Technology@lemmy.worldbyekZepp@lemmy.world
9 hours

Stop Killing Games delivers 'absolutely incredible' hearing in European Parliament: 'There was no [parliament member] that wasn't responding positively'

www.pcgamer.com English

It’s amazing what a difference a little bit of time can make: Two years after kicking off what looked to be a long-shot campaign to push back on the practice of shutting down server-dependent videogames once they’re no longer profitable, Stop Killing Games founder Ross Scott and organizer Moritz Katzner appeared in front of the European Parliament to present their case—and it seemed to go very well.

Official Stream: https://multimedia.europarl.europa.eu/en/webstreaming/committee-on-internal-market-and-consumer-protection-ordinary-meeting-committee-on-legal-affairs-com_20260416-1100-COMMITTEE-IMCO-JURI-PETI

Digital Fairness Act: https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/better-regulation/have-your-say/initiatives/14622-Digital-Fairness-Act/F33096034_en

59
    "The momentum is real."
    • stickyprimer@lemmy.worldEnglish
      57 minutes

      This is a masterclass in “pick your one thing in life and focus on that.”

      I’m highly pessimistic that the spirit of this legislation, which I wholly support, can ever be enshrined in law with enough specificity that it works the way we want it to in the cases where we need it to, without becoming a truly undue burden on small developers or forcing all publishers to just work around it in some way: like taking everything to a subscription model going forward.

    • OldManBOMBIN@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3 hours

      But what does Pirate Software think of the situation? That’s what I really need to know.

      His dad worked at Blizzard, y’know.

    • Blackmist@feddit.ukEnglish
      3 hours

      Who will win?

      One million angry gamers, or one little bribey boy?

      We shall see.

      • lightnsfw@reddthat.comEnglish
        47 minutes

        Yeah, if you think they’re reacting positively to this wait til you see how they react to EA cracking open their checkbook. Oh, wait, that one will happen behind closed doors.

    • Lanusensei87@lemmy.worldEnglish
      4 hours

      To think all of this happened because one person really liked The Crew of all things.

      • AcornTickler@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        3 hours

        Entire Linux gaming happened because one guy wanted to play Nier Automata on it. Don’t underestimate some one guys.

        • Absolute_Axoltl@feddit.ukEnglish
          3 hours

          Source?*

          *In a “I’m interested in the story” sense rather than a “PROVE IT” sense.

          • AcornTickler@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
            3 hours

            DXVK was the last (IMO) major key in enabling proper Linux gaming.

            Here’s a short interview with the creator of DXVK.

            Prior to this Wine was able to run some simple Windows applications, but games (which heavily rely on GPU acceleration) lagged quite a bit behind since DirectX is a Windows exclusive graphics API. Instead, on Linux we have Vulkan which is similarly feature rich, but an open standard. DXVK translates DirectX API calls to Vulkan, which GPUs on Linux can understand, similar to how Wine translates Windows syscalls to the Linux alternatives. Even though Wine existed for a long time, DXVK’s development started quite a bit later.

          • gnufuu@infosec.pubEnglish
            3 hours

            According to this source the guy is called Philip Rebohle and he wrote a translation layer called DXVK that lets you run DirectX stuff on Vulkan.

            • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
              54 minutes

              It is.

              Very roughly, think of DXVK as a plugin for WINE, that dramatically enhances its capabilities with 3D rendering.

              Then Proton is essentially a further refinement of WINE, DXVK, other things.

            • chiliedogg@lemmy.worldEnglish
              1 hour

              Wine makes Windows applications work in Linux. Wine solved a lot of issues with translation, but most Windows games use DirectX for their graphics, which is proprietary to Windows.

              DXVK translates DirectX to Vulcan (Open Source graphics API used in Linux), allowing GPUs on Linux to run DirectX games.

    • Muehe@lemmy.mlEnglish
      2 hours

      Man fuck Axel Voss! Damn copyright shill. Guess we can take solace in the fact that he seemed to be the only one clearly taking the publishers side here.

      And if I’m not mistaken, the European Commission representative argued in his reply to Voss (around 12:20) that “collective management organisations” or “cultural heritage institutions” might well be allowed to preserve games that are not commercially available anymore already under the current framework.

    • grue@lemmy.worldEnglish
      7 hours

      Games should be required to have reproducible source for all components (client and server) sent to whatever the European equivalent of the Library of Congress is, to be made available in the Public Domain whenever the publisher stops publishing them.

      • Mountainaire@lemmy.worldEnglish
        59 minutes

        whatever the European equivalent of the Library of Congress is

        Yeah! Um… what is that again?

      • SpaceScotsman@startrek.websiteEnglish
        4 hours

        This is one of the points that a French MEP brought up during the meeting. If this is pursued it could as a side effect open up space for digital “orphaned works” which would be fantastic.

        • grue@lemmy.worldEnglish
          3 hours

          It’s not even an issue of “orphaned works.” Every work becomes Public Domain eventually; that’s the point of it.

          In fact (according to originalist American sensibilities, at least) the entire point of copyright law is “to promote the progress of science and the useful arts” (i.e., to enrich the Public Domain) to begin with! Allowing works to be copyrighted (essentially, borrowed back from the Public Domain temporarily so the creator can profit, thus incentivizing the creation of works) is merely a means to that end, not some sort of moral entitlement.

      • SpeedRunner@europe.pubEnglish
        5 hours

        Not only games. Goes for all electronics as well.

        Sick of supporting your ‘old phones’? You’re required by law to disclose all binary blobs as source code to let somebody else pick it up the slack.

        Feeling like bricking old Kindles? Fine, but users must be able to install alternative OS on your old device.

        Not providing software updates for your TV anymore after you removed features? That’s your right, but so is the right of the effing device owner to install something else on it.

        And it’s not just consumer electronics. (caugh John Deere caugh).

        • JasonDJ@lemmy.zipEnglish
          6 hours

          Not to be pro-corporate/anti-repair…but I feel I have to play devils-advocate here…

          That sounds like a legal and security nightmare.

          If you just give binary blobs and no sources, there’s no way to maintain the code/device long term. As exploits continue to be found in upstream dependencies, the hardware continues to become increasingly insecure.

          But if the source needs to be released…I imagine that there are heaps of proprietary code that is still in use on “active” devices even after another model goes EoL…so if that code is released, there’s instantly thousands of nefarious eyes on it.

          On top of the regular zero-days that are found out when a popular product reaches EoL.

          I think that’s potentially a lot to ask of users. Will your technically-challenged great-Aunt switch to post-support build when her phone hits EoL, or will hackers be able to remote control her banking app and take away your inheritance before the community can even patch it (assuming there’s enough community support out there for an 8-year-old Galaxy A-series…)

          Then there could also be licensed code that would need to be released as well…hence the legal nightmare.

          Not saying it’s impossible…in fact, I greatly agree with your stance and stated position. Just saying that there are some blockers on this epic.

          • realitaetsverlust@piefed.zipEnglish
            2 hours

            security nightmare

            That is not a corporations problem who’s given away the rights to his product. That is my problem as an informed user, deciding that I know well enough about what I’m doing.

            Security can’t be the constant reason for EoLs. Especially when there’s no real reason beyond the company needing the next cash cow.

            Will your technically-challenged great-Aunt switch to post-support build when her phone hits EoL

            This isn’t for the average user. My grandma isn’t gonna learn how to flash a custom firmware on her old phone. But an informed user can.

            Right now, if your device has no more support, you can use it until something else changes and it becomes incompatible. Then you have a dead box that doesn’t do anything anymore, and simply because the company decided to no longer support it.

            It’s about having the OPTION to use it in the future so the community can at least try to fix it.

            • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
              1 hour

              Technically, I’d say its a stalling tactic, but yeah, by no means is it a sound, comprehensive strategy.

          • qqq@lemmy.worldEnglish
            5 hours

            Security is constantly used as a guise for removing consumer rights and as someone who has been in the security industry for about 9 years I’m so sick of it.

            First and foremost, everyone please understand: the user should be allowed to opt into your concept of insecurity: you do not know their threat model and you do not know their risk tolerance.

            Using exploits in low level drivers in the wild is approaching APT level, and even if there were a simple one to use it’d likely be useless without some sort or local access to the device (bar some horror show bug in a Bluetooth or WiFi firmware). The risk is incredibly low for the average person. I’d put it pretty close to 0.

            Wire transfers aren’t instant and for large sums (your inheritance) the banks will likely require more than just a request from your app. If the bank cares about that then they can also use the attestation APIs which would be more than sufficient, as much as I hate them.

            This boogey man of the APT going after my technologically illiterate <family member> with nation state level exploits needs to die. Long ago we entered a new era of security where it just isn’t worth it to waste exploits. Especially when you can just text people and ask for their money and that works plenty well.

            Security is not a valid reason to soft brick consumer devices at some arbitrary end of life date.

            • porcoesphino@mander.xyzEnglish
              5 hours

              Agreed, but I think a framing or two is missing here, and it only applies to a subset, is that the people of the world shouldn’t have to deal with more/larger bot nets because these things haven’t been considered.

              Another is just that the average great aunt isn’t opting into a concept of insecurity they’re simply ignorant to what threats there are. If it’s possible to distinguish between the two sets of people, or to maybe even bucket devices by potential threat, it might go a long away. I probably a lot wrong here, I just woke up.

              But yeah, agreed security is an argument that’s hidden behind

              • qqq@lemmy.worldEnglish
                5 hours

                Yes I’m not going to take some “survival of the fittest” nonsense approach to security: consumers need securely built devices and software. This is the first line of defense always: we need to make things secure and then have secure defaults according to whatever we decide “secure” means in the context of our widget or software. Then we need to provide “advanced” (or even just “ignorant but risk tolerant”) users with the ability to change the device or software to match their definition of “secure”.

                The easiest example is secure boot. Your laptop likely has a key provided by your OEM and likely Microsoft’s key preinstalled. This is a valid “secure boot” path for the average user, provided your OEM and Microsoft don’t get compromised, which is APT territory. However you are provided with the ability to use a different key if you know how to do that. You have thus opted in to protecting your own private key but now you have more control over your device. This design is notably absent in phones, which is absolutely bananas and actually less secure in some threat models

                You could extend examples like this if you wanted. One could easily imagine a device that does soft brick itself after the EOL date to simply protect people that are ignorant of the potential risks, but also provides an advanced user with the ability to revive it in a “less secure” state. The less advanced user will then have to either learn something new or buy a new device.

          • CileTheSane@lemmy.caEnglish
            5 hours

            That implies any and all FOSS project should be getting exploited constantly, especially those being run by a community of hobbiests, and that is simply not the case.

            • JasonDJ@lemmy.zipEnglish
              3 hours

              There’s been a notable uptick in supply chain attacks coming from the odd FOSS dependency.

              Fortunately the FOSS environment as a whole, ironically, reflects the best aspects of a “free market” in the capitalist sense. If a package is no longer maintained, or poorly maintained, or the maintainer is a douche/Russian asset, it forks and many users jump ship to the newer package.

              Users have full transparency into how the sausage is made. Everybody does.

              So if exploitable code is discovered, it can just as well be discovered first by a defensive researcher (non-inclusive term: white-hat) or offensive researcher (black-hat).

              And if an offensive researcher discovers it first, they have a choice:

              • Use it and risk being spotted. Once discovered in the wild, patching is only a matter of time.
              • Sit on it and hope a defensive researcher doesn’t find it.

              Submitting bad code to a project in itself though. Some new user with no reputation is going to be heavily scrutinized putting a PR on a large/popular project. And even with a good reputation, you’re still putting the exploit code out there in the open and hoping none of the reviewers or maintainers catch it.

      • helpImTrappedOnline@lemmy.worldEnglish
        7 hours

        I like it. If the publisher no longer sells/supports the full game as purchased, then they no longer to get to complain about people pirating it.

        I don’t like instantly throwing it public domain, that’s the wrong license to use. I think Creative Common CC BY-NC-SA would be more appropriate. (Credit the original, no commercial use, and any modified/redistributed version must follow same license).

        This will prevent xbox from taking all the old PlayStation games, stealing an emulator, and selling them under game pass to people that don’t know those games are freely available.

        I’d also add the game must be available as an individual 1-time purchase. If it’s only available as a bundle or subscription service (like game pass), that doesn’t count.

        • grue@lemmy.worldEnglish
          6 hours

          The Public Domain isn’t a “license.” It’s simply the default state of a work when copyright is no longer being enforced for it. I’m saying that copyright should immediately expire for any published work that is no longer being made available by some entity with the right to do so (phrased carefully so as not to break copyleft licenses, BTW) and that anyone should be able to get it directly from a government archive of all Public Domain works.

          As for selling Public Domain works, that’s always been allowed and I don’t see any particular reason to change it, provided that regulatory capture doesn’t result in the public archive being the digital equivalent of hidden away in a disused lavatory in a locked basement with a sign saying “beware of the leopard.” If the free option is prominent and well-known but you want to pay money for some reason anyway (in theory, because the person selling it added value in some way), that’s your business.

        • CosmicTurtle0 [he/him]@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
          5 hours

          I’m going to hard disagree on NC.

          If the original publisher decided to dump their IP, and someone else has a good enough idea to make money off of it, they absolutely should.

          BY-SA gets you the same vibe and encourages the new IP to keep making new content and allows others to do the same.

          • helpImTrappedOnline@lemmy.worldEnglish
            3 hours

            I agree, if an IP is abandoned then someone else should be allowed to do something with it.

            For this post I was talking about the game that was already made and distributed, not just the idea or characters.

            I’ll use Mario Kart 1 for example, if Nintendo doesn’t sell that game anymore, then the game is made publicly available.

            If the IP is still in use that A) doesn’t exclude Mario Kart 1 form becoming available, B) doesn’t allow competitors to sell modern Mario Kart games (trademark) and C) prevents someone from taking a 30 year old game and just reselling it on their store.

            IPs are much more messy to handle, as it’s less a final product and more of a concept. Creative rights should stay with the creative people not a publisher.

            If Nintendo decides to drop Mario, but the actual creator of Mario still wants to work with a different publisher, they should be able to do that before the IP becomes freely available for anyone to take over.

      • gian @lemmy.grys.itEnglish
        4 hours

        Nah, if the publisher stop selling a game, just make him to release a docker image for the server and the game patched to use such docker image. No source code needed (even if it would be nice).

      • ByteJunk@lemmy.worldEnglish
        5 hours

        Not sure about public domain. Perhaps a non-commercial license would be best - this way fans can carry on the work, but others wouldn’t be tempted to profit off of the IP.

        • chortle_tortle@mander.xyzEnglish
          3 hours

          The original duration of copyright was 14 years. Why should we legally stop anyone else from making a knockoff?

        • grue@lemmy.worldEnglish
          3 hours

          Why are you lying about what I wrote? I never claimed the publisher should be forced to maintain it forever.

          What part of sending the source to the government archive did you not understand?

          • Rekorse@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
            2 hours

            And then what? Why are we storing these old games. Move on with your lives. Art doesnt last forever, its not supposed to. But you want publishers to put in extra effort to preserve them, and then have governments put in effort to preserve them, apparently forever.

            Its funny how its the people playing the games who want them preserved forever rather than the people making the games, isn’t it. The people making them have pointed out multiple problems with this idea, but who cards about them right?

            • grue@lemmy.worldEnglish
              2 hours

              Oh I see, you’re just a troll who keeps lying and spreading FUD. Reported.

      • SleeplessCityLights@programming.devEnglish
        6 hours

        If a studio is using the same base architecture for online services as a game that is currently active, you want developers to share their current live architecture and code?

        • grue@lemmy.worldEnglish
          6 hours

          Yes.

          If they don’t like it, they can keep supporting their older stuff. Or better yet, rethink their decision to impose a “live service” business model now that they’d actually be held accountable for it, and consider going back to giving users the means to run their own servers.

          (Also, by the way, “security by obscurity” is bullshit. If disclosing their server-side code leads to exploits, that just means they’re fucking incompetent. I have no sympathy at all.)

          • gian @lemmy.grys.itEnglish
            4 hours

            Yes.

            If they don’t like it, they can keep supporting their older stuff. Or better yet, rethink their decision to impose a “live service” business model now that they’d actually be held accountable for it, and consider going back to giving users the means to run their own servers.

            Nobody can be forced to keep supporting their older stuff forever, assuming it is even possible.
            There are solutions to keep a server online or to give ways to run a local server (a docker image comes to mind), but you cannot think a company will keep a server active after years to just make few dozens happy with all the implications.

            I agree on the spirit of the initiative, but I cannot really see how it can carried out: my fear is that some types of game will not be sold anymore in EU: no legally sold copies, no legal obligation to keep the server online forever. And in this case we all lose something.

            (Also, by the way, “security by obscurity” is bullshit. If disclosing their server-side code leads to exploits, that just means they’re fucking incompetent. I have no sympathy at all.)

            Disclosing server-side code can leads to exploits, true, but I would not call them incompetent: they are not foolproof or omniscent.

            • grue@lemmy.worldEnglish
              3 hours

              Nobody can be forced to keep supporting their older stuff forever, assuming it is even possible.
              There are solutions to keep a server online or to give ways to run a local server (a docker image comes to mind), but you cannot think a company will keep a server active after years to just make few dozens happy with all the implications.

              No shit, Sherlock. That’s why the tenable and preferred option is for them to give it up once they’re done profiting so that the public can do it themselves instead.

              I agree on the spirit of the initiative, but I cannot really see how it can carried out: my fear is that some types of game will not be sold anymore in EU: no legally sold copies, no legal obligation to keep the server online forever. And in this case we all lose something.

              LOL, nothing but FUD. Game publishers made plenty of profit before they came up with this “live service” bullshit, and they’ll continue to make plenty of profit even after we stop allowing them to screw over everyone too.

              In case you weren’t aware of it, the only reason we grant copyright to creative works in the first place is to encourage more works to be created and eventually enrich the Public Domain. If the works never reach it (because the publisher is using technological means to destroy it before copyright expires) then they have broken that social contract and don’t deserve to be protected by it in the first place.

              These live service game publishers are trying to eat their cake and have it too, and they simply aren’t entitled to that. The fact that they’ve been getting away with this theft from the Public Domain is unjust and must stop.

    • wanderinglurk@lemmy.worldEnglish
      6 hours

      Wup, there’s management. Let me guess what they’re talking about.

      “You, sir, are mad! Dinosaurs are reptiles! They must be cold-blooded!”

      “Now, you listen and you listen good: Birds are one of the closest living relatives to dinosaurs we have. And I don’t need to tell you they’re all warm-blooded.”

      “Do you know how difficult it is to maintain thermostasis for an animal so large? They’re cold-blooded, I tell you!”

      “Let me tell you something. There’s evidence to suggest that Velociraptors had feathers. Feathers! What does that tell you?”

      It’s amazing that Ross Scott has gone from delivering the funnies to absolute morale boosting for the gaming media.

      • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        59 minutes

        Hi5 for also being a Ross fan since waaaaaaaay before all this Stop Killing Games stuff happened.

        The man needs a trophy of a hand gripping a crowbar -> ‘For meritorious service in the defense and preservation of video gaming’.

        He’ll always be what Freeman sounds like to me.

    • Wioum@lemmy.worldEnglish
      9 hours

      Hopefully we wont see bad actors just pivot to f2p and have a few microtransactions to actually unlock the games.

      • CosmoNova@lemmy.worldEnglish
        8 hours

        Some mobile games already work that way where they claim to be f2p but it‘s just a demo of the actual game with ingame purchases for the other levels. However annoying, it‘s not flat out scamming customers like shutting down servers months after release is. Perhaps devs should still be required to label it as a demo just in case though.

      • WaterSword@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
        6 hours

        As long as it’s still a one time purchase, with no clear mention of an end of life timeline, that is just buying a game with extra steps. They mention microtransactions and things like paid DLC in their plans too.

      • MagicShel@lemmy.zipEnglish
        8 hours

        I played and enjoyed a game based on this principle (Dreadnought). I ran out of bullshit I wanted to buy to keep the game going. Also the whole community was probably a few hundred people at the end. It eventually shut down. Not that there would be much to do solo but fan-run servers would’ve been cool.

        • Wioum@lemmy.worldEnglish
          6 hours

          Dreadnought was awesome, unfortunate that it wasn’t populare …

        • rozodru@piefed.worldEnglish
          8 hours

          I absolutely loved that game. I was really bummed when they shut it down but like you said there was maybe a handful of people that played it. Reminded me of EVE Online without all the bullshit.

      • Klear@quokk.auEnglish
        8 hours

        I don’t think that would work. They could lock their games behind a monthly subscription. At that point you’re paying for temporary access with clearly defined end date and thus the game getting shut down later is no longer fraudulend. At that point you just have to not be a dumbass and rent a game instead of buying one.

        • Wioum@lemmy.worldEnglish
          6 hours

          To elaborate a bit on the “unlocking” of the game: It could be that you get “1000% more exp gain permanently” or “gain a crucial resource from every mission permanently, which is usually locked behind a daily mission”, a one off microtransaction that makes the game playable in a sense – but it’s not “purchasing” the game, its just an account feature. I hope these arguments won’t hold, but I always feel that bad actors find ways to bypass rules …

          • Klear@quokk.auEnglish
            5 hours

            Wouldn’t work. If SKG succeeds, it would be illegal shut down the game and thus invalidate all these permanent transactions (no matter how “micro” they are) people paid for.