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Stop Killing Games
- MzHN 1y agoUnofficial but it is fun to watch live as the tracker numbers go up https://stopkillinggamestracker.pages.dev/ https://stopkillinggamestracker.pages.dev/
- lysace 1y agoMaking it a competition between EU nations is in HN title speech ”unreasonably effective”. (I mean, Denmark, come on, show your northern neighbors that our assumptions about you are wrong! Etc.)
- HexDecOctBin 1y agoAnother, much more flashier tracker: https://stop-killing-games.keep-track.xyz/ https://stop-killing-games.keep-track.xyz/
- butlike 1y agoI wholeheartedly agree with this. Add an expiration date on the "box" (I dunno what you call it in modern times): "Online-only: This game will be playable until 2028-06-30" This forces the publisher to put their money where their mouth is. If the game is successful, like WoW, by all means extend the time it's playable for. If it 'flops', you're on the hook to support it for 3 years, since you shouldn't be putting out made-to-fail slop.
- geerlingguy 1y agoAlso, storefronts should have a button that says "Rent" or "Subscribe" instead of buy, if the EULA has clauses like "we have the right to remove access for 'any reason, or no reason'. The word 'buy' implies some level of ownership (not to the rights to IP or anything, but at least to the product being purchased).
- A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 1y agoYeah, this level of uncertainty is annoying. It gets extra annoying when we are talking about games like BF2 and the like, that have zero real reason to not have the ability to be played on lan or similar.
- omoikane 1y agoI think having expiration dates is very reasonable and I wish their FAQ would cover this. Current FAQ entries seem to suggest companies must make the games playable forever, and suggest this is somehow possible without ongoing support or divulging intellectual property. I am not sure this is always possible to satisfy in the most general sense. https://www.stopkillinggames.com/faq https://www.stopkillinggames.com/faq
- _cenw 1y agoIt isn't with the status quo, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't do it. The EU as a market has enough sway to solve every vendor insisting on restrictive licensing. And we'd only be talking about already sold copies anyway.
- s1gsegv 1y agoYes, I suggest they divulge the intellectual property. Games are an art form similar to paintings or music, and we as a society should be able to experience previous art. Keep the IP while you run the servers and sell the game, when you are no longer interested in running the servers, drop a tarball of code. It doesn’t need to be simple, it just needs to be possible and complete. The community can take care of it. If the IP is valuable, then you have your incentive to keep the game playable until it isn’t valuable to you.
- butlike 1y agoThere can be a lot of interwoven licensing with games. fmod, speedtree, SDK terms, music... you can't just open source it in most cases and call it good.
- avidiax 1y agoPublishers could just put "Guaranteed playable until 2026-07-02", and then extend those games that are profitable. You really need either a minimum term of support in law, or a requirement to publish a docker of the server into escrow, to be released if the company fails or decides to discontinue.
- theevilsharpie 1y ago> Publishers could just put "Guaranteed playable until 2026-07-02", and then extend those games that are profitable. A one-day warranty would almost certainly run afoul of the EU's merchantability laws. Edit: Misread the date (sorry, American here -- we write dates weird). However, the point still stands: selling a product to consumers involves some warranty of merchantability, and breaching that entitles consumers to refunds (and can even get the publisher in trouble with regulators). I wouldn't be concerned with publishers going the "guaranteed playable until" route because there's already consumer protections that discourage this type of thing.
- Ekaros 1y agoAnd CRA. I really doubt that one would be acceptable lifecycle.
- prophesi 1y agoOr provide the server code for self-hosting[0] [0] https://www.reddit.com/r/Battlefield/comments/1jxcaj3/battlefield_2_modern_combat_backend_server_made/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Battlefield/comments/1jxcaj3/battle...
- DrSiemer 1y agoAn expiration date could be hard to estimate, but a minimum level of support based on sales might be worth thinking about. As I understand it, that's not the main focus of this initiative though. It's mostly about opening up dead games for stuff like private servers, so we are not forced to lose access to all the art within when the developer pulls the plug. It seems like a relatively small ask to at least _allow_ hardcore fans to keep something alive. I can imagine publishers that have a great connection with their community (like Coffeestain) actually benefitting from handling stuff like this in a decent way.
- maplant 1y agoI hope this will pass. Video games are an important medium, and it's distressing to the degree they are overwritten or completely destroyed when they are no longer profitable.
- Apreche 1y agoI’m curious how this can be enforced. If a game requires centralized servers, and the company goes out of business, you can’t force a bankrupt entity to keep the system running. Even if they published an expiration date, if there is no money left to run the servers, there’s nothing to sue for, nobody to fine, and no money to run the server. You could force the company to release their code upon bankruptcy, but what if another company wants to buy those assets? What if some other IP that they might use on other games is mixed in there and required for the game to work? You could make a prohibition on live service games to begin with. You could require all games with online components to make their servers runnable by users from the outset. The problem here is economic. Game companies can’t go back to the old model of lumpy cash flow. You can’t have one huge pile of money come in when the game launches, and then a long miniscule tail. That doesn’t keep people employed. It’s also super risky when a game with a huge budget and long development time flops. You have to have some kind of constant revenue stream from subscriptions or micro-transactions to stay afloat. If users can run their own servers, that can never happen.
- idle_zealot 1y ago> You could make a prohibition on live service games to begin with. You could require all games with online components to make their servers runnable by users from the outset. The problem here is economic This sounds purely like a technical and legal problem, not an economic one. Even if a company wants to run their game as a live service they can be required to design it in such a way that the server portion is portable and self-hostable, but not release the server until they shut down their own.
- OsrsNeedsf2P 1y agoThe petition doesn't ask for the company to keep the servers up, only that it's possible to keep playing locally (either a LAN setup or private servers like Minecraft)
- maplant 1y agoThis requires companies to have an end-of-life plan for their games should the company wish to take down their servers. It does not require source code for the centralized servers, only the binaries. In the case of bankruptcy, the end-of-life plan would be part of the assets sold with the game.
- citizenpaul 1y agoSomething about this is very distressing to me. Millions of essentially rich middle upper class banding together effortlessly to petition the government to save their entertainment. Meanwhile there are people spending their whole lives to get even a tiny sliver of support for things like human rights violations.
- OsrsNeedsf2P 1y agoCan we not do both?
- taco_emoji 1y agoSo basically: until everything else is fixed, don't try to fix this?
- _cenw 1y agoGames aren't exactly restricted to "upper middle class", they're mainstream entertainment (just look at Brazilians complaining about regional pricing). And if you want to make caring about things (art in this case; incidentally also entertainment) a competition, I got some lobbyists up the EU's bottom you can get upset about first.
- Ekaros 1y agoGaming really is global. Basically everywhere that can afford the devices which now include the "middle income" countries. So only ones really left out are really the poorest of the poor. If you can afford smartphone you can get on some gaming. Or even cheap computers including second hand ones.
- maplant 1y agoWell don't you worry citizenpaul, this legal issue has already been settled in the United States and no one has any recourse to save their entertainment at all.
- graynk 1y ago> effortlessly This is not the case > Meanwhile there are people spending their whole lives This is just relative privation fallacy speaking. You are welcome to try and create your own initiative and get popular streamers to talk about it. The fact that horrible things are happening in the world does not mean we shouldn't also care about other relatively bad things.
- ChrisArchitect 1y agoPreviously in 2024: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39909538 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39909538 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41126782 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41126782
- lousken 1y agogood thing this has an easy solution called not using shitty DRM and having a dedicated server/lan option
- hombre_fatal 1y agoThe obvious case where this makes sense are single-player games that require internet access before they even launch, like when you need to link a Microsoft account to play Forza. But it's less obvious to me how the legislation should work for a multiplayer-only game that goes out of business. I suppose it should require a refund at some point. But at what point? Steam only lets you refund a game that you played for less than two hours. And if you think that's not long enough, there's surely some time period where you can agree that you've got your money's worth. Kind of like how you lose the ability to say "I didn't like it" after you ate your whole dinner at a restaurant. Yet in the comments here someone gives an example of three years of online support which is insane. Why is multiplayer special? Should Steam also let you refund any game until three years elapse?
- Volundr 1y agoWhy does it have to be a refund? Private servers have been a thing for a long time, with people even running them for MMOs like World of Warcraft or City of Heroes.
- hombre_fatal 1y agoDo you just mean it should be legal to reverse engineer and cleanroom impl your own server if the developer's official servers are closed? I can agree with that. But anything more than that I probably don't agree with.
- Volundr 1y agoNah, if I pay for the game, I should get to keep it. If it's a monthly subscription only (not sure the current state, but WoW didn't us to be) then there's an argument to be made here that I was just buying access to those servers. But if I've plopped down 70 bucks and you don't feel like running your backend anymore, then the least you can do is provide the tools for others to do so.
- HideousKojima 1y ago
- jasonthorsness 1y agoI think a legal remedy here won't work. It can't magically produce money or desire to keep something runnable indefinitely. And any regulation that tries to compel work without payment seems like it will just hurt indie developers more.
- blamestross 1y agoYou could also comply by providing a self hostable server, or even source code that might be convertible to a self hostable server. Requiring an "end of life plan" in the ToS would be a start.
- OkayPhysicist 1y agoOr even just binaries. As big of a radical copyleft OSS advocate as I am, I think it'd help this particular movement to steer clear of "just release your source code" as a solution.
- tempodox 1y agoBunk. Nobody expects you to do unpaid work. Just don't make the game depend on the availability of your server, or other forms of planned obsolescence.
- bongodongobob 1y agoI don't understand the expectation of being able to play a multiplayer game forever.
- tempodox 1y agoThen don't. There is a growing number of single-player games that want an internet connection and even an online account.
- HideousKojima 1y agoI can still play multiplayer Doom, multiplayer Warcraft 1, and many, many more. Seems eminently reasonable to me.
- icu 1y agoI'm really glad there was an effort by streamers and influencers (shout-out to Asmongold and Penguinz0) to back Ross up and push back on PirateSoftware's incorrect take on this initiative. For a while it looked like the UK wasn't going to get 100k votes and that the EU initiative wasn't going to hit the million mark. Then about a week ago content got uploaded and this initiative got a much needed boost. The console wars are no longer company vs company, it is company vs consumer. So much anti consumer shenanigans are going on in the video game industry a message needs to be sent. If you care about video games, even in passing as a complete casual, please sign the petitions. I've done my dash for the UK.
- tumsfestival 1y agoGiving Asmongold of all people a shout-out feels so wrong... Guy is a creep to say the least, but I guess even a broken clock is right twice a day.
- OsrsNeedsf2P 1y agoNot disagreeing but do you have anything to back that up for those of us who aren't in the loop?
- amrrs 1y agoIs anyone here after PewDiePie comment ?
- wilg 1y agoThis seems very silly to me. Why would it apply only to games? It specifically is trying to apply to free games also. Should any product or service you ship with a client have to allow you to self host it if you don’t want to support it forever? What if your backend is extremely complex like WoW or Fortnite? That’s months or years of work to make that self hostable. How do you broker access to what you actually purchased? Does everyone just get to be Peter Griffin? This seems like a lot of hullabaloo over an issue that most people don’t care about, isn’t a major problem, has large technical and financial hurdles. It seems to me if it’s important to consumers the large size and diversity of the gaming market would make this a non issue because you could just select a game without this restriction, of which many are available in every genre.
- maplant 1y agoThe primary difference is that games are art, and that the needless destruction of art is a harm to humanity, even if you can just look at other pieces of art.
- this_user 1y agoWell, if they are art, then the artist has every right to make their work ephemeral, and demanding art to be regulated is just outright silly.
- tgsovlerkhgsel 1y agoIf you publish a book, in most countries, you explicitly don't have that right. In fact, you usually have to deliver a copy or several, often at your own cost, to the local national library (e.g. Library of Congress), to ensure it is preserved.
- Volundr 1y ago> What if your backend is extremely complex like WoW or Fortnite? WoW private servers have been a thing for a long time now. It's not like the initiative is asking for the ability to run the game on any set of minimum hardware. If the backend is released and a fleet of servers is needed to run it, that fulfills the ask. Pretty much any game of this type also has some ability for the developers to run it on their own machines too, usually with some simplified backend. Releasing those developer tools would also meet the bar.
- arandomhuman 1y agoI think this initiative sounds great, it's curious to me in a legal sense why this would strictly pertain to gaming software and not one-time bought software licensing models as a whole. This issue is pretty prevalent in software in general. Software vendors should have some accountability for EoLing these things in a graceful manner.
- royal__ 1y agoAs others have noted, the problem is often with keeping servers running. It's impossible to predict how successful a game will be in the long term, so the publisher can't make any claims to it's longevity. And, it doesn't make any sense to keep servers running if there's not enough income flow. Where this is really an issue is MMOs. Games like Forza already have some solutions: online features are eventually disabled, but you can still play the core game.
- arandomhuman 1y agoOpen source the server infrastructure or describe the protocol in sufficient detail to easily be reverse engineered.
- moffkalast 1y agoMMOs don't often have a profitability problem, they even tend to overstay their welcome compared to any other game. While it would be nice to get a server binary to self host after they're EoL it's gonna be unfeasible to run it anyway. The issue is really more with lazy implementations where a server check is required to play something that's fully single player as you say, which has become standard for major publishers now and is far too common for indie games too. It's not too much to ask to do the bare minimum and keep that single instance auth server online or just remove the requirement entirely by commenting out a few lines.
- OkayPhysicist 1y agoWhy would it be unfeasible? Plenty of MMOs have had private servers.
- dpoloncsak 1y agoMate, WoW Private servers were so profitable that Blizzard decided to ship their own. What makes it unfeasable to self-host?
- MattBearman 1y agoThis won’t require companies to keep servers running, just that they have an end of life plan, eg: releasing a version of the server that can be self hosted for multiplayer games
- VonGuard 1y agoThis is one of the few places where the USA has a sensible solution. In 2015, my org (Themade.org) worked with Archive.org, MIT, the EFF, and Harvard Law to obtain a DMCA 1201 exemption for legal DRM circumvention for the case of single player games where online validation servers have ceased operations. Thanks to the hard work of these organizations, the US market, at least, allows for those who purchased these games to continue to play them with a third party patch to their client. See below: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/11/new-dmca-ss1201-exemption-video-games-closer-look https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/11/new-dmca-ss1201-exempt...
- Bratmon 1y agoThat exception expired in 2024 and was not renewed. https://www.findlaw.com/legalblogs/legally-weird/u-s-copyright-office-presses-pause-on-dmca-exemption-for-video-games/ https://www.findlaw.com/legalblogs/legally-weird/u-s-copyrig... Please do not spread misinformation like this.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- VonGuard 1y agoYou are talking about the attempted exception in 2024. The 2015 exemption expires every 2 years and has to be renewed and to my knowledge it was renewed during this last effort, as it had been every 2 years since it was granted. The article you linked has nothing to do with the 2015 exemption. It only has to do with a proposed exemption that was not given in 2024.
- xela79 1y ago> continue to play them with a third party patch to their client so hoping that a third party patch can fix the issue. hoping it does. sounds like a very hopeless "legal" workaround
- VonGuard 1y agoHappens ALL the time. Players even figure out how to emulate MMO servers by sniffing network traffic. When people want to play the game, they will find a way.
- ortusdux 1y agoACEmulator is a great example of what this would look like for MMOPRGs - https://emulator.ac/ https://emulator.ac/
- artemonster 1y agoI am very surprised that people read this and think: "HoW CaN yOu SuppORT GaME AFter BANkRUPCY! THIS WILL KILL MMOS" Jeez, learn to fucking read. If a company kills a game with multiplayer-online requirement, release the goddamn server or let people make and host servers. this is the only thing that is being proposed.
- andrecarini 1y agoLots of bad takes in this thread. The whole idea behind this is just to stop defrauding customers that buy your software and then are left holding the bag. Nobody is asking for developers to keep running server infra for eternity. Any of the following options are enough to satisfy this proposal: - Put an expiration date on the storefront and make it clear that your software is not guaranteed to continue working after date X. - Have your server source code (stripped down of proprietary stuff) ready for public release at EoL. - Allow customers to reverse engineer the binaries and communication protocol after EoL. - Package dedicated server binaries with the game and allow customers to connect to it via a LAN or direct IP option.
- nirava 1y agoThank you for this very good summary. I'm frustrated at the really really bad takes on this by people I thought were very smart.
- nirava 1y agoI'm more and more baffled the more I go through this thread. It is as easy as saying, "this game you're buying won't run after 2030" Or publishing the bare minimum APIs you'd need to simulate to get the game to function. We have great people in the community that will make stuff work on their own, no instructions required. Just don't go out of your way to destroy your game.
- rasz 1y agoBut why would anyone buy battlefield of war 2028 if I dont destroy previous version?
- Ekaros 1y agoOr if I understand right if you have some online component make final version of the game to operate without it. So you might lose multiplayer, but single player components of game should still continue to function. Which to me doesn't sound huge ask. Unless you have overly strictly coupled the game with online. Which for single player games is likely bad design anyway.
- 1y ago
- pastureofplenty 1y agoStop killing games, and also stop making websites where all you see is a blank page if you don't have JavaScript enabled.
- Derelicte 1y agoPokémon Go could never have been made if this was the law.
- dpoloncsak 1y agoWhy not? What is stopping someone, right now, from setting up a PoGo private server?
- Derelicte 1y agoThe game has millions of pokestops, gyms, and players. A game of this scale CAN'T run on one server. Even if you could host it on just one or a few machines, if you sign up for one server and your buddy joins another, you can't do raids or anything together. And each of these player hosted servers has a player limit. Anti-cheat that isn't being actively updated is next to useless. Community servers would be botted to hell. The game requires a maps tile service. Expecting Niantic to provide map tiles for anyone to download is insane. They might not even own the rights to do that. It's virtually impossible for Pokémon go to remain in a "reasonably playable state" after the servers shutdown.
- atmavatar 1y agoThat seems an overstatement. Adding a blurb about "guaranteed to continue working through yyyy/mm/dd" to its app store page would likely be sufficient to satisfy what this is asking for.
- Derelicte 1y agoI don't know where you and other people in this thread are getting that idea from. That's not what the petition says, and that's definitely not what Ross Scott says in his videos. The game that sparked this movement was shutdown 9 years after it came out, and had 3 months notice.
- blamestross 1y agoRight the problem is that they didn't do that. 3 months notice isn't the same as "making it clear to the customer at purchase time how long this product might reasonably be supported" I'd certainly encourage a more sustainable solution like a self runnable server, but I'd settle for replacing the word "buy" in marketing with "license" or "rent" with actual terms other than "until we decide to turn it off". You don't get to make software a "license" but then not have any obligations to your licensee.
- viktorcode 1y agoLook at Concord. It was turned off immediately, because there was no players interest and Sony decided to cut the losses right away. Under the proposed rules they wouldn't be able to just kill a game they had high hopes for but ended up unneeded. The only financially viable solution for online games is to release in Europe later, after the project popularity in other markets was established.
- ThatPlayer 1y agoI don't think that should apply. The issue as they put it is "effectively robbing customers of their purchases". A full refund fixes that. But most games are not doing that.
- rasz 1y ago>94% was at 60% less than a week ago :o
- mortsnort 1y agoSomething like this may kill games before they're even made, which is even worse. Barriers to entry don't seem like a good idea to me.
- skotobaza 1y ago>may kill games before they're even made How? What games would be impossible to make with the proposed change?