As the title suggests, over the last couple of days there’s been an influx of doomer comments over the SKG petition. While it’s fine to disagree, I’m finding it suspicious that there weren’t comments like this posted a week or 2 ago

  • mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.worksOP
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    1 day ago

    And what is your argument against the petition? All it says is that developers need to leave their game in some playable state for those who laid for it, with several options offered as examples

    • Mordikan@kbin.earth
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      1 day ago

      Because as you already stated, that’s all it says. There is a lot of open interpretation to what that means and not all of it refers to big publishers/devs like EA.

      For example, indie games like Objects in Space. It was Early Access and ran into technical issues which led to funding issues as they could only work so long on it. Its broken essentially. But it doesn’t matter if the project was beyond their scope of skill or they ran out of money, they would be forced to pay to fix it. This means (and for other indie devs) if not certain their project will succeed, having to block sales in EU. Its potentially the most damaging not to the Ubisoft’s and EA’s, but to the Flat Earth Games, Bugbytes, ColePowered Games, etc. Its asking new indie developers to take on optional risk by releasing in the EU. Remember no where in the petition does it mention live service games. Only just games.

      Additionally, the points brought up in the petition needed to be bullet proof. The moment that petition started to get close to 1M, you know publishers started turning gears to block future legislation. The committee of petitions will verify the petition and then refer it for fact finding. The points needed to be concise for the purpose of the fact finding committee. And they needed to be geared towards the EU acting which around a dozen times now have stated that while concerns are valid, it is up to the member nations to propose legislation on this (which is who the major publishers are reported to have approached - not some EU committee).

      I’m still salty about EA’s Darkspore (which I might add doesn’t mention on the case that internet access is required to play - which I did not have back in the day), but this petition just feels like minimal impact. I would just like to remind people that advocating SKG may feel good but that rarely equates to doing good.

      NOTE: I’ll probably be downvoted to hell on it, but I imagine that is all that will happen. There really is no solid argument against what I’ve said.

      • mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.worksOP
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        18 hours ago

        For example, indie games like Objects in Space. It was Early Access and ran into technical issues which led to funding issues as they could only work so long on it. Its broken essentially. But it doesn’t matter if the project was beyond their scope of skill or they ran out of money, they would be forced to pay to fix it.

        First off, that studio will not be forced to go back and fix their game. Western democratic governments, including the EU, works on the basis that ex post facto laws are invalid. The game is already dead and abandoned from your telling, so there would be no expectation to revive it.

        The true solution for studios making new games in the future is to implement exit strategies for multiplayer implementation early on in development. And for single player games, much of that exit strategy is to not require login servers after the game is abandoned.

        And to address your specific example, there is one option that is extremely cheap and easy to implement that will certainly pass requirements: release the sorce code. If a EA game is truly so bungled that it’s better off abandoned, studios and publishers will always have the option to fully abandon it.

        The moment that petition started to get close to 1M, you know publishers started turning gears to block future legislation.

        You’re forgetting this is the EU, it’s significantly less susceptible to industry lobbying than the US. If it wasn’t the GDPR wouldn’t exist and Apple would still be using their proprietary chargers on all new iPhones.

        The points needed to be concise for the purpose of the fact finding committee.

        Have you not read the petition? I doubt it could be anymore concise in its language while still being possible to pass. You can’t specify exact implementations for games post-abandonment because any single solution will not work for every game.

        There really is no solid argument against what I’ve said.

        That is a claim befitting an egotistical fool. But at least now you can’t complain that nobody has addressed your concerns, as you claimed in your first comment.

        • Mordikan@kbin.earth
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          14 hours ago

          Have you not read the petition? I doubt it could be anymore concise in its language while still being possible to pass.

          Require video games sold to remain in a working state when support ends.
          Require no connections to the publisher after support ends.
          Not interfere with any business practices while a game is still being supported.
          

          That’s it… 3 sentences is not concise. You want to base multi-national law off of 3 sentences. Maybe you should think that through a bit more. If the time can’t be spent to actualy write out constructive goals or at least milestones (which is supposed to help dictate multi-national law) then maybe it should wait shouldn’t it until you can.

          You’re forgetting this is the EU, it’s significantly less susceptible to industry lobbying than the US

          The VGE (the lobbying group you’re talking about) helped to write the consumer protection, digital content licensing, and age ratings for the EU. They already helped create your laws so that’s not really true is it.

          There really is no solid argument against what I’ve said.

          Sorry, it still stands.