EU citizen's initiative to stop killing games

[Nathan]

Ownership can still be saved outside the US, we just have to get signatures
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkMe9MxxZiI

https://www.stopkillinggames.com/eci
https://citizens-initiative.europa.eu/initiatives/details/2024/000007_en#

"Giant FAQ on The European Initiative to Stop Destroying Games!" (41min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEVBiN5SKuA

[Ben Lubar]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von SardineCant:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Ben Lubar:

Games already have end of life plans. What's being demanded by this initiative is that all multiplayer games have end of life plans that look like perpetual support.

The objective doesn't mention multiplayer games specifically, but you can infer that multiplayer falls under that umbrella, yes.

But first, can we all agree that having a bricked, unplayable game, regardless of whether it's single player or multiplayer, is a problem? That's the bedrock concept to build up on.

It lists one game. Only one. The Crew, a 2014 MMO made by Ubisoft. On at least half the pages of the proposal's official website.

https://www.ubisoft.com/en-us/game/the-crew/the-crew/news-updates/mOR3tviszkxfeQCUKxhOV/an-update-on-the-crew

The game was shut down due to basically nobody playing it for the past three years and Ubisoft having to renew a bunch of expensive licenses if they wanted to keep it running.

Yes, it's unfortunate that sometimes services have to end. But laws aren't going to prevent that from happening. They're just going to punish the people who are already having to kill a product they invested a lot of time into developing. Big companies like Ubisoft will just eat the fines. The same can't be said for indies.

[SardineCant]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Ben Lubar:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von SardineCant:

The objective doesn't mention multiplayer games specifically, but you can infer that multiplayer falls under that umbrella, yes.

But first, can we all agree that having a bricked, unplayable game, regardless of whether it's single player or multiplayer, is a problem? That's the bedrock concept to build up on.

It lists one game. Only one. The Crew, a 2014 MMO made by Ubisoft. On at least half the pages of the proposal's official website.

https://www.ubisoft.com/en-us/game/the-crew/the-crew/news-updates/mOR3tviszkxfeQCUKxhOV/an-update-on-the-crew

The game was shut down due to basically nobody playing it for the past three years and Ubisoft having to renew a bunch of expensive licenses if they wanted to keep it running.

Yes, it's unfortunate that sometimes services have to end. But laws aren't going to prevent that from happening. They're just going to punish the people who are already having to kill a product they invested a lot of time into developing. Big companies like Ubisoft will just eat the fines. The same can't be said for indies.

If we're talking about the ECI, it doesn't mention and specific title or even class of game for the reasons I described above.

https://eci.ec.europa.eu/045/public/#/screen/home

If we're talking about SKG as a whoie, The Crew only comes up in another campaign to challenge the legal gray of the game being shutdown and have the consumer protection agencies mull it over- this is completely separate from the ECI.
If we broaden the scope to the entire Accursed Farms landscape, this conversation has been ongoing for almost a decade now, starting with video on Darkspore. From what I heard, The Crew was simply a right-time, right-place to use a springboard. It could have been any live service game, really.

As for your other point, I'm not sure if the platitude about laws only hurting games really holds water here. Whatever gotchas you think will lead to a hypothetical doomsday for game devs will need to pass the sniff test of whatever SME symposium the ECI committee assembles. Not to mention its impact analysis screening.
Yes, the industry will obviously need to devote some resources to fixing this problem, at least in the transitory period. But at the end of the day, it's about the consumer not being left with a lemon.

[Ben Lubar]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von SardineCant:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Ben Lubar:

It lists one game. Only one. The Crew, a 2014 MMO made by Ubisoft. On at least half the pages of the proposal's official website.

https://www.ubisoft.com/en-us/game/the-crew/the-crew/news-updates/mOR3tviszkxfeQCUKxhOV/an-update-on-the-crew

The game was shut down due to basically nobody playing it for the past three years and Ubisoft having to renew a bunch of expensive licenses if they wanted to keep it running.

Yes, it's unfortunate that sometimes services have to end. But laws aren't going to prevent that from happening. They're just going to punish the people who are already having to kill a product they invested a lot of time into developing. Big companies like Ubisoft will just eat the fines. The same can't be said for indies.

If we're talking about the ECI, it doesn't mention and specific title or even class of game for the reasons I described above.

https://eci.ec.europa.eu/045/public/#/screen/home

If we're talking about SKG as a whoie, The Crew only comes up in another campaign to challenge the legal gray of the game being shutdown and have the consumer protection agencies mull it over- this is completely separate from the ECI.
If we broaden the scope to the entire Accursed Farms landscape, this conversation has been ongoing for almost a decade now, starting with video on Darkspore. From what I heard, The Crew was simply a right-time, right-place to use a springboard. It could have been any live service game, really.

As for your other point, I'm not sure if the platitude about laws only hurting games really holds water here. Whatever gotchas you think will lead to a hypothetical doomsday for game devs will need to pass the sniff test of whatever SME symposium the ECI committee assembles. Not to mention its impact analysis screening.
Yes, the industry will obviously need to devote some resources to fixing this problem, at least in the transitory period. But at the end of the day, it's about the consumer not being left with a lemon.

I don't think you understand what I am telling you as a game developer.

This will either do nothing or it will completely kill multiplayer games for the entire continent of Europe.

It all depends on the penalty for discontinuing a service without doing the impossible thing of redesigning a multiplayer game to run in singleplayer on zero budget.

[Chika Ogiue]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von SardineCant:

What people?

If I told you specifically it would be considered "naming and shaming" and they'd be jumping for joy at the prospect of getting me potentially banned.

[SardineCant]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Ben Lubar:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von SardineCant:

If we're talking about the ECI, it doesn't mention and specific title or even class of game for the reasons I described above.

https://eci.ec.europa.eu/045/public/#/screen/home

If we're talking about SKG as a whoie, The Crew only comes up in another campaign to challenge the legal gray of the game being shutdown and have the consumer protection agencies mull it over- this is completely separate from the ECI.
If we broaden the scope to the entire Accursed Farms landscape, this conversation has been ongoing for almost a decade now, starting with video on Darkspore. From what I heard, The Crew was simply a right-time, right-place to use a springboard. It could have been any live service game, really.

As for your other point, I'm not sure if the platitude about laws only hurting games really holds water here. Whatever gotchas you think will lead to a hypothetical doomsday for game devs will need to pass the sniff test of whatever SME symposium the ECI committee assembles. Not to mention its impact analysis screening.
Yes, the industry will obviously need to devote some resources to fixing this problem, at least in the transitory period. But at the end of the day, it's about the consumer not being left with a lemon.

I don't think you understand what I am telling you as a game developer.

This will either do nothing or it will completely kill multiplayer games for the entire continent of Europe.

If I didn't know, or was at least misinformed about what the ECI process is and how it fits in with SKG, I would have probably drawn up the same conclusion as you; I'm just trying to clear up some misconceptions so we can all be on the same page here.

Kneejerk reactions don't really help anything since you can find anyone in the industry who is pro-this or anti-that based on first glance

[Ben Lubar]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von SardineCant:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Ben Lubar:

I don't think you understand what I am telling you as a game developer.

This will either do nothing or it will completely kill multiplayer games for the entire continent of Europe.

If I didn't know, or was at least misinformed about what the ECI process is and how it fits in with SKG, I would have probably drawn up the same conclusion as you; I'm just trying to clear up some misconceptions so we can all be on the same page here.

Kneejerk reactions don't really help anything since you can find anyone in the industry who is pro-this or anti-that based on first glance

I still haven't seen a description of any real game this hypothetical law would have fixed.

I think Chet Faliszek was right when he described it as a group of people so angry about what modern gaming looks like that they want to burn it to the ground rather than improve it.

All of the games I've worked on development for for extended periods of time have been games I've needed permission to work on. If that permission was ever withdrawn, the game would go away. There's nothing I can do to make the game stay around if the people who own the franchise don't want me to be making it.

I'm talking at least five different companies (Bay12Games, Valve, Moonsprout Games, Ludeon Studios, and Kitfox Games). If any of them wanted me to stop, I would have to stop. No matter what the EU law says. The game goes away.

I'm very thankful that I'm not in a situation where I have to worry about that happening with those specific five companies. But it's a thing they could do, regardless of whether they will. And if someone saying to me "I'd rather you didn't develop that anymore" would cause me to be in violation of international law, that's a big problem for indie devs.

[SardineCant]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Ben Lubar:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von SardineCant:

If I didn't know, or was at least misinformed about what the ECI process is and how it fits in with SKG, I would have probably drawn up the same conclusion as you; I'm just trying to clear up some misconceptions so we can all be on the same page here.

Kneejerk reactions don't really help anything since you can find anyone in the industry who is pro-this or anti-that based on first glance

I still haven't seen a description of any real game this hypothetical law would have fixed.

I think Chet Faliszek was right when he said that there's a group of people so angry about what modern gaming looks like that they want to burn it to the ground rather than improve it.

All the talk about a law is a bit premature since the initiative is still just an initiative.
But here is a highlight reel.
https://www.accursedfarms.com/videos/?category=dead-game-news

There is a more comprehensive excel sheet floating around on the unofficial 'cord somewhere too, but no direct link that I can find.

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Chika Ogiue:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von SardineCant:

What people?

If I told you specifically it would be considered "naming and shaming" and they'd be jumping for joy at the prospect of getting me potentially banned.

Many people latch on to things and it becomes an ego driven thing for them. It's not constructive and rather detrimental to whatever cause or opposition they're pushing. People should learn to reign themselves in if they actually want to be supportive.

[Ben Lubar]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von SardineCant:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Ben Lubar:

I still haven't seen a description of any real game this hypothetical law would have fixed.

I think Chet Faliszek was right when he said that there's a group of people so angry about what modern gaming looks like that they want to burn it to the ground rather than improve it.

All the talk about a law is a bit premature since the initiative is still just an initiative.
But here is a highlight reel.
https://www.accursedfarms.com/videos/?category=dead-game-news

There is a more comprehensive excel sheet floating around on the unofficial 'cord somewhere too, but no direct link that I can find.

Give me an example of one of these that a hypothetical law would have caused to have a different outcome. Because most of them look like MMOs and some of the games mentioned were never discontinued or even officially suggested that they would be.

[Ȼħⱥꞥꞥēł8753452]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Ben Lubar:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von SardineCant:

If I didn't know, or was at least misinformed about what the ECI process is and how it fits in with SKG, I would have probably drawn up the same conclusion as you; I'm just trying to clear up some misconceptions so we can all be on the same page here.

Kneejerk reactions don't really help anything since you can find anyone in the industry who is pro-this or anti-that based on first glance

I still haven't seen a description of any real game this hypothetical law would have fixed.

I think Chet Faliszek was right when he described it as a group of people so angry about what modern gaming looks like that they want to burn it to the ground rather than improve it.

All of the games I've worked on development for for extended periods of time have been games I've needed permission to work on. If that permission was ever withdrawn, the game would go away. There's nothing I can do to make the game stay around if the people who own the franchise don't want me to be making it.

I'm talking at least five different companies (Bay12Games, Valve, Moonsprout Games, Ludeon Studios, and Kitfox Games). If any of them wanted me to stop, I would have to stop. No matter what the EU law says. The game goes away.

I'm very thankful that I'm not in a situation where I have to worry about that happening with those specific five companies. But it's a thing they could do, regardless of whether they will. And if someone saying to me "I'd rather you didn't develop that anymore" would cause me to be in violation of international law, that's a big problem for indie devs.

You have gone on a unrelated rant.

The games you're talking about wouldn't even be released. This has to do with games that have already been on the market.

They can stop selling the game if wanted they just can't leave it in a broken state

Games are trapped with things like gameforwindowslive like lost planet 2, trapped in a condition that is pretty much unplayable to most and only was taken off sale years ago. And they still haven't even touched it.

The crew was just a recent noteworthy example.

I think you're getting confused or maybe miscommunicating.

[GGcake]

idk what happened to Denmark but they shot up to 99.14% of the threshold. just needs 90 more people to sign.

[Tito Shivan]

Seems Canada's variant of this petition has already achieved the minimum required threshold:
https://www.ourcommons.ca/petitions/en/Petition/Details?Petition=e-4965

[ThorN]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von mldb88:

While games like The Crew and mandatory online games that are essentially a single player experience or designed in a way where it can primarily be single player with a secondary online component are definitely the main target for this initiative, it's too broad and sweeping in it's scope and also hits things like MMORPGs, full multiplayer only experiences such as Overwatch or League of Legends and the like, and basically mandates developers continue to support these games indefinitely

So one of the reasons people are against the initiative, as can be seen here, is that they parrot the nonsense they heard from Thor. Single-player games are not the main target, it's all games. This person mentions Overwatch and League of Legends. Their counter-parts, Team Fortress 2 and DOTA 2, already have private dedicated servers and LAN modes. So games like Overwatch and LoL easily could as well.

I already mentioned that literally a few posts prior by the way, meaning this person doesn't read everything and seems to ignored me. Common theme around here, sadly.

Ursprünglich geschrieben von mldb88:

or put in more resources to transition these games to some kind of end of life plan.

Oh no, developers have to spend a miniscule amount of extra resources to ensure to ensure a product they sold as they entered commerce can still be used by the people they sold it to, not giving them a killswitch to destroy the product for everyone? How terrible is that. Every company when making products spends resources on Q&A, which is to ensure they work. This is such a bad argument.

Ursprünglich geschrieben von mldb88:

The result isn't going to be developers and studios putting in all this extra work to preserve the games and follow these laws if passed, but simply just dropping production of any kind of games that fall under said initiative because the cost of implementing all of these extra failsafes and end of life plans outweighs the profit.

This is nonsense easily refuted by all the live-service game that already exist and have end-of-life plans, CSGO / CS2 probably being the biggest example

Ursprünglich geschrieben von mldb88:

From the last I checked up on the topic (which admittedly was a while ago so things may have changed), all this initiative will do is kill online multiplayer games because larger devs won't want to take a risk and pay for the additional dev time and resources to compy, and smaller devs might not be able to even afford to.

Smaller devs don't even do this because running online servers already isn't actually cheap. It's all the AAA studios who can easily afford it.

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Tito Shivan:

Seems Canada's variant of this petition has already achieved the minimum required threshold:
https://www.ourcommons.ca/petitions/en/Petition/Details?Petition=e-4965

Great to hear!

[ThorN]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von SardineCant:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Ben Lubar:

I don't think you understand what I am telling you as a game developer.

This will either do nothing or it will completely kill multiplayer games for the entire continent of Europe.

If I didn't know, or was at least misinformed about what the ECI process is and how it fits in with SKG, I would have probably drawn up the same conclusion as you; I'm just trying to clear up some misconceptions so we can all be on the same page here.

Kneejerk reactions don't really help anything since you can find anyone in the industry who is pro-this or anti-that based on first glance

The problem is that those people here, including the person you're currently responding to, have been told all of this many multiple time throughout this thread. They will ignore or forget what you said and a few page later they will make the same stupid points again. Yes, not new people, but the exact same ones.

As far as I can tell we're just wasting our time on trolls, but eh. Guess it's the internet

[xBCxRangers]

I was watching a total unrelated video, and i'll post it below, where a pretty up to date YTer (an American) was reviewing a game, and went on, that the particular game will have an "offline component", stating "there may be upcoming legal precedent ".

Idk where he got that from, but he apparently did claim this a big subject.

You can watch 3:05 on the video...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIT-H_R4yhU

And so idk what cases may be going thru, at least in our courts, but apparently devs may have to keep these games open, even with an offline component.

[RiO]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Ben Lubar:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Yujah:

I answered you twice; you just ignored it. For the third time: that better thing would be for said licensing related reasons to not have existed in the first place -- and how that's eventually the entire idea of the initiative, i.e., that future games would need to designed from the start with an EOL-plan: could not have fundamental licensing issues, and would for non-fundamental ones need to have the possibility of an EOL-build without them (removing/replacing licensed music, say).

Existing games, while admittedly as per the initiative as such not given up on from the outset, can as again said at least as far I am concerned be grandfathered in outright. That loses a few preservation plusses but, oh well...

New law does not need to accommodate existing business practices, and specifically this new law aims to CHANGE existing business practices. It would mean e.g middleware providers not being able to license their wares to developers in a with this requirement conflicting manner. Very good.

Are you going to ignore it again now?

So you're saying the law would ban all licensing in the realm of video games?

You do realize that means essentially all video games that currently exist would not be allowed to be made in the future, right? There are very few games out there that don't contain some kind of licensed code or assets.

That's not going to happen.

To a large degree that actually has already happened.

From Directive 2019/770 on the sale of digital content and services[eur-lex.europa.eu]:

Article 10 - Third-party rights

Where a restriction resulting from a violation of any right of a third party, in particular intellectual property rights, prevents or limits the use of the digital content or digital service in accordance with Articles 7 and 8, Member States shall ensure that the consumer is entitled to the remedies for lack of conformity provided for in Article 14, unless national law provides for the nullity or rescission of the contract for the supply of the digital content or digital service in such cases.

Articles 7 and 8 cover the objective and subjective requirements for conformance to contract and basically require that the product lives up to how it was advertised, marketed, and presented to the user in advance of purchase.

Article 14 entitles consumers to have conformity to contract restored (i.e. restores the content to functioning order); to receive partial compensation commensurate to the loss of functionality; or - should the trader and supplier not want to play ball - to terminate the contract, after which they are owed a full refund.

It's already the case that a publisher cannot pull the plug on a game citing licensing conflicts without repercussion. Should they do that, all EU-based consumers from member states that don't allow for rescission of contract in such cases are able to take the game back to the trader that sold it to them, and demand either the game be restored back into functioning order, or demand their money back -- where the latter gives the traders a right of redress to sue the publisher for those expenses in refunds as damages. (Art. 20)

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Ben Lubar:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von SardineCant:

If I didn't know, or was at least misinformed about what the ECI process is and how it fits in with SKG, I would have probably drawn up the same conclusion as you; I'm just trying to clear up some misconceptions so we can all be on the same page here.

Kneejerk reactions don't really help anything since you can find anyone in the industry who is pro-this or anti-that based on first glance

I still haven't seen a description of any real game this hypothetical law would have fixed.

:: COUGH ::

Ursprünglich geschrieben von RiO:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Ben Lubar:

Ok, it's pretty clear that nobody here is able or willing to give me an explanation of what they want in this case, so let's expand the question a bit.

What is an example of any video game that currently exists (or existed in the past) that would be affected by a hypothetical law created in response to this initiative, and how would that law have changed the things that happened to that game (assuming for the sake of argument that the law was active when the game was released.)?

Here's one example for you.
Ironically, also Ubisoft:

If you owned the original Assassin's Creed III on PC and had bought its single player expansions, among which was Assassin's Creed III: Liberation - a full title in its own right -- then with Ubisoft ending server support for those titles you would've lost the ability to install that 'DLC' and thus play those games.

Had this hypothetical law existed, Ubisoft would've been forced to ensure this content could continue to be accessed and played. For instance by removing the DRM involved, or changing it into a modern format they could more easily continue to support.
And if nothing else; they could've offered users a free upgrade to the remastered versions of the same games which were and are still supported. ... though in this case I personally probably would've not found that acceptable, as the remasters are buggy beyond measure. The major reason they sell is because the originals are no longer commercially available; and no longer work.