his true colors here. either doubling down so his initial reaction doesn't make him seem foolish, or he really has a soft spot for mega corporations due to his ties with Blizzard.

Ross wrote a response to Thor's in the comments of this video, but it's a bit buried. I'll include Thor's for context as well:

Thor:

I'm aware of the process for an initiative to be turned into legislature much farther down the road after many edits. If people want me to back it then the technical and monetary hurdles of applying the request need to be included in the conversation. As written this initiative would put a massive undue burden on developers both in AAA and Indie to the extent of killing off Live Service games. It's entirely too vague on what the problem is and currently opens a conversation that causes more problems instead of fixing the one it wants to.

If we want to hit the niche and terrible business practice of incorrectly advertising live service games or always online single player only games then call that out directly. Not just "videogames" as stated in the initiative. Specifically call out the practice we want to shut down. It's a much more correct conversation to have, defeats the actual issue, and stops all this splash damage that I can't agree with.

Ross's response:

@PirateSoftware I actually wasn't planning to write to you further since you said you didn't want to talk about it with me and I'll still respect that if you'd like. But since you brought up what I said again I'll at least give my side of that then leave you alone:

• I'm 100% cynical, I can't turn it off. I wasn't trying to appeal to legislators when I said that, I doubt they'll even watch my videos. I was trying to appeal to people who are are kind of doomer and think this is hopeless from the get-go. I wanted to lay out the landscape as I view it that this could actually work where many initiatives have failed. Did it backfire more than it inspired people? I have no idea. I've said before I don't think I'm the ideal person to lead this, stuff like this is part of why I say that; I can't just go Polyanna on people and pretend like there aren't huge obstacles and these are normally rough odds, so that was meant as inspirational. You clearly weren't the target audience, but you're in complete opposition to the movement also.

• I'm literally not a part of the initiative in any official capacity. I won't be the one talking to officials in Brussels if this passes. The ECI could completely distance itself from me if that was necessary.

• In my eyes, what I was doing there was the equivalent of forecasting the weather. You think it's manipulation, but I don't control the weather. I can choose when I fly a kite based on my forecast however.

• It was also kind of half-joke on the absurdity of the system we're in that I consider these critical factors that determine our success or not. So yes, I meant what I said, but I also acknowledge it's kind of ludicrous that these are perhaps highly relevant factors towards getting anything done in a democracy.

Anyway, I got the impression this whole issue was kind of thrust upon you by your fans, you clearly hate the initiative, so as far as I'm concerned people should stop bothering you about it since you don't like it.

I've been a big fan of Thor since his first shorts boom, but this take is a massive fucking L from him that I'm very sad to see.

Yeah, that's why he says it's stupid. It seems like he's fine with the idea of removing DRM that makes single player games unplayable but forcing devs to make online multiplayer games playable forever is ridiculous.

Yep. And wtf happened with LAN multiplayer? Even the Beta from Diablo II Ressurected had it, but they REMOVED IT from the release version. I call BS on what this Thor guy is saying.

It hurts the developer by impairing the control over the deployed software. This can mean monetization (like microtransactions or some stuff), this can mean "drop-in multiplayer" or whatever it's called, this can mean a simple friendlist or statistics page, or something along those lines.

It is seldom something different from monetization. Especially in the AAA compartment.

The potential legislation would be specific to the EU, but that doesn't really matter; this market is large enough that it would directly affect other markets. Either the games are patched for all territories or others will make the EU-specific build available. One option generates positive press, the other negative, and any difference in cost would be negligible.

There's also the argument of preserving art.

It would affect video game developers that want to publish in the EU.

It likely won't affect Thor directly unless he makes a live-service game in the future. He just thinks it's harmful to the industry and tends to speak out about stuff like that.