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I think this is going to have unintended consequences if it goes through: funding game development is a very very high risk investment. Adding this type of regu

by pipes 3mo ago

I think this is going to have unintended consequences if it goes through: funding game development is a very very high risk investment. Adding this type of regulation adds further cost and complication, which makes it an even less attractive investment. Which will result in less monetary and creative risk taken. Even just open sourcing part of project is expensive. Legal and technical.

ryandrake 3mo ago
This argument is always pretty weak. All regulation adds cost and complication for companies. If that alone was a good reason to not add regulation, then taken to the logical conclusion, there should be no regulation on companies. Regulation needs to be seen as a trade-off, for example: We get better behaving companies, and the cost is less risk taken. Then the question becomes "is the benefit worth the cost?"
- Ferret7446 3mo ago
  The argument should be stronger since the vast majority of regulation is as you say, the cost is not worth the benefit. All regulation by default is anticompetitive and also comes with the risk of intended consequences, and thus must prove that they provide sufficient benefit. They are "guilty until proven innocent". e.g., rather than trying to "just do something" about games, maybe we should revisit copyright law as a whole, instead of slapping a bandaid on a festering wound caused by the first bandaid
  - benj111 3mo ago
    How is all regulation anti competitive? Is it anti competitive that your product does what you say it does and is safe? Isn't that just levelling the playing field by allowing consumers to make rational choices? What about regulation designed to make sure there is competition? Is that anticompetitive???
Schiendelman 3mo ago
I thought this was more "let people run the code themselves if they can figure it out" not "open sourcing". There's no appetite to force a company that reuses and improves their game engine on every new title to open source it, even an older version.
- Volundr 3mo ago
  That alone would be an improvement from the status quo, but the SKG movement does go one stop further in wanting publishers to be required to leave the game in a working (local) state of they design it to be dependent on central services they then shut down. This could be as easy as releasing the tools they used for development when developing the game.
  - Schiendelman 3mo ago
    That's really tough. Marathon, by Bungie, is a good example of why this is tough - it's basically all the Destiny engine, network, and tooling code. When they shut down Destiny, it's not like they have a snapshot of their tooling. They've been continuously updating that tooling for ten years, and now they're using that investment for a new project. Most game studios are similar, in reusing and improving a whole development architecture and systems across many titles. I would not agree with making them release that, even an older version. That's a big competitive moat for some studios. I think if a community group wants to PAY to operate a server, that's quite reasonable. And then you still end up with a fight about how much to charge. But I don't think handing over server code is the right move.
    - hodgehog11 3mo ago
      I don't think that's what working state means here. It's not a full snapshot or even necessarily multiplayer support. It means minimum functional, which to me is just barely enough to see the assets used in the game. Not necessarily networking, matchmaking, online services, or the relevant tooling. Developers have already proposed making helpers that would introduce an effective switch to do this. Also what you said about releasing the code and letting the community figure it out was explicitly an example SKG said was okay, from memory.

by pipes 3mo ago

ryandrake 3mo ago

This argument is always pretty weak. All regulation adds cost and complication for companies. If that alone was a good reason to not add regulation, then taken to the logical conclusion, there should be no regulation on companies. Regulation needs to be seen as a trade-off, for example: We get better behaving companies, and the cost is less risk taken. Then the question becomes "is the benefit worth the cost?"

Ferret7446 3mo ago
The argument should be stronger since the vast majority of regulation is as you say, the cost is not worth the benefit. All regulation by default is anticompetitive and also comes with the risk of intended consequences, and thus must prove that they provide sufficient benefit. They are "guilty until proven innocent". e.g., rather than trying to "just do something" about games, maybe we should revisit copyright law as a whole, instead of slapping a bandaid on a festering wound caused by the first bandaid
- benj111 3mo ago
  How is all regulation anti competitive? Is it anti competitive that your product does what you say it does and is safe? Isn't that just levelling the playing field by allowing consumers to make rational choices? What about regulation designed to make sure there is competition? Is that anticompetitive???

Schiendelman 3mo ago

I thought this was more "let people run the code themselves if they can figure it out" not "open sourcing". There's no appetite to force a company that reuses and improves their game engine on every new title to open source it, even an older version.

Volundr 3mo ago
That alone would be an improvement from the status quo, but the SKG movement does go one stop further in wanting publishers to be required to leave the game in a working (local) state of they design it to be dependent on central services they then shut down. This could be as easy as releasing the tools they used for development when developing the game.
- Schiendelman 3mo ago
  That's really tough. Marathon, by Bungie, is a good example of why this is tough - it's basically all the Destiny engine, network, and tooling code. When they shut down Destiny, it's not like they have a snapshot of their tooling. They've been continuously updating that tooling for ten years, and now they're using that investment for a new project. Most game studios are similar, in reusing and improving a whole development architecture and systems across many titles. I would not agree with making them release that, even an older version. That's a big competitive moat for some studios. I think if a community group wants to PAY to operate a server, that's quite reasonable. And then you still end up with a fight about how much to charge. But I don't think handing over server code is the right move.
  - hodgehog11 3mo ago
    I don't think that's what working state means here. It's not a full snapshot or even necessarily multiplayer support. It means minimum functional, which to me is just barely enough to see the assets used in the game. Not necessarily networking, matchmaking, online services, or the relevant tooling. Developers have already proposed making helpers that would introduce an effective switch to do this. Also what you said about releasing the code and letting the community figure it out was explicitly an example SKG said was okay, from memory.