Here are the board members of this organisation in case someone is curious about their relevancy/neutrality on the matter:
- Hester Woodliffe – Chair (Warner Bros. Games)
- Canon Pence (Epic Games)
- Kerry Hopkins (Electronic Arts)
- Ian Mattingly (Activision)
- Klemens Kundratitz (Embracer)
- Qumar Jamil (Microsoft)
- Clemens Mayer-Wegelin (Nintendo of Europe)
- Cinnamon Rogers (Sony Interactive Entertainment)
- Matt Spencer (Take 2)
- Alain Corre (Ubisoft)
- Alberto Gonzalez-Lorca (Bandai Namco Entertainment)
- Karine Parker (Square Enix)
- Mark Maslowicz (Level Infinite)
- Felix Falk (game)
- Nicolas Vignolles (SELL)
- David Verbruggen (VGFB)
- Nick Poole (UKIE)
You know, the people who “ensured that the voice of a responsible games ecosystem is heard and understood” (direct quote from their website).
Warner Bros games shouldn’t have any level of authority on anything
Do you want to know more?
I am doing my part!
STOMPS on EA’s logo.
Absolute trash statement, I really hope this bites them.
They’re just repeating a lot of the same misinformation that Pirate Software had been saying, the exact things that had riled the gaming community and caused this latest wave of action. We’re already primed to discount the points they’re trying to make and it shows exactly how disingenuous they’re being.
Positively, I hope this reflects some true fear on their end.
Private servers are not always a viable alternative option for players as the protections we put in place to secure players’ data, remove illegal content, and combat unsafe community content would not exist and would leave rights holders liable. In addition, many titles are designed from the ground-up to be online-only; in effect, these proposals would curtail developer choice by making these video games prohibitively expensive to create.
As has been stated over and over and over again, private servers used to be an option until the industry decided they weren’t any more. If the result of this is that it forces the industry to not make shitty, exploitative games, that’s still a win for the consumers. I would rather have no game at all than something that psychologically tries to exploit my FOMO and drains my wallet.
It’s also a strawman argument. Because yes, developers have less to no control over the operation of private servers. Yes, that means they can’t moderate those servers.
But
This initiative only covers games, not supported anymore by the devs anyway. Meaning legally speaking everything happening to private servers would be literally not their concern anymore. And new legislation, should it come to that, would spell that out.
For sure, 💯
- secure players’ data: there should be no sensitive player data being stored on a private game server like that anyways, you’re connecting to a server, not logging into a service
- remove illegal content: not the developer’s responsibility in this case, it’s the responsibility of the private server (admittedly this could get messier with net neutrality and safe harbor stuff? unclear, but point remains, it’s still not the developer’s responsibility here)
- combat unsafe community content: ditto. Not the the responsibility of the developer but the private servers. It’s often been argued that the smaller communities of private servers do a BETTER job of moderating themselves)
- would leave rights holders liable: HERE IT IS! We can’t let you self host something like Marvel Rivals due to all the copyrights and trademarks and brand protections. How dare you!
Same for the “online only design” argument. The moment they decide it’s not viable anymore and they want to shut it down: what does it matter to them, what players do with it? As long as they offer the service themselves, no one is bugging them. (Although I would absolutely be in favor of also getting self hosting options right from the start, I am realist enough to accept, that this would indeed lower economical feasibility of some projects.)
That part of the argument is slightly different. If I understand the press statement correctly, what they are saying is: “Some servers can’t, on a technical level, be hosted by the community”. And that’s not a straw man (arguing against something never asked for), that’s just a lie. We have access to all the same stuff as the industry (AWS etc). Hosting these kinds of servers might be very expensive, but the initiative only asks for a way to keep games alive not for a cheap way (though I would prefer a cheap way of course)
I imagine it’s rather licensing. If they have to provide the software at some point, they can’t use components they are not allowed to distribute. And I agree, that this will impact development costs. But with the law in place, this is not an unexpected cost but one that can be factored in. Might be, that some live services are then no longer viable… but I don’t care. There are more games than anyone could play and games are cancelled or not even started to develop all the time for various reasons. One more or less is just noise.
Devs have numerous options for how to address the SKG initiative. The top three that come to my mind are:
- Release server binaries (along with modifying clients to have a setting to connect to the right server)
- Modify multiplayer to work over LAN (good when the server’s only/main job is matchmaking)
- Modify the game itself to no longer require online connectivity
In the case of live service games, I would suggest option 3 is the most appropriate. If the main gameplay is singleplayer, but it’s online so you can dole out achievements and gatekeep content, the answer is simple: stop doing that. Patch it to all work in-client. And keep in mind that this will be a requirement at end-of-life from the beginning. If it’s an unexpected requirement, that’s going to be a huge development cost. If it’s expected, making that EOL change easy to implement will be part of the code architecture from the start.
Comes to mind as an example that already exists, https://store.steampowered.com/app/2183650/MEGA_MAN_X_DiVE_Offline/
“many titles are designed from the ground-up to be online-only”
So change your design? The corporate mind cannot comprehend this.
Or just let someone else host a fucking server and let the game get pointed to that one or any other they want. They could even sell the server software and make money on that. I’d love to host my own servers of some old online only games where I could play with just my friends and family.
Why could you turn a battle royal game into a local only split screen game for 2-4 people?
Give players a copy of the server so they can host their own, or patch the game to allow direct connections like games used to have in the 90s and 00s?
That sounds like an online only title. I thought we were going to “change the design.”
What do you mean?
Changing the design happens during the pre-production. This will not effect any games retroactively. As unfortunate as it is, until the EU parliament decides on a law or regulation all games destined to die will die.
Any games that are grandfathered in, would be done so by the good will of the corporations if they do wish to.
I mean, taking a 100 person battle royal and changing it so dramatically would be quite odd to do.
I picked an extreme example for discussion reasons.
It’s possible to host your own Arma server that can handle 100 players. Ironically Arma has a Battle Royale mode. It’s not rocket science.
Sounds like that’s the answer to my reply then. Not all this other noise people have posted. 😏
“Our Board”:
Epic Games, Take Two, Microsoft, Ubisoft, Square Enix, Bandai Namco, etc.
I trust these people with every cell of my body.
Oh They are scare. That’s Good.
Private servers are not always a viable alternative option for players as the protections we put in place to secure players’ data, remove illegal content, and combat unsafe community content would not exist and would leave rights holders liable
Straight fucking lie, the ones liable are the uploader and the host, which after official support ends is no longer the rights holders.
protections we put in place to secure players’ data
The player data that we are required to agree to share with 1643 trusted data partners in order to connect to your service? That player data?
Go fuck yourself, you ghouls.
protections we put in place to secure players’ data, remove illegal content, and combat unsafe community content would not exist
Nanny State BS. If someone runs a private server, it’s their responsibility to moderate it.
and would leave rights holders liable.
No it wouldn’t.
In addition, many titles are designed from the ground-up to be online-only
Unreal Tournament games are online or multiplayer only games. Even though Epic shut down the master servers, you can modify the .ini file to redirect to a community server. “Online-only” translates to predatory monetization models.
many titles are designed from the ground-up to be online-only; in effect, these proposals would curtail developer choice by making these video games prohibitively expensive to create.
<Oh no this would kill live service games
Dear Video Games Europe!
Bullshit.
Best Wishes,
I don’t know who are these people. And they have achieved in record time that I never want to really heard them anymore.
… as the protections we put in place to secure players’ data, remove illegal content, and combat unsafe community content would not exist…
There are third party options for this.
… and would leave rights holders liable.
Liable for what? A service everyone knows they’re no longer providing? Are car manufacturers still liable for 50 year old rusty cars people still drive? Can Apple today be held liable for a software vulnerability in the Lisa or the Mac II?
In addition, many titles are designed from the ground-up to be online-only; in effect, these proposals would curtail developer choice by making these video games prohibitively expensive to create.
Then don’t design games that way. Don’t make games like these. This is good news, actually.
It’s crazy how they act like no one else could run a server for a live service game.
We used to fucking buy and rent servers to game on our own private servers.
Its wild how this disappeared and all server structure just got consolidated into shit like AWS and Azure.
People were upset when PirateSoftware was spreading disinformation about SKG, well get ready for incoming weapons-grade corporate Disinformation.
Luckily it’s no longer in the hands of the public.
even though there are enough signatures now, they still need more to be sure. Some percentage of the signatures will be invalid(people unable to spell their own names and fakes for example) so there has to be big enough safetymargin. Ross made video about it too.
So until the time runs out, everyone should make sure the safetymargin is as big as possible.
So…here’s the thing, folks: What you’re REALLY going to have to do is stop buying live service video games.
If I understand this, it is a petition to get the EU government to look into maybe thinking about making some laws to…do something about live service games becoming unplayable when the servers shut down. Okay, here’s how that’s going to go: “We looked into it and decided not to do anything.”
Has anyone tried…not buying the damn games in the first place? If you pay for these games knowing that the soulless reptilian cloacal slits that run the AAA industry can just shut down servers whenever they want, YOU are the problem.
You are basically saying that consumer protection is useless, as consumers should protect themselves.
That would be true if all consumers would have the time and understanding to be perfectly informed all the time, which is not realistic.
If the population at large is too stupid to make healthy video game purchasing decisions, I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for protections to come from the representatives they elected.
I can see a stack of ways that this isn’t going to work:
- The government looks at the petition and says “No we’re not going to consider that.”
- The government says “We’ve considered that and decided to do nothing.”
- The government pulls an EU and the solution they come up with is to make every video game published everywhere in the world force the user to agree to the EULA every time the game launches, prompting a slew of “EULA auto-accept” mods to work around the annoying thing you now have to constantly click.
- The government puts in a law that’s written decently. The industry, particularly those parts based outside the EU such as Japan and North America, ignore it, and shut down servers when they damn well please.
But let’s indulge in the fantasy that democracy works for a minute and Stop Killing Games becomes a law that works perfectly as intended. The publishers will find some other way to be shifty greedy fuckpukes. Case in point: Live service games just shutting down their servers whenever they want is 100% legal right now. The government currently is not protecting consumers. It never truly will. The shadiness of business will always outrun government protection, 100% of the time.
I still maintain, if you continue to pay for live service games, you’re the problem.
I mean having devs turn over the games to players after they cease development is not crazy at all.
Live service games can still absolutely be playable once development has ceased.
Anyone can run a server.
Stop killing games is a no brainer initiative
Sure. I remember when Id Software released Doom as open source. They had just released Quake II earlier that month, Doom was old news and not really a money maker for the company, so they opened the source code to let the community play with it. That was a cool thing to do, it should be done more often.
I would say yeah, you should build a game in such a way that it can be played once its abandoned. The greed vampires who are actually in charge won’t let a law like that be passed. Or if it is, they’ll ignore it.
Doom, Build Engine games, Marathon. I can still play those games, but even if Bungie faux-Marathon ever comes out, I wouldn’t be able to play it after a few years. One of the biggest turnoffs to these As-A-Service games is time limited events. I don’t want to feel nostalgic for something and not be able to replay it. Between the discussions on Hell Divers II events and the Sony fuckary, I’m glad I passed. Fuck, I remember my hype for Hawken dying when I saw it was going to be f2p.
I miss Hawken so god damned much…
Perfect example of a game that could easily have been community hosted
