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Again, what the fuck does the licensing of music or textures have anything to do with people playing the game offline? Why do you mix your awful DRM scheme wit

Again, what the fuck does the licensing of music or textures have anything to do with people playing the game offline? Why do you mix your awful DRM scheme with something completely separated from the subject matter? Are you trying to claim that the licensing scheme establishes by contract that the players must be stripped of their consumer rights by not being able to own the game they bought? Well, good news for you, maybe the regulations that will come out of it will make this sort of licensing contract illegal. Perhaps it will make it easier to make games for you.

meheleventyone 1y ago
It’ll make licensing more expensive because the net result is more permissive. Or in the hypothetical the content could be removed and replaced with something bespoke or cheaper to licence. But both of these options will make the game more expensive to build overall across its surface area.
- charcircuit 1y ago
  How is it more permissive? The product is the same as it was before the official servers went down. Forcing games to be moddable is unrelated to stop killing games.
  - meheleventyone 1y ago
    When you’re licensing content from third parties the more permissive rights you need the more expensive it is. Music is a very good example where it might not even be possible to get a perpetual license. A bunch of games have removed music as their license to it has expired for example. In the context of EOL of a game if you have to provide it for free to owners in perpetuity any third party content, code and so on needs to have been licensed for that use. That is typically more permissive than licenses as mentioned up thread and so more expensive.
    - charcircuit 1y ago
      Stop killing games is not about forcing developers to perpetually sell games. They can still stop selling games. They just can't leave it in an unplayable state. If developers want to get the rights to distribute a song for 5 years with their game, they can still do that.
      - meheleventyone 1y ago
        No I’m talking about the distribution of games. With physical media that’s all fine because once the license expires they stop making new copies. People that own a copy are fine. With digital distribution once you’ve EOL’d a product you still need to make it available right? Otherwise how do people that have paid for it get it? But that means you can’t distribute elements you no longer have the license to.
        surgical_fire 1y ago
        With online distribution games can be made unavailable for purchase. You are not distributing it anymore. Only people that previously purchased can still download the game. There are multiple such cases in stores such as Steam or GoG. I own games that are not available for purchase anymore. Those games were not killed. I can still download and play them.
        meheleventyone 1y ago
        Offering the game for download but not sale is still distributing it and you’d still need licenses for all the content you’re distributing. In the cases you mention the games still hold the licenses which is common but not universal.
        wizzwizz4 1y ago
        You've signed a pretty shoddy license agreement if it requires you to refund all your customers, in full, after a few years. That's just bad business.
- surgical_fire 1y ago
  > It’ll make licensing more expensive because the net result is more permissive The current state of affairs is that the net result is such that consumers are stripped of their rights. I find it more unacceptable. If the licensing costs without fucking over consumers is prohibitive, then maybe those games should not exist. If no one is licensing the brands/assets/music/whatever because the licensing costs are too high, it's likely that in time the costs will come down.
  - meheleventyone 1y ago
    > If the licensing costs without fucking over consumers is prohibitive, then maybe those games should not exist. Wow, who is killing games now?
    - surgical_fire 1y ago
      Absolutely, games that strip consumers of their rights should not exist. I am not going to defend predatory practices. You think you threw me a gotcha, but you are actually only exposing yourself.
      - meheleventyone 1y ago
        The framing was your own so it’s not the gotcha you feel it is. I also don’t know what you think I’m exposing because I’m broadly in agreement that games at their EOL, particularly single player should continue to work. I am interested in discussing where that breaks down but I think that’s probably where we differ. You seem more interested in being combative and making up gotchas.
        surgical_fire 1y ago
        > You seem more interested in being combative and making up gotchas. Only because you are being purposely obtuse, gesturing at licensing as something that makes game development impossible without making games previously purchased by consumers unavailable. If you make cakes that are poisoned with lead, and regulations say that you cannot sell lead-poisoned food, you cannot say "but all egg suppliers only sell lead-poisoned eggs, this will kill the cake industry". If regulations say that games should be made accessible for people that purchased them past EOL, licensing agreements will have to adapt for it. Differentiating distribution as in "new copy being sold" and "previously sold copy being available for download".
- cwillu 1y ago
  If the law is that you can't do this, then those terms will just disappear from licencing agreements. It's not like there's a shortage of textures and sounds in the marketplace.
  - meheleventyone 1y ago
    That entirely depends on the content, some is fungible and some isn’t. For the majority of general content developers are already getting a perpetual license so it’s really these special cases that will remain an issue and are unlikely to be resolved in the manner you suggest.
  - dijit 1y ago
    For some things. For others you may not be able to license it. Example: have you seen a street racing game with Toyota’s in it? There’s a reason that Need For Speed games fell off after Most Wanted (original) and it’s because they themselves don’t get total artistic license on their works. And part of the agreements is a reasonable expectation that you will not assist anyone else to violate the agreement - and, the agreements are not perpetual either. So, depends on context. There are examples where licensing opportunities dry up.
    - archagon 1y ago
      Somehow game companies managed to deal with this when games were sold on CDs. They’ll figure it out again.
      - dijit 1y ago
        Yeah, it was easier then. The presumption was that sales were not perpetual- and reselling isn’t leasing a license in the same way. Maybe there’s a way though
      - robertlagrant 1y ago
        Yes - they started including DRM software on the CDs. They'll figure that out again.

meheleventyone 1y ago

It’ll make licensing more expensive because the net result is more permissive. Or in the hypothetical the content could be removed and replaced with something bespoke or cheaper to licence. But both of these options will make the game more expensive to build overall across its surface area.

charcircuit 1y ago
How is it more permissive? The product is the same as it was before the official servers went down. Forcing games to be moddable is unrelated to stop killing games.
- meheleventyone 1y ago
  When you’re licensing content from third parties the more permissive rights you need the more expensive it is. Music is a very good example where it might not even be possible to get a perpetual license. A bunch of games have removed music as their license to it has expired for example. In the context of EOL of a game if you have to provide it for free to owners in perpetuity any third party content, code and so on needs to have been licensed for that use. That is typically more permissive than licenses as mentioned up thread and so more expensive.
  - charcircuit 1y ago
    Stop killing games is not about forcing developers to perpetually sell games. They can still stop selling games. They just can't leave it in an unplayable state. If developers want to get the rights to distribute a song for 5 years with their game, they can still do that.
    - meheleventyone 1y ago
      No I’m talking about the distribution of games. With physical media that’s all fine because once the license expires they stop making new copies. People that own a copy are fine. With digital distribution once you’ve EOL’d a product you still need to make it available right? Otherwise how do people that have paid for it get it? But that means you can’t distribute elements you no longer have the license to.
      - surgical_fire 1y ago
        With online distribution games can be made unavailable for purchase. You are not distributing it anymore. Only people that previously purchased can still download the game. There are multiple such cases in stores such as Steam or GoG. I own games that are not available for purchase anymore. Those games were not killed. I can still download and play them.
        meheleventyone 1y ago
        Offering the game for download but not sale is still distributing it and you’d still need licenses for all the content you’re distributing. In the cases you mention the games still hold the licenses which is common but not universal.
        wizzwizz4 1y ago
        You've signed a pretty shoddy license agreement if it requires you to refund all your customers, in full, after a few years. That's just bad business.
surgical_fire 1y ago
> It’ll make licensing more expensive because the net result is more permissive The current state of affairs is that the net result is such that consumers are stripped of their rights. I find it more unacceptable. If the licensing costs without fucking over consumers is prohibitive, then maybe those games should not exist. If no one is licensing the brands/assets/music/whatever because the licensing costs are too high, it's likely that in time the costs will come down.
- meheleventyone 1y ago
  > If the licensing costs without fucking over consumers is prohibitive, then maybe those games should not exist. Wow, who is killing games now?
  - surgical_fire 1y ago
    Absolutely, games that strip consumers of their rights should not exist. I am not going to defend predatory practices. You think you threw me a gotcha, but you are actually only exposing yourself.
    - meheleventyone 1y ago
      The framing was your own so it’s not the gotcha you feel it is. I also don’t know what you think I’m exposing because I’m broadly in agreement that games at their EOL, particularly single player should continue to work. I am interested in discussing where that breaks down but I think that’s probably where we differ. You seem more interested in being combative and making up gotchas.
      - surgical_fire 1y ago
        > You seem more interested in being combative and making up gotchas. Only because you are being purposely obtuse, gesturing at licensing as something that makes game development impossible without making games previously purchased by consumers unavailable. If you make cakes that are poisoned with lead, and regulations say that you cannot sell lead-poisoned food, you cannot say "but all egg suppliers only sell lead-poisoned eggs, this will kill the cake industry". If regulations say that games should be made accessible for people that purchased them past EOL, licensing agreements will have to adapt for it. Differentiating distribution as in "new copy being sold" and "previously sold copy being available for download".
cwillu 1y ago
If the law is that you can't do this, then those terms will just disappear from licencing agreements. It's not like there's a shortage of textures and sounds in the marketplace.
- meheleventyone 1y ago
  That entirely depends on the content, some is fungible and some isn’t. For the majority of general content developers are already getting a perpetual license so it’s really these special cases that will remain an issue and are unlikely to be resolved in the manner you suggest.
- dijit 1y ago
  For some things. For others you may not be able to license it. Example: have you seen a street racing game with Toyota’s in it? There’s a reason that Need For Speed games fell off after Most Wanted (original) and it’s because they themselves don’t get total artistic license on their works. And part of the agreements is a reasonable expectation that you will not assist anyone else to violate the agreement - and, the agreements are not perpetual either. So, depends on context. There are examples where licensing opportunities dry up.
  - archagon 1y ago
    Somehow game companies managed to deal with this when games were sold on CDs. They’ll figure it out again.
    - dijit 1y ago
      Yeah, it was easier then. The presumption was that sales were not perpetual- and reselling isn’t leasing a license in the same way. Maybe there’s a way though
    - robertlagrant 1y ago
      Yes - they started including DRM software on the CDs. They'll figure that out again.