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- cross-posted to:
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geteilt von: https://feddit.org/post/2071604
This is your somewhat regularly scheduled Stop Killing Games update.
Stop Killing Games is an European Citizens Initiative aiming to keep games playable even after their developers and publishers have stopped supporting it.
Germany has hit the threshold sometime yesterday evening. France has also started to catch up. They are still below 50% but there growth over the last couple of days has been the biggest. Netherlands and Denmark are still in the low 90s.
The milestone comes on the eve of this years Gamescom in Cologne, Germany which is set to kick off today. SKG is not going to have an official presence there. (I’ve checked with the organisers) But if you are attending and want to help spread the word I’m happy to share official marketing material, either in the form of flyers or the files for flyers, so you can print your own. They come in both German and English. If you want some, send me a DM.
Relevant links:
How is wanting to continue playing a game after developers stop supporting it entitled?
That’s most games. The only games that don’t work that way are multiplayer games that run off of servers. The request is that developers give you the ability to run your own multiplayer server.
So a dev creates a game and nobody signs up to play it. They decide to shut down their servers. Following the rules, they’d have to give players the ability to run their own server. Now anyone can create a server and play it for free, or worse, a large studio runs a successful server and charges people to play a game they didn’t make. This change shouldn’t apply to server based multiplayer games.
The software to run a server for a game is different from the client software. I have to buy Minecraft to be able to download and use the client, but the server is freely available for anyone to host their own server.
Developers almost always release their server software for free if they offer it. The user is providing a service to the developer by offering another server for the community to use without the developer having to pay for it. There’s no reason to charge for it.
You can even password protect your server and put it behind a patreon or other exclusive membership, but it’s hard to compete with free servers. You have to offer some kind of special experience.
Everything you’re complaining about has been common practice in the PC space for decades.
So why the law change?
Because the old “common” practice is being tossed for a greedy new type of “owning” where you don’t own the things you bought. This was not as much of an issue before but has now become an epidemic. This initiative is asking for laws to be put in place that allow people to host a game if the company stops supporting it, something that most would say is very reasonable. If the company does not want anyone else hosting their game, they just need to keep that server running. If they don’t think its worth keeping the server running, then why should they have the ability to keep anyone from using the thing they bought? If anything this is basic market economics at play, if they can not make enough money to “keep the lights on” then why not let someone else have a go at it?
You ether stop this sort of greed now or learn to live with never owning anything digital again.
Oh and the reason this is getting more traction is that this initiative has a plan of action where general wealth inequality is not really a thing you can just fix with enough signatures. Would also like to remind people that having a thing happen does not really mean another thing can not happen, this is activism whataboutism (what a time we live in).
Which games are you talking about?
Not just games but software as a service in general.
Any software where you need to connect to a server (office, the latest COD, adobe, minecraft or now windows itself) is subject to this issue. The issue as well as not owning the thing you buy is that it also allows a “brave new world” style of product development where the new thing is what to buy because it is new and not better (think word/excel).
Some do things well (minecraft as an example) where you can host a server and everyone is happy. This is good.
Others (like COD and adobe) become unusable when the company feels like it. This is bad.
Right, so why is the initiative about video games? That’s my issue with this initiative. It doesn’t do anything to address the actual issue. Very few games use a live service model. You mention Call of Duty but their website lists that even Modern Warfare 2, released in 2009, is still active.
Very few games are software as a service and those that are usually exist entirely on a server and are accessed essentially via a browser like Runescape. A lot of these games are free to play games funded by in game purchases. Requiring these games to be released publicly when shut down is essentially requiring the game to be released for free since the server is the game. It’s not going to prevent the software as a service model, it’s just going to complicate server based games and might even lead to free to play online games no longer being made. I really think the initiative needs to focus on actual anti-consumer practices and not make server based games obsolete.
Whataboutisum.
COD can be turned off at any time and your game can change without your input or control it is the poster child for games as a service. Take your 2009 modern warfare 2 example, it has been taken down several times since its launch and we both know that at any time it could go away forever.
Almost all games today use a live service model, you just let them redefine what live service means.
Because some of my favourite games died this way. City of Heroes was closed by its owner but is being kept alive by its community and is a great example of what Stop Killing Games is advocating for, while Firefall is completely dead and never coming back. This problem will only get worse if we don’t stop it now.
Firefall was shutdown in 2017. Has the problem gotten worse in the 7 years since it has been shutdown?
Before Firefall I also lost access to Chromehounds multiplayer, which was a very fun and unique mech combat game. That was in 2010 and the first time I genuinely felt the need for something like SKG.
Since the death of Firefall, I know Tera has been saved by its community but many other games have not. Among the more notable losses: Warcraft 3 and Overwatch both had their Blizzard-maintained versions permanently changed and Overwatch 1 is not playable at all. Warcraft 3 requires retail copies (out of production for many years) or piracy to play the original.
There are many more, I cannot possibly list them all.