(Text below written by @treasure@feddit.org. Hope you don’t mind me yoinking it for here!)
The European Citizens’ Initiative ‘Stop Destroying Videogames’ is nearing its deadline on July 31st and is still missing quite a lot of signatures. To be precise, at the time of writing this post, only 560.000 of the required 1.000.000 signatures have been reached.
Another requirement has already been fulfilled: The minimum signature threshold has been reached in 10 countries, 7 were required.
If this is the first time of you hearing about this initiative, here’s a short TL;DR for you (more detailed information can be found here):
- Publishers that sell or license videogames should have to leave their videogames in a functional (playable) state.
- This means: Remote disabling of video games (such as live service titles) without providing means of keeping the game functional without the involvement of the publisher should be illegal.
- This does NOT mean that publishers should support their games forever, but rather that they provide tools (such as server binaries) to enable others to keep the game playable.
The initiative is slowly picking up speed again recently after its creator published a video explaining some of the background and why he doesn’t want to continue after the initiative is over. The video has been well-received by the community and some big influencers have reported on the topic.
If you are an EU citizen and have not signed yet, THIS IS THE TIME! The month until the deadline is met will pass quickly. Use two minutes of your time to influence something that may improve your life forever!
CLICK HERE TO SIGN. (or click here for a guide on how to sign in your language)
Also, if you are a UK citizen, you can sign a UK specific legal petition that also carries legal weight (forces parliament to investigate the issue). You can sign that here: https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/702074/
Signing it now just to spite piratesoftware.
I watched critical’s update on him and my fucking god is piratesoftware such an arrogant twat
I’ve been served PirateSoftware’s shorts long before all this controversy and it always bugged me how confidently wrong he was about systems and network things. He seems to be under the impression that he understands these things on an advanced level due to his experience as a checks notes QA tester for Blizzard, and a… indie software developer lol.
All this backlash against him is so vindicating.
ELI5 this controversy? I’m out of the loop.
There’s a group with a petition to “Stop Killing Games” which seeks to legally remedy the issue of game developers making games that are later turned off and left unplayable even in the case of them being single player.
Thor of PirateSoftware owns a development outfit that makes indie games and he also does a lot of streams. He’s against Stop Killing Games, but doesn’t seem to even understand it, and has publicly spoke out against it, going so far as to spread misinformation about it.
Have also been out of the loop too but went through the know your meme page.
Pirate Software made a video a year ago criticizing the initiative on a very surface level and has continued to do so in streams. Guy who created/sponsored/however-that-works the initiative posted a counter-argument video talking about what the initiative would actually do. Pirate Software did the ol’ Internet Doubledown and in general was kind of an ass and kind of revealed some ignorance. Cue Youtube Drama.
Fuck Thor.
Thor reminds me a lot of chatgpt. Subjects that I am not an expert in, he sounds intelligent and like he is providing good advice. The second he provides advice in an area where I am a subject matter expect, it makes me realize how full of shit he is.
Unless someone corrects me, I think his argument boils down to, “we shouldn’t allow the release of server binaries for online-enabled games because it’s too hard for the developers”.
Well, if that’s the case, then Thor, that’s a “you” (the company) problem. Not a “me” (the consumer) problem. And if you’re not going to release a server binary but we’re “buying” the game, purchasers have legitimate moral and legal grounds to demand that they be informed that they are buying a license, or renting, the game; they are not owning a functional copy of the game outright.
I’m turning 42 this. I’ve been a software developer for 15 years now. I’d like to even say that a few of those years I even came across like I knew what I was talking about. But this basic issue is not about software development. This is about consumer advocacy, and it was a huge turn off to watch him perform the mental gymnastics on
why people should be screwed overwhy false/deceptive advertising by the industry is acceptable.Its not allowing the release, its requiring it.
Good.
Require it; if I buy something I require every feature of my own product, if I purchased it.
Too hard? Fine.
Then the law should require the fact that you the seller must say I’m renting a game or product, or purchased a limited license. They can’t say I “bought it and own it” if they can prevent me from using it however I want whenever they want. Force them to be explicitly clear about what I’m getting for my money.
I mean, big YouTubers like Charlie and others covering Thor’s bullshit is what drove this huge spike in signatures so maybe we should be thanking Thor lol
Nah, fuck Thor — he could have been the YouTuber pushing for coverage of Stop Killing Games, instead he decided to double down on his stupid bullshit.
Reminder — he was a Blizzard employee for 7 years. I think that, plus his ‘my shit doesn’t stink and if you think it does, you’re wrong and banned’ attitude should give you all you need to know.
“Fuck you, Thor, but also thanks. But definitely fuck you, Thor.”
“And by thanks I actually means fuck you”
looks like GamersNexus is covering it on their consumer advocacy channel
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9ahH6HrtTc&pp=0gcJCc4JAYcqIYzv
Yes! They’ll also be plugging it on their main channel soon.
Fuck, I would sign but I’m a piece of shit American.
Helping spread the word is still an option, and would be greatly appreciated! :D
Fuck that. I’m sending this to everyone I know. Gamer or not. Common sense alone demands a signature.
Edit: This far 2 gamers finally put their signatures on it and 4 non gamers went with it too. So with me we’re at 7 signatures.
I did my part. But I think it won’t be enough. Yes, after Ross spoke up every content creator and their grandparents started shitting in Pirates mouth and is advertising the petition like crazy. But sadly these kind of things are a bit circle jerky and will be watched by the same people.
Exactly. Some of my best friends are gamers.
It saddens me that my country (Italy) has such a low percentage of signatures. Most of us are either ignorant of anything happening outside of our borders, or straight up doomers who don’t believe anything can ever change for the better.
Big congrats to my fellow northern cousins. I was expecting Poland, who has a healthy videogame industry, to gather a good enough number of signatures, but 160% is wild! It’s refreshing seeing so many people joining the petition - It’s not even about videogames: this initiative will have huge repercussions on the lifespan of other, unrelated products and, in general terms, planned obsolescence.
I think it’s been very hard for us to spread awareness into countries where a majority don’t also speak English, as the organizer and much of the coverage is only in English.
If you know of any big Italian gaming YouTubers or streamers that might be receptive to helping or talking about the campaign, could you reach out to them about it with a comment?
Raiden and Midna at PLAYERINSIDE did it (again) this week and are going to do it again in their video today.
I bet that if they point out that we are losing to the French, we may achieve incredible results in record time.
Except in Pisa.
Unfortunately, that’s not my area of expertise. I don’t follow streamers or YouTubers (Italian or international), nor do I have a close enough relationship with any of them that I’d be able to talk to them and convince them to mention this petition to their fans.
The one and only time some friends and I attempted to interact with a few local content creators (to publicize our free fan games we poured hundreds of hours into and NEVER attempted to monetize in any way), we either got ignored, insulted, or received vague answers that went nowhere. It soured me towards Italian content creators and vowed to never interact with them again.
One thing you can do: In person organising. It’s something the campaign has been really bad at. Have some flyers printed up and start handing them out. I don’t know the Italian school schedule, but if universities are still in session they might be good targets.
I did it last year, first at Gamescom and then at a local uni and I think it helped spread the word.
Sorry to hear that they were so nasty. :(
Where do you see signatures by country?
Here are the up-to-date numbers, the threshold percentages are now better than shown the image in the post but there’s still a long way to reach the total of 1 million
Let’s keep going https://eci.ec.europa.eu/045/public/#/screen/home
Signed.
Everyone was calling it “stop killing games” instead of “stop destroying games” and I literally thought it was a petition to stop games with murder and violence lol never even got farther than seeing the title.
Definitely a good idea to switch over to stop destroying games if that wasn’t the official title already…
Damn great example of why it’s stupid to only read headlines.
I’m not going to read something if the title doesn’t interest me. It’s also a great example of write headlines that are accurate and informative.
I would love to know where the people who downvoted you are getting the time and energy to read every single article they see a headline for.
And every book they don’t like the title/cover for
By that logic I might assume your new title for the movement is to stop any games with destruction! Make only wholesome games!
Edit: Also “destroying” a game is very subjective. Your suggestion is definitely a downgrade.
Ya me too.
But everybody loves mass murder.
Done!
I’m an American citizen living in the Netherlands; I have a renewed 5-year residency permit. Am I allowed to sign? I’m guessing no, but maybe there’s an allowance for EU residents, not just citizens?
Pretty sure it’s just EU citizens. If you can’t vote in elections there, you probably can’t sign this.
The Dutch allow me to vote for the Water Management Board of my town. Other than that, no, I can’t vote in the other elections. 😢
Don’t have many bluesky followers, but i made an awareness post - everyone i know and who cares has already signed :-)
I filled in all the fields and it keeps telling me “Field required”. I’ll try it later when I’m at my desktop PC.
Still think this is pure selfishness from players, but hey if you get a law passed then more power to you.
How is it selfishness to want to keep the product you bought? To preserve things that contribute to art and culture?
Of course things are so simple. I like the “everyone’s art” argument as well.
You wouldn’t mind elaborating on “of course things are so simple”? It feels like an awfully vague answer…
I think this movement is based on feelings. It feels bad that a game died, so we should fix it. Unfortunately the real world is more complicated than that, and overly broad rules are goint to cause unintended consequences for small developers.
The art argument is nonsense, although the other extreme is too. Artists need protections so they can earn a living, but the protections currently last far too long.
Either way, nothing is stopping a company creating a game similar to any number of often referenced “dead” games, and there is nothing wrong with letting something run its course and die off, to allow room for new creativity.
I’m not aware of really any small developers pulling stunts like Ubisoft is doing. And there’s always the option to limit new laws to bigger publishers, like the EU is doing with the DMA.
The art argument is not nonsense, not sure where you get the idea. Games like Assassin’s Creed 2 have influenced many people in their design choices for their own games.
And of course there’s something wrong when a company takes away access to singleplayer games you bought, just because they use always-online DRM and don’t want to pay for the servers. These games don’t take away space from new games, it’s a ridiculous idea that them dying off is improving the situation for new games. It’s also ridiculous to think “hey, someone can just develop a game like the old one!”.
You can call it ridiculous but it doesnt make it less true.
Of course it’s ridiculous and untrue. You can’t “just” develop a game like Assassins Creed 2.
Absolutely not, we paid for something, and they can take it away. This is the fight for digital ownership.
We do love our pointless fights don’t we?
I don’t think it’s unreasonable to want a game that I paid for to remain functional long term. In my case I have a copy of the Hitman trilogy in my Steam library, and as it stands when the servers for that game go offline it will become nearly unplayable just because the unlock system is reliant on the publisher’s servers. It would be easy for them to just release a patch as they decommission those servers to allow the unlock system to function offline, but right now there is no guarantee of that happening, nor any real reason to do so besides some consumer goodwill.
Thats an interesting example, what do you mean by the unlock system requiring servers?
I mean that you straight up cannot unlock new equipment, costumes, starting points, and the like while offline and/or disconnected from the game servers. IIRC the game just doesn’t track stage mastery without a connection.
How do those boots taste like?
You never win if you don’t fight.
This is about maintaining the compromise that is intellectual property law.
IP law has been so perverted that I see a lot of the takietarians around here wanting to abolish it completely. That’s not a good idea. The US constitution empowers Congress to make laws that for a limited time give creators exclusive rights to their creations. FOR A LIMITED TIME. That’s the key feature. I know this is an EU petition, I imagine they have a similar concept of IP. That it belongs to the creator for awhile, and then enters the public domain as the heritage of all mankind.
Do away with copyright protection entirely, and you kill a lot of people’s jobs. The rate at which things will be created will drastically decrease. Throughout the 1980s, how many decade defining or genre defining video games came out of the United States? The nation known for a video game industry crash that decade? How many came out of the UK? How many out of Japan? How many out of the Soviet Union?
Okay so let’s make copyright permanent! Well no, because then you get Disney, a collection of stuffed suits who have MBAs instead of souls holding as much western culture hostage as they can in perpetuity.
So, we compromise. You create something, you get an amount of time of exclusive right of way, then it becomes public domain.
That length of time has gotten longer and longer to the point now that it’s more than 2 human lifetimes long. To an individual human, that’s as good as forever, so it has the problems of permanent copyright.
Especially in the realm of computer software and video games, where the life of a platform averages 10 years. There’s a whole body of software and games written for OLD systems that are still protected under copyright, but finding the copyright holder is damn near impossible. I’ll make up a game: Turtle Adventure for the Commodore 64, copyright 1985 by Bedsoft Inc. Bedsoft Inc was a sole proprietorship operated by Bartholomew Teethwick in Bristol, England. Mr. Teethwick published Turtle Adventure, a typing tutor game that didn’t really work right, and an advertisement for a Pacman clone to release in 1987 was circulated but that game was never made. The “company” was shut down in 1988 and Mr. Teethwick died of AIDS in 1991, unmarried, no children. Who’s going to sue me for posting Turtle Adventure on Github? Whose rights is copyright law protecting here?
Then you get into this model where video games don’t work at all without a central server somewhere. That’s just an end around of the deal. This software is supposed to end up in the public domain eventually. By copyrighting it, that’s the deal you made.
To patent something, you’re required to submit a technical description of your invention in sufficient detail for it to be replicated, because patent law is a similar compromise. You invent something, it’s yours for awhile then it belongs to humanity. You cannot have a patented trade secret. Why do we allow closed source software to be copyrighted?
The rules for software weren’t created for software, they were created for human readable works of literature, and they’ve been misused in ways that benefit large greed-based organizations like Microsoft.
Requiring game developers to publish their server side code when the game goes defunct is holding them to the deal they made when they installed that copyright notice. It is what they owe humanity.
Thats all a great argument for far shorter copyright lengths, sort of a pity this bill isn’t asking for that but maybe thats how it will shake out anyways.
I think you’re allowed to be selfish when it’s your game. I paid £80 for that game, I should have the right to play it for as long as I have the hardware to run it, even if I have to do some fiddling and modding to get it to work.
Don’t Give Up. You Can Cuss The Whole Time Just Don’t Give Up.
Hell yeah! We can do this!
