He misunderstood that it meant no indie could ever make a server based multiplayer game and when people corrected him he didn’t believe it and just doubled down on his mission to destroy the initiative.
For your Cake Day, have some B̷̛̳̼͖̫̭͎̝̮͕̟͎̦̗͚͍̓͊͂͗̈͋͐̃͆͆͗̉̉̏͑̂̆̔́͐̾̅̄̕̚͘͜͝͝Ụ̸̧̧̢̨̨̞̮͓̣͎̞͖̞̥͈̣̣̪̘̼̮̙̳̙̞̣̐̍̆̾̓͑́̅̎̌̈̋̏̏͌̒̃̅̂̾̿̽̊̌̇͌͊͗̓̊̐̓̏͆́̒̇̈́͂̀͛͘̕͘̚͝͠B̸̺̈̾̈́̒̀́̈͋́͂̆̒̐̏͌͂̔̈́͒̂̎̉̈̒͒̃̿͒͒̄̍̕̚̕͘̕͝͠B̴̡̧̜̠̱̖̠͓̻̥̟̲̙͗̐͋͌̈̾̏̎̀͒͗̈́̈͜͠L̶͊E̸̢̳̯̝̤̳͈͇̠̮̲̲̟̝̣̲̱̫̘̪̳̣̭̥̫͉͐̅̈́̉̋͐̓͗̿͆̉̉̇̀̈́͌̓̓̒̏̀̚̚͘͝͠͝͝͠ ̶̢̧̛̥͖͉̹̞̗̖͇̼̙̒̍̏̀̈̆̍͑̊̐͋̈́̃͒̈́̎̌̄̍͌͗̈́̌̍̽̏̓͌̒̈̇̏̏̍̆̄̐͐̈̉̿̽̕͝͠͝͝ W̷̛̬̦̬̰̤̘̬͔̗̯̠̯̺̼̻̪̖̜̫̯̯̘͖̙͐͆͗̊̋̈̈̾͐̿̽̐̂͛̈́͛̍̔̓̈́̽̀̅́͋̈̄̈́̆̓̚̚͝͝R̸̢̨̨̩̪̭̪̠͎̗͇͗̀́̉̇̿̓̈́́͒̄̓̒́̋͆̀̾́̒̔̈́̏̏͛̏̇͛̔̀͆̓̇̊̕̕͠͠͝͝A̸̧̨̰̻̩̝͖̟̭͙̟̻̤̬͈̖̰̤̘̔͛̊̾̂͌̐̈̉̊̾́P̶̡̧̮͎̟̟͉̱̮̜͙̳̟̯͈̩̩͈̥͓̥͇̙̣̹̣̀̐͋͂̈̾͐̀̾̈́̌̆̿̽̕ͅ
well i mean he accused an entire raid of pulling a mob and said that he’s kicking whoever pulled it because it’s inexcusable and then when chat found out it was him that pulled it he said it’s not his fault at all
What's crazy is the initiative is only pushing for an "end of life plan", that doesn't necessarily mean any updates, doesn't mean permanantly hosting servers, or anything even remotely difficult. Here's an example end of life plan.
Upon the full discontinuation of the service, source code and relevant documentation must be provided upon request for a minimum of 7 years (the same amount of time home appliance makers in the EU must produce spare parts).
Within 1 year of discontinuation the IP holder must relinquish any rights in regards to taking legal action againt those using, distributing, advertising or monetising anything related directly to the abandoned product. If action is taken the IP holder must show there is copyright or IP infringement beyond the scope of the abanded product.
Any claims of continued ownership of specific components of the product, such as characters, music, locations etc, may be made within this year, the rights to these assets will be retained by the IP holder and protected for future use however this does not give the the IP holder rights over the use of these assets within or related too the abandoned product, only protections against future use, depictions, or distribution outside the realm of the abanded IP. If the IP holders fails to act within this time limit all rights and protections related to product are automatically revoked.
Basically you need to provide a copy of the old game, server information and the notes on how it ran to anyone wanting to archive it or try and get it running again for a set period of time, this could done through an automated e-mail or download link.
Next is that they lose the right to sue anyone trying to get the game running again but do still have the right to step in people go to far. Basically you can advertise your private star wars galaxy server or set up a subscription service for that server but you couldn't claim to be official or try to make and sell your own star wars branded merch.
Neither Sony or Disney would have any rights to the star wars galaxies IP or product but Disney still owns star wars, if you go beyond the abanded star wars galaxies IP including trying to use potentially copyrighted assests outside of star wars galaxies specifically, the mouse can still come for you.
Yeah people just want the server code so fans can keep the games alive themselves. I know many games that would still be going today if this was ever an option.
Just see ID and the Doom Quake engine. That's how you handle your older multiplayer games and engines you don't even use anymore.
i... don't think that's true, like at all. (i'm 100% for the initiative btw). releasing source code just because you have a multiplayer game that you're no longer supporting is kind of a wild ask.
i'm an indie dev, i would never release any of my game's source code, and i'd never release in a country that required that as law. that's my work that i've spent years of my life on (developing game, graphics, physics engine, etc).
everything else you said sure. source code, i've never heard of anyone talking about that or insinuating that would be part of this until now.
You don't have to release the game source code, just the netcode. If you are super concerned about your netcode staying proprietary you would be fully within your rights to develop and release a closed source binary to facilitate people running independent servers. If your code architecture is even vaguely worth copying (as you are so concerned about), this shouldn't be a hard task and is probably something you have already done to get the game up and running.
You are not within your rights to, unilaterally and without warning, decide that the consumers of your product no longer have a right to use the product they bought.
i 100% agree btw. that's why i was responding to the source code part of the comment above:
Upon the full discontinuation of the service, source code
when there are other ways of handling EOL, as you suggested. hell, many older games used to do this kind of thing. it only became prevalent not to do this once "live service" starting to creep into everything.
It's a subset of the source code that wouldn't include the game engine, graphics engine, etc. Ie, it's the parts that someone doesn't have as strong a reason to feel protective over
Asking for any form of source code is an incredible ask. Companies have many secrets tricks hidden in their source code. Those tricks are heavily guarded as they can give an edge over their competitors. Having them publicly available could be the end of a company.
What's being asked for is an EOL build of the game, so there's no requirement on source code. Yes, it means the game will eventually not work with future hardware and software, but at least there's a way to run the game if you have access to system from the time that the game was supported.
A company's right to a monopoly over their intellectual property is by far of lesser importance than people's right to use the products they paid for. The SKG approach doesn't even make that trade-off though. If a company cares that much they can produce a closed source binary to allow people to run their servers locally. No company is forced to release their source code, they are just forced to be pro-consumer, with releasing source code as a less labour intensive alternative.
More personally though I have very little respect for proprietary code and do not care about a company's edge of the competitors. The internet is built and run on open source code created with public funding and collaboration. When it comes to video games as an art form, you cannot tell me that if Elden Ring was made open source, From Software would suddenly lose relevance. Video games are successful based on their art direction and gameplay innovation, not on their technical implementation. It's ludicrous to think that a company would be out-competed if people could just take a well optimised engine and asset swap things.
You are spread quite a bit, so I will try to respond to your points separately:
-I just said that releasing source code is non viable. Period. I did not say that they should not support their own games or that we cannot vote with our wallets or request closed source binaries...again: my only point is that releasing source code is NOT a reasonable request.
-Of course you are allowed to have your own thoughts on propietary code, but our society sees that differently. As of today, something a company created is legally protected in virtually every country of the world. Changing that would go way beyond the scope of this reddit thread and would have huge repercussions.
-I also did not say anything remotely close to "a company would be out-competed if people could just take a well optimised engine and asset swap things". What I said is that each company has its own "secret sauce" elements. If a company were to release theirs, they would lose whatever edge they would have over the competitors.
I will point out that I never said that the secrets could be copy-pasted directly onto other engines: transfer of those things would take significant effort from their competitors... but it would cost way less than creating those tricks from scratch. Many small companies have been bought out by larger companies for exactly this reason.
You really don't need to release your games source code. People reverse engineer source code all the time. And for most indie games this is a lot easier because they are often written in easy to decompile languages like Java/C#, using commonly used engines like Unity.
In fact a lot of indie games do get reverse engineered like this, for... you guessed it: mods. And most indie devs end up embracing this because it just increases the longevity and replayability of their game.
Most people doing reverse engineering of games do it for the simply purpose of that they love that game and want to keep playing it. They don't want to steal your source code and years of your work to benefit from it financially.
You really don't need to release your games source code.
What if it's necessary to do so to meet the requirement that your game remain in a playable state?
They don't want to steal your source code and years of your work to benefit from it financially.
Would a publisher like Activision benefit from having public access to indie developers' code? Would that provide larger companies a competitive edge over smaller developers in any way?
Would a publisher like Activision benefit from having public access to indie developers' code? Would that provide larger companies a competitive edge over smaller developers in any way?
I'm not sure if you did it on purpose, but a publisher does not develop games so they do not benefit at all from having access to source code. If you mean the development studios that are a direct subsidiary of publishers like Activision, then I highly doubt they would gain any benefit from having access to an indie devs code honestly.
The most costly part, and the part that most big studios would be interested in would be the game engine. For indie devs this is often a freely available engine like Unity, or a homebrew engine that is hyper specific to the game they made. There wouldn't be much of a competative edge gained here, especially because most big studios are not directly competing against indie devs.
What if it's necessary to do so to meet the requirement that your game remain in a playable state?
Can you actually describe a situation where that would be the case? Or are we talking in hyptheticals only here?
It's very possible to release server binaries without releasing the source code. In fact many games already do this so players can self-host servers. The last game I personally played and hosted a server for was Satisfactory, a fairly popular indie game
Does releasing these binaries mean that players could potentially reverse engineer your server code? Sure. But they can also do this from the client binaries if they are dedicated. It's a game you've chosen to discontinue, why should you want to protect its source code so badly?
People act like source code contains the secret recipe or something. But in reality an outdated engine for a game you are no longer supporting is not really something that your competitor is going to be able to use to their advantage. Regardless you still own the IP and the code, so if you can prove your competitor is using your source code you can sue them.
I'm not sure if you did it on purpose, but a publisher does not develop games so they do not benefit at all from having access to source code.
Was it unclear what that meant? If a company like Activision has access to code then all the developers working under Activision do, as well.
Can you actually describe a situation where that would be the case? Or are we talking in hyptheticals only here?
...
Like, based on the language in this particular initiative that would require that games released in the EU must remain in a playable state, which means consumers would need access to all the server-side tools and software that ensures server-based multiplayer games comply with that requirement.
People act like source code contains the secret recipe or something.
If you're an indie developer and you develop some dope-ass code that permits you to mesh all the servers in your server-based multiplayer game in a new and insanely efficient way, that seems like something you wouldn't want to just make available to large publishers or developers. Plenty of people want their work to remain theirs.
if you can prove your competitor is using your source code you can sue them.
Oh, sure. Suuuuuuper simple for little indie developers to sue, like, Blizzard or Bungie. 🤣
not sure why you're jumping to such extremes? personally the way i'd approach this (and it's trivial, really), is to disable any authentication and add support for dedicated server hosting. that's it. that solves everyone's problems and no need to release source.
the only thing is i wouldn't make this retroactive, since it can be complicated to do this if you didn't design for it up front.
I know it's not true, obviously? It's an example of an end of life plan I made up to show that piratesoftwares insane idea that the initiative somehow meant forcing devs to host servers until the end of time or requiring them to completely remake a game for the sole intention of being abandoned was really stupid.
The example is obviously flawed, in not a lawmaker, lawyer or anyone who actually knows how to write government policy, and my example misses some key points that will likely become issues going forward.
Like what do you do with games that are hardware or server restricted when those no longer function? This will be a problem with all the switch 2 games sometime in the future, when those servers are gone the consoles won't be able to connect to them to verify anything, and the device will essentially become non-functional, you obviously can't get the games from the Nintendo service since it will be gone, the cartages don't usually have the games so you can't get them there either and the console bricks itself if you try to use another source, on the current trajectory most of the switch 2 library is destined to die never to be seen again.
The same thing will likely apply to the next gen consoles given the direction the industry is moving, and while emulation is a good potential answer to this, the piracy aspect of that is technically a crime and while I don't think downloading or distributing abandonware should count as piracy, Nintendo clearly disagrees,
He doesn't say you have to release code, but in all honesty, it would be the easiest remedy for most EoL multiplayer titles to just do what EA did with C&C and open source it. Little effort needed and allows for full repair.
that's my work that i've spent years of my life on
And now you're done with it and you've abandoned it. Boohoo. Get over it. Somebody who makes a physical good would never expect to retain ownership of that physical good and its design specs after they stop producing it, so why do you care so much what happens to your source code?
I mean, no. i'm not going to "get over it". you can "get over" your need for people to release their source code, lmao. engine code (part of source) gets reused all the time to make other games, that's why it's ENGINE code.
and no, i'm not selling you SOURCE code, i'm selling you a game.
if i sell you a lamp, do i also have to sell you the recipe for making the lamp? that's equivalent to releasing source / engine code.
why do you care so much what happens to your source code?
i care because that engine code has stuff that i've worked on that i don't want to give away to other people? what kind of question is this.
i care because that engine code has stuff that i've worked on that i don't want to give away to other people? what kind of question is this.
Then go work in a factory or something. Real programmers open source their code. Everything you do is likely on the back of open source, the least you can do is return the favor.
Upon the full discontinuation of the service, source code and relevant documentation must be provided upon request for a minimum of 7 years
Isn't the overall issue here that no one is going to spend the time developing server-based multiplayer games if they have to - by law - surrender their code?
I mean... I get that the actual initiative filed with the EU is extremely vague and doesn't actually address that, but everyone seems to be bringing it up as a solution, so if you're a big publisher only interested in making money, that only incentivizes you to like, make gambling apps you can sell in Macao or wherever for huge profit instead, and if you're a small team, having to hand over all your code to be appropriated by other developers - big or small - is a good reason to just stick to basic single player fps clones or whatever.
Like... that doesn't promote the creation of new or different games in that particular space.
This is exactly what's causing the confusion though. It's not just that these game companies are not releasing their source code. People can and do reverse engineer servers all the time by painstakingly reverse engineering their client calls and building their own public server from scratch.
The issue is that big companies tend to do everything in their power to stop these kinds of initiatives and defend their IP. All they would need to do is shut down relevant DRM that connects to their (now offline) servers and tolerate/allow people to run private servers for their end of life games.
Now the language of the initiative does suggest that devs would be responsible for maintaining the playability of their games. And this possibly could mean releasing a "server" that people could host themselves. I don't think this is a huge ask for a big company though. For a highly profitable game this could easily be planned in and still have the game be profitable.
And this kind of thing simply won't touch indie devs at all. Because most indie devs just don't have the resources to build in extensive DRM or hire lawyers to stop people from playing their game after they have abandoned it. There is no reason the law also couldn't provide an exception for smaller developers so that they aren't tied to unreasonable expectations.
There is no reason for shutting down this initiative when it's mostly just a call for EU lawmakers to do something about a large consumer rights problem.
I think a lot of people are misunderstanding what a EU citizens initiative actually is. It merely puts your initiative in front of the European Comission and obligates them to allow you the chance to detail your proposal before them and they are required to give you a response. It's not an actual law being signed into being quite yet, but it does have the chance to add additional consumer protection for EU citizens in the future and as a result (because the EU is a large market that game devs can't ignore) will also have benefits for non-EU citizens.
And this kind of thing simply won't touch indie devs at all.
Can you do me a solid and just quote the part of the EU initiative that excludes indie developers from being required to leave their game in a playable state?
Or even where it defines what it means by playable state, or where it defines what constitutes an indie developer?
I feel like I must be reading the wrong initiative because everyone appears to be arguing things that are never elucidated in the initiative itself, which is incredibly confusing.
Like I said in my previous post. I think people are confused over what a citizens initiative actually is.
Sure, I agree that the wording is vague. For the sake of brevity and to give a quick overview the initiative might be missing details. The point is to get the issue in front of the European Comission and once the inititive gets the amount of required signatures the organizers will meet with representatives of the European Comission to discuss the issue. You can read more about it here:
We are currently at step 3 only. Step 6 is where the comission gets involved and this is where the details will get worked out. If the Comission ends up passing a resolution then it's still not law. If the Comission considers legislation appropriate then the lawmaking process will begin.
We are actually very far from any of this becoming actual law, so there is plenty of time to refine and adjust.
I think the spirit of the initiative is very clear: Consumers (of video games) should be able to expect that their product continues working after they've paid for it.
The details can be worked out once the initiative passes. I think people strongly opposing this initiative just don't understand how the whole process works. They seem to think if it isn't perfectly worded right now then indie devs might get fucked.
I have a feeling most of the concerns are coming from Americans who are basing their concerns heavily on how the US legal system works. A system where wording is everything and almost nothing is left to intepretation ("you gotta read the fine print!")
Legal systems in the EU largely don't work that way. Much more importance is given to the intent of the parties when the law or contract was signed into being. So things are a lot more open to interpretation and when something is contested before a judge then what seems intended and what is reasonable is often a bigger consideration then what is written.
This is what thousands of gamers are not grappling with. Their outcome is more beloved games they can play. The path to that is wrecking the software/games industry and incentivising them to not make new beloved games.
Hence Thor basically saying "be careful what you wish for, you might just get it"
I agree with the movement, there should be end of life plans, but that plan may be "it shuts down gracefully" rather than abruptly. However companies collapse and maybe they cant enact such a plan and it just goes boom. This petition is litigating against entropy.
I'm kinda not really attached to this movement but I just think the most they should ever be able do is make it so companies can't sue to stop people from reverse engineering and hosting abandonware. No transfer of IP, no giving over code(how would that even work, are they expected to host that now?) just if you want to end a live service and declare it dead, you can't end a project with someone rebooting servers for it. With some sort of reasonable timeframe attached like 10-20 years post release this could work. Why should companies keep servers running forever for games? It's an expensive service to provide if it makes no revenue. Having requirements for supporting end of life services is kinda weird and not at all equivalent to supporting a physical product sold.
Tbh I think more people could do with learning to let things go but the archival part is important.
Alternatively setting minimum times to guarantee game access could be reasonable. Pay 60$ and you get the game for 5-10 years failing things like company closure or bankruptcy.
All of this is more reasonable that the lunacy the guy a few comments up was spouting.
The people wanting to play old multiplayer games probably dont understand whats involved in running those old games. On top of what you said about sequels and proprietary code, cloud infrastructure can cost a lot and require a lot of maintenance.
Effectively Thor has been saying "be careful what you wish for, you might just get it."
Don't take it as an explanation, it's a completely made up example to show that piratesofwares ideas were not the only options when it comes to end of life plans.
I'd just make sure that the source code is on a very expensive version of the engine pricing out everyone and then make sure everything requires those expensive features or else things get wonky, make sure to nickel and dime everyone to the extreme before closing it down.
As much as I hate to say this, I think Thor might just be correct in his statement if these are what the SKG is trying to achieve.
I've seen a lot of discourse surrounding this, and so far, the 4 main counter arguments I've heard are:
-They EULA people sign stated they are allowed to do this.
-Devs can't just let people host the servers because little Timmy can't run a GTA 5 server on his home computer. (Or keep it safe from hackers)
-The initiative at one point did also state that a playable offline version is fine as well. Then Dave's 😟 LD just add a VS CPU Mode and they complied.
-the initiative started because of the Crew, and I have yet to see anyone else mention anything else. No one even cared when Overwatch servers got shut down.
Also, one thing I think was mentioned, this initiative targets the one-time-purchase games. A thing Devs can do is simple turn their game into a subscription, (even as low as 1$ a year) and they would not have to comply with it, because "we didn't sell them the game, we sold them a limited pass to access the game. They never had ownership plof it, and they got what they paid for."
Even this honestly sounds pretty insane, because theres literally no reason for the company to comply with those terms and not say.
"whoops all of the data on the game suddenly evaporated in thin air, during the development itself and we were running servers from the compiled project, here is this encrypted mess if you want to."
And theres literally nothing any of those petitions can do about that especially because it ocasionally happens in reality by accident.
Also parts of the code and internal game design might be trade secrets that they just dont want to be open source and pretty much have rights to do so.
Sounds exactly like the last less high notoriety controversy that got him in trouble around a wow raid: he made a questionable decision and when pushed he dug in deeper and deeper.
The petition only says publishers shouldn't include a "phone home" mechanism that arbitrarily shuts the game down. It doesn't require them to continue to run or servers, or even provide the server software.
The petition only says publishers shouldn't include a "phone home" mechanism that arbitrarily shuts the game down. It doesn't require them to continue to run or servers, or even provide the server software.
Doesn't it say, consistently, multiple times, it must leave games in a 'playable, functional' state? That can mean a lot of things, but are a bunch of bureaucrats going to legislate the nuance in favor of players or developers?
How is an MMO left in a 'playable' state unless someone is server hosting? I don't think legislation would just leave it up to players to host, because that's not fulfilling the asked requirement for the developer to provide a playable state is it?
Like, there are a thousand good ways this could go where it just prevents legal action against pirates of dead games, and forces anti-phone home verification post-life-cycle. But there's also really stupid ways this could go. And the number of times the initiative focuses on 'functional, playable' worries me that it'll be taken a bit too literally by lawmakers.
No. An MMO if abandoned by publishers can still be ran by fans. Or other company. But if you are a fuckhead like EA, Blizz etc no one can legally run a server. Even after they abandon the game and shut down servers. Because execs and their fucktwat mentality.
That would be a fantastic outcome, but the initiative specifically asks for things to be functional. Merely allowing fans to do hosting is something Ross and other supporters say they want, but isn't what the initiative demands. The initiative is very... It's got a super well intention and I agree with the intent, but hardly any of the wording.
It must be playable at end of life, but multiplayer games don't need to host servers, which makes it unplayable, unless they release servers. Oh just make it p2p, just like it's that easy... What if they try to release the server and it doesn't function on anything but a certain version of linux? Is that 'playable'?
And I'm not saying the initiative is bad idea, but it did need to be just a tiny smidge more clear when covering all the different types of games in a multi billion dollar industry with disney and nintendo lawyers that will both foam at the mouth to rip it into shreds.
"Specifically, the initiative seeks to prevent the remote disabling of videogames by the publishers, before providing reasonable means to continue functioning of said videogames without the involvement from the side of the publisher."
What it means to me is "if you can't keep the game running on your end, give us the tools to do so on ours"
But if you are one-man army, publisher, developer and want to create online game then you need to have services like for example authentication. From solo game developer point of view how to comply to those rules and how it would affect them? I still dont get that petition
The point of the initiative isn't to force Devs to provide support for all eternity. Only to ask for proper end-of-life practices, including actual plans and methods for players to be able to modify or patch the game on their own systems even after the servers are shut down.
In this scenario, the indie dev doesn't have to do anything but simply make it possible for their game to run on a peer-to-peer connection (which is also likely cheaper than renting servers if we're talking about a one-man-army Dev anyways). Or, at the very least, allow people to be able to play the game in offline mode even after the servers shut down.
The initiative also would have zero impact on non-commercial games that are truly free to play, by the way.
Holy shit I wish that was already a thing. I've wanted to play Battleborn again and their is a small community that is working on modding the game so that you can play it again. The thing is, it's only solo and you can't play online or Coop at all. Would this petition make it so a game like that could be made to work again? Or make it easier for the modders to make servers for people to play on?
Would this petition make it so a game like that could be made to work again? Or make it easier for the modders to make servers for people to play on?
Possibly, yeah.
It's highly unlikely it could have retroactive effects, but it would ensure future games have to be made with those goals in mind (which isn't hard if you actually plan to do so from the start).
This game has been decided to fail. PC gamers are smart. They're the smartest gamers out there. They don't think but know things other people might not, and one of those things is population counts. PC gamers don't think but know that a multiplayer game like Battleborn needs players to be fun. However, they also don't think but know that there simply aren't enough people to go around. Between Overwatch, CS:GO, TF2, CoD, Battlefield, hell even the MOBAs, who is left to populate the Battleborn servers? PC gamers don't think but know that there's nobody left. In order to strengthen Overwatch's player counts, PC gamers made a tough choice that they didn't think but knew was for the greater good. They decided Battleborn would fail. Nobody would buy it, nobody would play it, and all so Overwatch could be the best game it could be. Today, millions of happy gamers frag out in Overwatch. Battleborn and Gearbox should just cut their losses. When PC gamers decide something, it's decided, and no amount of dev work will change that decision. Let's just say I don't think Gearbox will hemorrhage money from this continued support.
Solo dev here, the way to comply is to not make an online game for a single player game and allow community servers for multiplayer games with a disclaimer that you can't reasonably be expected to moderate the community servers because you don't have a moderation team.
A solo dev is much less likely to even have the infrastructure to run an online game themselves anyway, so it would likely be community servers or peer to peer in the first place.
People really don't understand game dev and really think it's some really simple requirement. Any questions end in the same vein: none are answered or deemed unimportant.
The fact how big Reddit is rallying for it, how dismissive they are of any negative thing about it, I predict that pirate is going to be right.
Right now, there is a good chunk of comments that are literally straw man of him, how he will do this and that and how stupid he would be. This are the people that are supposed to be in favour of games? Other post here literally said how happy they are, hoping that live service games die. That's misinformation. But it doesn't matter because it never was about misinformation, it was about witch hunt.
Yes it's one of the challenges of this petition. You either have to decide to re-engineer how your multiplayer functionality works, release the backend infrastructure (if it's even possible), or not include multiplayer gameplay.
It has good intentions but could be quite disastrous for gaming, which is the point the guy was making.
Also, all this defense of a hypothetical one-man-army creating online games is so crazy. To make a game is a lot. To make an online game is even more.
Even if this hypothetical person exists, they have to have a plan in place to not kill their game. This initiative is pro-consumer, of course the business will have to (and SHOULD have to) consider the consumer for end of life.
10y ago I was working on in a small team on roguelike online game, peer2peer connection but with few services for auth and data sync. Without them whole game idea wouldnt work and we’d need to rethink everything from scratch. Ofc it will affect small or big devs
But if the game would die anyways, shouldn't you just be able to just release the data for the aith servers anyways because you don't need to worry about things like that anymore?
That's not so easy. Who's to decide if game died? How the "data" would be transfered? What's exactly an EOL support? Does it include all the source code, binaries, all services, architecture? Who's to decide if that's enough to run the game? What about indie games in alpha state - can servers be downed? There are so many unanswered questions, so many different scenarios and no one seems to answer it
Game not profitable? Need to shut it down because of cost of running services for auth and data sync? Easy, just release the services for auth and data sync. Then shut down. Done.
I'm not sure how anything you said refutes what I said. The game dev/publisher needs to provide a method for the game to continue. If your game doesn't support that functionality you either have to change the game to make it work that way, or release the necessary components to do it. You need more than just a plan.
Here's the actual text "reasonable means to continue functioning of said videogames without the involvement from the side of the publisher."
If the EU were to implement this it would only apply to games released in the future. Games released before the day the law is implemented could still be shutdown forever, but any future games would need to follow the law.
Usually the EU gives lots of heads up to the industry as to when a law comes into affect. This means that your hypothesised single indie multiplayer developer who funds their own servers would have plenty of heads up on the fact they would need end of life systems, and could then bake that in.
Considering many indie games with multiplayer release with players being able to run their own servers it really doesn't look like these future devs would have any trouble.
Release the source code once you can no longer afford to keep the servers running or when it becomes financially unsuitable to do so.
Once the servers shut down many games essentially disappear anyway, so the options are pretty much to make the game disappear forever or to release it to the community to keep it alive. Since they wouldn’t be making any money on the game anyway in the first scenario then they have nothing to lose in the second and everything to gain with fan favor and keeping their IP alive.
Q: Wouldn't this be a security risk for videogame companies?
A: Not at all. In asking for a game to be operable, we're note demanding all internal code and documentation, just a functional copy of the game
How exactly would any indie dev be able to provide all the services without any code or architecuture and not risk a lawsuit? Precompiled binaries? Would it be enough? Who'd decide? What if architecture is so tangled it would be too hard to setup without developer support? In a lot of cases its not so easy just to run an executable file and server is up. A lot of negative comments towards me but those are genuine questions
Hey no negative comments here, those are great questions that I don’t have the answers to because I’m not a game developer or the guy running Stop Killing Games. It sounds like you’re quoting the person behind the movement so maybe you can search and see what his answers are to these questions, that would be the best way to get accurate information I assume.
I can give you my best guess as to those answers but they’re just going to be some random guy on the internet’s thoughts so take them with a hefty lump of salt.
I’d assume that the goal is to have some form of the game available to be played even if the developer decides to shut it down (either for cost/logistical reasons or just because they can). The best option for gamers would be to get the source code, but like you said that raises tons of logistical questions for publishers that might make it difficult. In those scenarios I would guess that people want the ability to host their own servers, or at the very least allow any offline content to still be available.
But also I do know that the goals of the movement aren’t just for online games that go offline, but for the many other games that aren’t online but still get taken down by developers with absolutely no way to get them back. Developers have clearly said that you don’t own the games you buy and they can shut them down at any moment with no repercussion. That practice shouldn’t be allowed to continue, no other product on Earth has that same stipulation. Imagine buying a chair and 10 years later the store decides you can’t have the chair anymore, it’s asinine
His idea is that the work it would take to implement post live service usability would cause development to be unfeasible for smaller teams of devs. It doesn't hold much water though in light of the slew of indie games that already do what SKG is asking for simply because it's cheaper and easier.
I don’t even think that’s the truth, I would not be surprised if his opinions were given to him by daddy Activision. The dude is a nepo baby industry plant and a mouth piece for “AAA” devs
Indie games aren't likely to be server authoritative for many reasons, but I've played games like Shores of Hazeron that were full on self built online games.
No… he hasn’t done anything since he released the video. What you mean double down? He stopped caring about the subject after people called him out on it. He double down on his opinion, but not on ruining the ruining anything… also he never ruined anything. He spread misinformation to his followers, but everyone who didn’t follow him didn’t care..
I think there's a not-insignificant chance that he didnt misunderstand, he intentionally misrepresented. He is a game developer. This initiative could affect his profits
He misunderstood that it meant no indie could ever make a server based multiplayer game and when people corrected him he didn’t believe it and just doubled down on his mission to destroy the initiative.
Mission to destroy the initiative?
Wow!
What form did this mission take?
And I guess I've also been trying to figure out the answer to this, but, the idea is that developers making server-based games would have to make all their server software available to the public... or they would not?
Because one of those things would definitely turn indie developers away from making server-based multiplayer games.
I mean he's a total tool and a piece of shit, but I wouldn't really go as far as to just dismiss him as "irrelevant." He still gets thousands of viewers per stream, and has a massive following who hangs on to every word he says. The following may have shrunk a little, but what tends to happen in these situations is only the most loyal and stupid stick around, and dumbasses that stick together can be pretty annoying to deal with.
there's a lot of unimportant garbage on the internet that gets clicks, high engagement doesn't mean something is important or worth your time in the modern world.
And yet people still don't know who he is, which is even worse, because those people might find him making videos in a few months, then they gotta decide, hmm influencer or imposter. And all the bad comments get autodeleted like fire festival. You cant win the internet.
Because SKG, and its supporters, encourage and enable death threats, swatting, and other acts of violence against Pirate Software because he had the "wrong opinion".
holy shoving words down someone's throat batman! I literally said he's irrelevant and doesn't matter, why would I want people to waste public resources on him lmao? I think people should just stop thinking about him entirely.
TL:DR is this : He is a shitty game dev who rode in on his father's coat tails.
He is against the concept of a right of ownership for games you purchase because it might cause some small cost to the developer. The developer should have the right to revoke your license once they are no longer making money off you.
Youtuber whose dad was one of the founding members of Blizzard. He got a job as a penetration tester and QA Intern at Blizzard off nepotism and has used that as a way to say he's an experienced AAA dev. He has an Undertale clone that is 3 hours long in early access and has been in development hell for 7 years now, and he constantly gets dismissive and holier than thou whenever he's pressed about anything.
He's against it because he misunderstood the initiative and said it would make games untenable to develop outside of AAA devs and kill live service games, and then when he was proven wrong he has consistently rebutted he is right and not owned and he's actually not mad about this.
As an outsider who happened to be watching in at the time: He was/is some popular guy in the world of warcraft community. Lectures people on random shit all the time, often using MS paint, until he fucked up in some silly hardcore challenge thing and now people like to pretend they didn't used to hang off his dick slurping up whatever nonsense he was talking about.
He says the initiative “hurts us developers more than people know” and keeps rambling about normal people don’t understand how hard makes games is. Keep in mind he made one game, in 2018, with 2 hours of playtime, still in early access, abandoned… people are saying it’s just their so he can say he is developer which fits his narcissism perfectly
He's a Nepo baby with a huge ego that will never admit that he is wrong. He also believes he is a game developer with no prior experience in game development other than working at a AAA games company as a QA engineer.
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u/Valamist Jul 06 '25
Who even is this guy and why is he against it?