Video Games Europe release a statement on Stop Killing Games
Video Games Europe release a statement on Stop Killing Games
Video Games Europe, a trade association that represents a bunch of major game publishers, have issued a statement pushing back against Stop Killing Games.
If lobbyists are fighting it you know it's scaring them! Fuck your overreach of control, I bought a game not a service.
1: You've never owned a video game in your life, unless you were the owner of the copyright, you possessed a licensed copy (including physical copies). That has to change before any other real concrete changes can occur.
2: Online video games are a totally different beast over single player games. Besides direct competition with themselves, there has to be a sustained effort to maintain those servers, while also staying beholden to the copyright holders.
- Look at Project 1999 EverQuest (a "classic" server for a 26+ year game). It almost never reaches 2000 concurrent players, and that requires permission from Daybreak to run as intended. The Hero's Journey is a different EQ project that is in litigation with Daybreak right now. Project Quarm has been reticent about keeping its servers running during the THJ legal proceedings.
As much as we might want to keep games alive for posterity, we have to figure out a process for online games, and that seems like it's gonna be a massive uphill battle.
Do you own the software and firmware in your car?
The navigation system might use Google Maps and requires an internet connection to function. The manufacturer may decide to no longer want to pay for Google's license and therefore disables all software - including software running the ignition, engine management, the speedometer, the center console - on the car with a momentary notice. The car becomes undrivable as a result.
Should this be legal? You didn't own the software after all.
And thus is the issue.
No, you don't own the software in your car. The companies who disabled your car do, and by acquiring that car, you are subject to their whims. Because by signing that contract when buying that car, I bet you didn't amend it to make you owner of that software.
Instead of continuing to maintain a car-centric culture with software that we don't own or control, we could incorporate more walking and biking infrastructure, and better more reliable public transit options.
Don't settle for one thing just because that's what you know and has been in existence most of your life. Find and build better options.
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And yet almost every single one had a "Buy" button on the purchase page, not a "licence" and I sure as shit didn't sign a damn thing. I act like I own them, and will continue to do so. Half the EULAs contains some illegal bullshit anyway and the "also is any of this invalidates local laws, just ignore that bit" clause is relatively a lot newer than a lot of classic games which I probably do own because of this. With the greatest respect, laws are - effectively - requests when the entire population willfully ignores them.
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Absolutely true. And this is where I have difficulty with this initiative. I am a heavy collector and patient gamer, I get to stuff years after release. As such I have always avoided heavily on-line stuff so I can use my own schedule, and that's the sticking point here for me. In the current environment where it's easy to see network requirements, and even refund games after testing it seems like this could be handled by vote with your wallet for the most part. However, I take a very different view of the current bait-and-switch of taking games without a hard online requirement and changing the terms in some way after release, and this alone is enough to make me support the movement. Adding launchers, additional account requirements, micro transactions post release should be heavily controlled. If you don't state at release you will be adding MTX - or even DLC honestly - you shouldn't be able too in my mind. It's a different product.
I think the other thing that so many are either too young to remember, or perhaps not technical enough now, but in the 90s, you ran your own game servers, and it was awesome. It was hard back then, someone seemed an ISDN or leased line to handle the traffic and access to a decent PC or server - requirements that are now in reach of everyone with a joke connection, a multi core machine and a docker install. There's no reason this couldn't be handled that way again with the companies monetising "content packs" for the servers and letting communities flourish. But they like the control.
It's going to be interesting seeing the outcome here!
- You are buying a license. That's the legal action you are taking. Even when you buy a physical copy, that's not ownership of the game. You can't duplicate and sell the copies. You can't duplicate and give them away. Both are copyright infringement.
Sure you can sell an older physical copy second hand, because there's no one there to stop you, which is why companies have moved to largely digital: the communications infrastructure makes it easier (like you said). But also it allowed companies to keep a tighter hold on their property.
I agree that if they wish to end support for a game, it should have a countdown timer to then be in the "public domain" so to speak.
But that's the uphill battle I spoke of, because you'd need to rewrite a precedent that currently allows for 90+ years of copyright.
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1: that's offtopic. Neither does anyone advocate for buyers purchasing the copyright, nor does the copyrhight give the copyright owner unmitigated power to do whatever they want (aka disregard laws).
What the petition asks for is that people actually own their licensed copy and that ownership of the copy is treated the same as ownership of any other copy of any IP. For example, if you own a book, you too own a licensed copy of the book. This means that e.g. the copyright owner cannot legally stop you from reselling the copy (and believe me, they tried. But laws were enacted to stop that).
The owner of a book also doesn't have the right to unilaterally revoke your license to the book. They legally cannot put fine print somewhere into the book that dicdates that you have to return the book when they ask you to or anything like that.
The petition asks the same for games:
- Publishers need to be legally stopped from limiting the buyers from using the copy they bought.
2: That is discussed in the petition as well. I recommend that you read the petition before commenting about it.