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It's not "demanding others make things for you". It's demanding they don't remotely disable the thing you already bought. Imagine you buy a car, then a few yea

It's not "demanding others make things for you". It's demanding they don't remotely disable the thing you already bought. Imagine you buy a car, then a few years later the company remotely disables it because they're selling a newer model. Without giving you the money back of course. That's what's happening with games. And not just multiplayer: tons of single player games have been killed this way. The whole SKG thing started with The Crew, whose single player campaign (a massive thing with tons of content) got remotely yanked by the publisher.

maccard 8mo ago
Why is this only targeted at games and not mobile apps, app subscriptions or websites. This pretty much removes the ability to use _any_ commercial software without a custom license which is just insanity. No using any AWS services in case the pull the rug on you. You might argue “but you can X and you can Y”, and that’s true, but again why is this only a problem for games?
- OkayPhysicist 8mo ago
  The short answer is someone cared enough about the specific example in gaming to actually go through all the work to demand change. The longer answer is that games are one of the only pieces of software your average consumer actually buys these days, and they have a few particularly egregious examples that make it much easier to argue in front of a bunch of politicians without a firm grasp on the digital world, like "Game is completely client side except it checks with a server every 5 minutes to make sure you have a valid license, so when the company goes belly up you're left with a brick"
- deleted 8mo ago
  [deleted]
- seangrogg 8mo ago
  SKG is basically "right-to-repair" but for games. I do contend that if your phone breaks and the company says "we won't fix it and you aren't allowed to" then the government isn't doing its job. On the same token, if a game that you purchased turns off their servers and says "we won't run it and you aren't allowed to" then the government isn't doing its job. Now, how I would be able to run it is a very open question and I do agree there are some ways that are more reasonable asks than others. But the present-day status quo of "company says suck eggs and you just have to deal with it" is not an acceptable final state.
qwe----3 8mo ago
I don't believe a ton of true single player games have been killed this way. For multiplayer games your car analogy completely fails. The car company doesn't pay the road tax, or gas, or your mechanic.
- OkayPhysicist 8mo ago
  There have been a few, and they make fantastic examples to bring up when explaining the concept to people without a broad understanding of the market.
  - meheleventyone 8mo ago
    There were about 20,000 games released on Steam last year how many worked that way?
    - Timon3 8mo ago
      Why would it be acceptable for a single one to do this? And why do you think that games released last year are a good yardstick when we're talking about games being shut down at the end of their lifetime?
      - meheleventyone 8mo ago
        I'm trying to understand the scope of the issue. The reason I picked the last year is to see what the current landscape is. If this is a common practice in need of regulation then I'd expect a large number of current titles present the issue. If it's a 'few' then how many exactly does that imply? If we're talking less than ten then that would be less than 0.05% of games released last year (let alone the number releaded over the last ten). Someone linked this page which has 440 dead games over the past few decades which is 2.2% of the output of 2025 but obviously includes many more years, mobile, console releases and so on: https://stopkillinggames.wiki.gg/wiki/Dead_game_list https://stopkillinggames.wiki.gg/wiki/Dead_game_list
        8mo ago
jlawson 8mo ago
SKG is more like if the car company is required to provide a working factory, capable of manufacturing all the car's parts, along with working supply chains for all those things, to the car ownership "community", if they ever want to stop manufacturing that kind of car. They're required to do this for free. You know, so the "community" can take it over and keep manufacturing parts to keep the car going forever. Modern multiplayer game infrastructure is extremely complex; you don't just "hand over the server code". It's a massive multimillion dollar project to do anything analogous to that, and this project is mandatory and must be done for free. And no, gamers won't expect to pay any more because of SKG.

maccard 8mo ago

Why is this only targeted at games and not mobile apps, app subscriptions or websites. This pretty much removes the ability to use _any_ commercial software without a custom license which is just insanity. No using any AWS services in case the pull the rug on you. You might argue “but you can X and you can Y”, and that’s true, but again why is this only a problem for games?

OkayPhysicist 8mo ago
The short answer is someone cared enough about the specific example in gaming to actually go through all the work to demand change. The longer answer is that games are one of the only pieces of software your average consumer actually buys these days, and they have a few particularly egregious examples that make it much easier to argue in front of a bunch of politicians without a firm grasp on the digital world, like "Game is completely client side except it checks with a server every 5 minutes to make sure you have a valid license, so when the company goes belly up you're left with a brick"
deleted 8mo ago
[deleted]
seangrogg 8mo ago
SKG is basically "right-to-repair" but for games. I do contend that if your phone breaks and the company says "we won't fix it and you aren't allowed to" then the government isn't doing its job. On the same token, if a game that you purchased turns off their servers and says "we won't run it and you aren't allowed to" then the government isn't doing its job. Now, how I would be able to run it is a very open question and I do agree there are some ways that are more reasonable asks than others. But the present-day status quo of "company says suck eggs and you just have to deal with it" is not an acceptable final state.

qwe----3 8mo ago

I don't believe a ton of true single player games have been killed this way. For multiplayer games your car analogy completely fails. The car company doesn't pay the road tax, or gas, or your mechanic.

OkayPhysicist 8mo ago
There have been a few, and they make fantastic examples to bring up when explaining the concept to people without a broad understanding of the market.
- meheleventyone 8mo ago
  There were about 20,000 games released on Steam last year how many worked that way?
  - Timon3 8mo ago
    Why would it be acceptable for a single one to do this? And why do you think that games released last year are a good yardstick when we're talking about games being shut down at the end of their lifetime?
    - meheleventyone 8mo ago
      I'm trying to understand the scope of the issue. The reason I picked the last year is to see what the current landscape is. If this is a common practice in need of regulation then I'd expect a large number of current titles present the issue. If it's a 'few' then how many exactly does that imply? If we're talking less than ten then that would be less than 0.05% of games released last year (let alone the number releaded over the last ten). Someone linked this page which has 440 dead games over the past few decades which is 2.2% of the output of 2025 but obviously includes many more years, mobile, console releases and so on: https://stopkillinggames.wiki.gg/wiki/Dead_game_list https://stopkillinggames.wiki.gg/wiki/Dead_game_list
      - 8mo ago

jlawson 8mo ago

SKG is more like if the car company is required to provide a working factory, capable of manufacturing all the car's parts, along with working supply chains for all those things, to the car ownership "community", if they ever want to stop manufacturing that kind of car. They're required to do this for free. You know, so the "community" can take it over and keep manufacturing parts to keep the car going forever. Modern multiplayer game infrastructure is extremely complex; you don't just "hand over the server code". It's a massive multimillion dollar project to do anything analogous to that, and this project is mandatory and must be done for free. And no, gamers won't expect to pay any more because of SKG.