Response to harsh criticism of "Stop Killing Games" from Thor of

[@williameldridge9382]

I'm going to say this loud and clear so those in the back can hear this: You do not own your games, you never have, and you never will. You LEASE them, PERIOD. All software works that way and it always has, and it always will. You deluded yourself and made assumptions. You purchase a hunting license. You purchase a driver's license. You purchase a vehicle registration to bring your vehicle onto public roads. Those are purchases and they do not connotate or convey ownership of anything. Purchase =/= ownership. That has never been the definition, EVER. Single player games, like ALL software, is a license...that can be revoked at any time. Sorry, Louis, you're just wrong. You can purchase a lease or a rental...purchase doesn't mean ownership.

[@illpunchyouintheface9094]

Someone doesn’t know how things works. This man also just told everyone he’s running a free garage sale

[@rossmanngroup]

You are braindead

[@kolegakolano]

greatest pin of shame I've seen

[@CheesyMez]

if you buy a physical game, no one comes knocking on your door asking for it back. and on the flip side, when you're renting, the leaser cant just take away what you've leased whenever they feel like it. for another example. imagine all houses in the world were rented. the landlords kick everyone out of their houses, but dont allow you to rent a new one. that is retro gaming in a nutshell. companies own the rights, but never distribute them, so if you do want to play a game, you are screwed if you want to play something "legally"

[@Maximum_777]

"All Software, is a license" No, that's not how ALL software works. Without question, especially when you take into account all of the public domain or open source software out there, you can own software. Regardless, as long as the software is fully under your control, and isn't just a portal to a server with the actual software on it, you own that software the moment you have a copy of it in your possession.

[@avananana]

The fact that we live in a society where customers almost have to pay attention to how the businesses manage their internal licensing agreements is actually crazy.

[@elorrambasdo5233]

And we do live in a society

[@WDGabe]

Indeed, we live in a society.​@@elorrambasdo5233

[@herpderp4078]

or the fact companies like facebook can quietly change agreements, that allowed them to access everyone's phone contacts essentially stealing data from people who didn't consent to it ie. the people in the contacts

[@KnightofAges]

"Almost"...?

[@Dovakinskywalker]

I think it's crazy that people don't think about stuff like this

[@JakTheLombax]

Comment from Running with Scissors Software on Ross's most recent video: Thanks for the shout out! We feel obliged to explain our position now, and why we care about what is going on here. We’re just an indie dev with no ‘live service’ plans, but we are a publisher and developer that have worked to keep our own games playable for literally decades at this point - even if it’s not in our best business interests, hence why we wholeheartedly support this initiative. In the unlikely event we did end up with a live service game, there would be an end of life plan built into it - if nothing else but so that our own developers, that would have spent years working on it, would not see their work just vanish one day. For our part, as long as we are around we endeavor to keep our games playable, at the very least on PC. We’re not perfect, but we do try ,given our limited means as a truly independent studio. Here is our (obviously written with our own bias) track record: POSTAL (1997) - We no longer update this game, so we made it open source and made it free. We have in the past rolled community updates into the base game, and will always try to make sure it survives any OS version updates. But if the time comes we’re not around, at least the source is out there for anyone interested to fix it up, should some OS update breaks it. POSTAL 2 (2003) and its DLC Paradise Lost (2015) - We sell and even update this game to this day. We’ve had to fight to keep it working during Windows and Linux updates. Sadly, Mac support is no longer that easy due to them dropping 32-bit support, although we did make a serious effort to try and get it sorted. We can’t release the source code because Unreal Engine 2 is not open source, which is a shame. The Mac situation bothers us though, so hopefully we can work that out one day. It was sold to Mac users, so they should still be able to play it, regardless of the paradigm shift Apple introduced with their hardware and software. Postal III (2011) - Not a game we developed or published, but we fought hard to get the game working again on Steam after the DRM servers went down (that we never agreed should have been a thing in the first place). We didn’t profit from that, it was just the right thing to try and do for those that paid for the game, and thankfully it worked out. POSTAL Redux (2016) - It’s come to our attention that there is a generation of CPU’s the game now crashes on due to it’s very old Unreal 4 version, so we’re currently looking into fixing that by updating the engine version, but it’s turned out to be more complex than we thought so it’ll be a while. This game is not a massive seller for us to be honest, but we can’t ignore the inconvenience for those it affects. POSTAL 4 (2022) - Still very much working on this game, about to add co-op, and soon workshop/modding support. Thankfully Epic does allow the source code sharing of Unreal 4 and 5 games, unlike Unreal 2, so once the workshop is out, it’ll be safe in the community's hands should we ever fold. And we’re looking to make sure that the servers for co-op can be maintained as long as anyone wants them to be. Anyway, to anyone that made it this far, thanks for reading. We just figured it was worth explaining why we’re supporting this cause - it’s because our own game preservation is important to us, and therefore understand why overall game preservation is vital. We obviously do care about money and paying the bills so we can keep supporting our devs, but we also care about the community - so we take the L in some situations financially, in order to look after those that help get us here. Best of luck in your endeavors Ross! And those supporting him!

[@benismann]

I always knew running wich scissors were based af. But THAT BASED? Oh my

[@idontknow4729]

after that statment, i'm double happy to have paid for the dlc of postal 2 some weeks ago, they deserve that

[@LolAsdov]

That’s why postal is my favorite game series. Recently played postal on windows 10 and the game had no issues.

[@bdhale34]

The Unreal 4 issue is likely the openSSL thing older games using UE4 have issues on 10th+gen intel and other new cpus, it's just a simple environment variable set and they all magically no longer crash and just work.

[@thegerblinradio]

Y’all are the most based studio I’ve seen

[@x3voo]

What really bothers me is that you can't reverse engineer a server for a game you spent money on, when the game's service is already dead. I’m not asking for any of their binaries or anything else-I just don’t want to get hit with a cease-and-desist for developing or running a non-profit private server for a game that’s no longer supported. This kind of thing happens all the time. IP owners shut down hundreds of fan projects, even when they’re not losing any money over them. They just wait until they have enough "evidence" and then hit you with a fine for basically nothing. The crazy part is, you could probably win in court, but the legal fees would always cost more than just paying the fine.

[@sharrpshooter1]

Just dont pay the fine they actually do anything to you and half the time have no clue who you are

[@stamythezombie]

That's what the petition is about. Maintenance of cultural propriety by the users when support is cut by the company that owns it. It doesn't actually contemplate actual "ownership" mostly. The main problem affects everyone including the devs, monetization of IPs is whack, it doesn't protect small creators, turns bigger ones into predators. Imagine if you had to pay for the rest of your life to a pencil company just because you wrote down the cure to cancer with their pencil years ago. That's what happens to devs unless they take half their life to figure out how to "invent their own pencil"

[@whytho1690]

Or if not a fine, a C&D

[@Blurredborderlines]

If they no longer own the IP then they can suck air with that lawsuit - Good luck when there's no claimant.

[@zigzagtoes]

"When theyre not losing money" Sadly, those dheads, do think theyre losing money. If your playing an old game, youre not spending money buying one of their newer games to spend. Thats how they look at it 😔

[@animanaut]

in a podcast from the german pirate party, oh the irony, they invited the initiator, a lawyer and a eu representative of the party to discuss this in a much more nuanced way than the current discussion. it was from two months ago when the initiative was started and you can find it on yt. its in german but yt's autotranslated closed captions worked quite well when i checked.

[@Skeletons_Riding_Ostriches]

I like how Running With Scissors, a publishers and developer, commented on the petition explaining in detail what they are doing to keep their games playable. In doing so they instantly debunk the 'it's too hard' arguments. If a small indie studio can do it a large publisher with a lot more resources can definitely do it.

[@Niarbeht]

Well, you see, Running With Scissors got their start in gamedev back in the 90s, when you actually had to have some idea what you were doing. (this is sarcasm)

[@horsemumbler1]

This is a really take. The argument is not and was never "it's too hard," the argument is that for some types of game it just not possible to do what the initiative is technically demanding, and that such a vague and poorly worded demand would damage certain kinds of game because what is being demanded is unreasonable as currently worded.

[@alchemystudiosink1894]

@@horsemumbler1 Course it wouldn't even be needed if companies weren't being little shits to begin with. Its like going to a restaurant at disney land, getting something that you're told was allergen free and then your husband dies from the allergen that was in the food, but not being entitled to compensation because you at some point in your life had a Disney+ free trial.

[@Blurredborderlines]

​@@horsemumbler1No, it *is* possible they just can't siphon data from you if they remove the "ONLINE DRM" the majority of these titles use.

[@Bomberman66Hell]

​@@horsemumbler1This was literally industry standard in from the 90s to the early 2000s, and now you tell me it is somehow unreasonable?

[@valethemajor]

Massive Thor L. There's nothing wrong with companies releasing the software necessary to run a game's server. This was often the norm in the good days to play LAN, even...

[@JustLookinkAround]

Louis, I'm screaming into the void here, but thank you for staying reasonable and on point. Personally, the problem I had with Thor's take on the initiative was the lack of good faith and random hysteria (a.k.a. shit-throwing) directed at Ross by way of Thor. Not wanting to even talk to Ross - which, granted, he doesn't owe to anyone - feels petty to me. Not wanting to engage in good faith and assuming things that Ross has actively clarified he doesn't want to achieve with the initiative is just... well, it's just disappointing. Thor, for a long time, has advocated for gamers and enthusiasts to try and make their own games. To not feel like there's a burden of entry to being creative - and that's amazing! We should all hope to inspire a single individual as much as he has inspired thousands of people! But in this situation, he's donned his "I am a developer, it's not as easy as you think, stupid gamer" hat. And that, again, that is disappointing. I don't know if it's a side-effect of being on the internet for too long, but I feel like he's been in what he perceives to be a similar situation before and he assumes that the outcome will not change - and who can blame him? Of course, it's human! Is it reasonable to expect more of Thor? I don't know. Maybe this whole thing doesn't matter. But to smack the entire thing in the dirt - WITHOUT being willing to talk about it, WITHOUT wanting to concede ANY ground - is just disappointing, and I think that's what a lot of people feel right now. And, of course, does it even bear saying? Anyone saying that Thor is a POS is not reasonable. Thor has done a lot and he has a different perspective. It's just disappointing to see that he is so unwilling to budge on this point. It makes him look stupid.

[@RevantTK421]

He's named piratesoftware and taking sellout corpo anti consumer stances and saying fuck you consumers. I think if your platform is labeled as piratesoftware and your stance is "eat my corpo boot" you deserve every ounce of shit you receive.

[@rorpuissant]

This is rare to find a reasonable comment on this, it's to the point the hateful comments are putting some shade on the initiative. Bit sad really.

[@Baka578]

Thor's I'm right you're wrong and im not willing to discuss this attitude is beyond obnoxious.

[@BrandonWilliams-wf6hg]

​@@Baka578 it's the exact same with his recent godot videos.

[@tommapar]

Game dev here, I had a couple of run-ins with Ubi's bullshit in the past. If you payed for a game ANY GAME you CANNOT be denied access to its features. Under any circumstances. If you NEED to turn off servers, give the tools to the people to make dedicated servers themselves, or let them play via Steamworks. Doing ANYTHING ELSE is absolutely UNEXCUSABLE because they RETROACTIVELY CHANGE THE FEATURES OF THE THING YOU BOUGHT. There's good enough precedent for avoiding this. Valve (the BEST games company and everyone should follow their example) released server creation tools to the public for their Source Gold and Source games. So they don't need to run the servers themselves.. Pretty sure they will be doing the same with Source 2 games. From Software originally used Games for Windows Live for the PC multiplayer part of Dark Souls 1. Microsoft pulled the plug, FS released a Steamworks patch, that made all the routing through Steamworks. Ubisoft kills the servers for stuff like Splinter Cell Conviction or Blacklist, and even the coop falls off WHICH HAS NO EXCUSE TO NOT BE PEER TO PEER. Literally NO EXCUSE. They just can't be bothered. EA has not been a stranger to this. If you're gonna kill it, let the community revive it if they want to. Devs not only shift the responsability with this, but they also never have to debug it again. The community will manage and keep it alive forever.

[@somefreshbread]

This is not how the real world works. Go watch Thor's second video.

[@BauliusTorvoltos]

FromSoft did unfortunately kill the servers for the original release of Dark Souls. Possibly original release/non-SOTFS Dark Souls 2 as well.

[@tommapar]

@@BauliusTorvoltos Yes but not before Wulf's Connectivity Mod was a thing

[@tommapar]

@@somefreshbread Dude I am as much in the industry as Thor is, I know that's not how it works, I'm saying that's how it should be. Companies should be held responsible for reducing the feature set of what they sold you post buying it. To ilustrate my point I'll take this to the ridiculous. Say I sold you a TV. And after the fact I push a firmware update, that patches out the ability of the display to show color. You'd be pissed. "it's old" is not an excuse. "Everyone does it" isn't either. That's an ad populum logical fallacy. The fact that everyone is shitty doesn't give you the right to be shitty too. I get that there's logistical issues with it. But don't you think people deserve to be assure that what they paid for remains theirs and isn't taken away by corporate greed? I'm sure it's even more profitable in the long run since there's more and more idiots like me advocating for pro consumer practices and shunning anti consumer ones. You can make an argument about the internet of things being a booby trap for it too. What if the company goes bankrupt, and now your smart fridge won't open, your smart juicer won't juice, and your smart oven won't cook. I know it's a stupid ocmparison, but it's common sense. NEVER ever let the goverment run wild with your freedoms and never ever let companies cheat you with gimmicks that lose funcitonality over time as a result of arbitrary processes (I see you, Apple)

[@somefreshbread]

@@tommapar okay well then when you say things like "no excuse not to be peer to peer" - then I question your actual involvement in the industry. What company in their right might would create two completely different network stacks? That's so expensive. So many additional bugs to deal with.

[@shashqwerty]

The irony of thor arguing how this initiative will cause problems for devs because they will suffer from the very same ownership/licensing issues that they're already victim to is hilarious

[@terivenverien1849]

becuase you didn't watch either of his video's. thor's point is that leaving live service games up could cause problems for the devs. stuff that would end up costing them more money and man power than it would be worth. yes thor used some poor examples (as tf2's issue didn't come from community servers it came from their own casual servers) but his point is solid. if this passes live service games like many of us play like eso, the first descendant, warframe, tf2, ow, titan fall 2, once human these games will become next to impossible to make worth the money of developing becuase sure while it lives it will make money but when it dies and has no players its just a rotting husk that keeps taking money cuz they can't shut it down. i'm aware that seeing a game you loved go sucks. trust me i get it, i loved firefall but I'd rather move on than watch that once beloved project become a thing they hate becuase they HAVE to keep it in a playable state. nothing lasts for ever and nothing should and nothing will. but yes thor agrees that single player games that are online only for the reason of you the player not being able to play them after a certain time. yes he agree's on that.

[@spooky-scarecrow]

@@terivenverien1849 and you and thor ignored the context of what ross said, no one once mentioned forcing the devs to support the game forever. just make it playable when support stops, ether private servers or just make it offline. no one mentioned forcing the devs to keep up said severs.

[@shashqwerty]

@@terivenverien1849 the devs gave up their rights as consumers and let the licensing company have their way with shitty license terms. Now devs say their consumers should also give away these rights of ownership or it will cause their past shitty choices to blow up in their face. Yes, it would be costly to fix. That wasn't my contention anyway. I too think its stupid to go and fix old games into working condition for MP servers. As Louis says in the video, if this ever makes it into law it will have restrictions on the time since publishing or some other rubrics to keep the devs afloat.

[@terivenverien1849]

@@spooky-scarecrow thor made his video before this. And in the statement it's incredibly vague and unclear on who and what types of games Ross wants to target with this. Ross also got off on the worst foot possible with Thor by mentioning how easy it would pass in government. Hopefully Thor gives this video the time of day. But i really wouldn't count on it. Cuz if one of the first things I heard somonr talk about was "how easy it would pass in government" I'd write them off too

[@terivenverien1849]

@@shashqwerty at end of the day. I'm against it becuase I don't believe in giving government power they don't need. This should be an issue between us and the devs. If WE don't not like what they are doing. Then WE should stop spending money on THEIR games. I do not support the "make the government fix it" mentality it ALWAYS gets abused. There is litterally no case of this kind of mentality working in our favor in all of history, litterally zero

[@BluntsNBeatz]

As a dev, I don't understand the idea that it would be hard to distribute local server binaries... because regardless of how complex the infrastructure is in production, during development the developers were likely NOT using actual online servers... that would be impractical and costly. The developers will need to be able to iterate on parts of the code without having to synchronise all the changes immediately and debug and test on one shared server that no other developer can use in the meantime... I find it really unlikely that any development is done using always-online servers, and if that does happen then it would probably be a nightmare for the developers anyway so not a good idea. Each developer likely has a way to spin up their own server instance in order to test some changes or an offline mode in the game for dev purposes.

[@ArchOfficial]

Thor be like "Publishers and developers being forced to be ethical would cost them some money". Imagine if this applied to other things: "Medicine manufacturers being forced to be ethical would cost them some money".

[@al-mungus677]

Video game devs weep when they have to do the things that are standard in most industries

[@abraxas1398]

The last thing i as an European need is an American (Thor) trying to tell me what is right or wrong the EU has some problems but atleast its not an free for all bullshitting contest like the USA

[@ArchOfficial]

@@abraxas1398 Thor is very Americabrained. "Government bad because Russian government told me so" tier arguments occasionally.

[@aubertbarros2020]

The real problem with PirateSoftware's line of thought is fairly simple. There’s no real argument against 'stop killing games' based on a current issue. It’s all speculation about how it might be implemented in the future. This makes the debate pointless. The real problem right now is that companies are shutting down games in a way that leaves no room for any form of preservation. This is happening right now. Any initiative that addresses an existing problem should be pushed forward, and any consequences of that initiative can be dealt with later. Any mistakes made by policymakers can be addressed as they occur.

[@CaptainCrackSparrow]

Thor is unwilling to directly talk to Ross about it because he decided Ross is beneath him to talk to. I doubt he would have the balls to directly discuss with you either. He's really not hiding his bias well.

[@HANIMEME]

That's literally not true when did Thor ever say that

[@CaptainCrackSparrow]

@@HANIMEME Literally in his pinned comment.

[@RevantTK421]

​@@HANIMEMEhe literally pinned a comment shit talking Ross?

[@irvanray1898]

​@@HANIMEME This. kzbin.info/www/bejne/ZnKUdHaZlKl2orssi=pXYz-6UjadO4Q_4C

[@joao17771]

​@@HANIMEME I wonder how can you have the balls to claim someone is lying without having a single fucking clue about what is being said

[@AKKK1182]

I think the main issue with Thor's take was how he either just didn't read into the petition at all or just disregarded several aspects and started attacking strawmen and then made several very rude ad hominem remarks against Ross. If he were stupid, it could be disregarded, but he is clearly an intelligent person, so it comes across especially arrogant and spiteful.

[@nintendude794]

Exactly, and Thor’s pinned comments don’t help either.

[@mr.cauliflower3536]

Thor is the second most arrogant person I know, and the most arrogant person I know is universally hated, so this is the league he's in.

[@hamchurger4566]

​@@mr.cauliflower3536bro know more people. If Hes 2 then number 1 must be fucking mr. Rogers or something Heres a few people more arrogant of the top of my head. Trump, elon musk, boogie, ludwig, borris johnson (just include any politician), jimmy fallon, conan, lizzo, eminem (include any rapper), hasan, destiny, H3, adin ross, ishowspeed. That wasnt in any order obviosly but like THOR IS 2. Whose number 3 and 1

[@mr.cauliflower3536]

@@hamchurger4566 To state the definition I was using. Having or revealing an exaggerated sense of one's own importance or *abilities* Afaik rappers and most politicians are just posers. Trump knows full well what he's saying is BS, as for Musk, he knows at least mostly, but ok, let's say he's a No.1 contender. That still leaves Thor at the podium, because he actually believes he's this near (or fully) infallible sage, and the willingness to goof off does not mean he doesn't think highly of himself. As for the person I previously put at No.1 you don't know them and if I told you I'd be doxxing myself, and their inclusion was solely because I felt the need to write an accurate comment, because yes, I don't know any person other than Elon who could compete with these two people for the title of the most arrogant person.

[@hamchurger4566]

@@mr.cauliflower3536 you said universally hated. you dont say that about fucking jim down the street, you say that about jk rowling or joe biden. to add your definition my examples STILL APPLY. doesnt matter if they know what they are saying is BS or not they still believe they are better than the rest of us. do you think donald trump became president because hes shy and unconfident? no dude constantly said hes the best a making trades, the best president that america ever had, his assassination attempt was the greatest tragedy in history of america. if you have no ability and still you say the best at something that means they are arrogant. your definition is just the normal definition and it seems you dont know how to apply it. you should probably learn what words mean seeing as you have used universally and arrogant wrong. also thor never said or even tried to portray that your just making things up because you dont like him (which is fine just dont justify that with bullshit)

[@mort996]

People who pirate games actually own a digital copy. Let that sink in

[@illpunchyouintheface9094]

Yep. It’s kinda said how people who don’t do thing legitimate are getting a better deal than paying customers

[@Starrky923]

A bit hard for me to believe he was approaching it in good faith when all his problems were either: 1) semantics 2) no understanding the terms 3) giving example of bad things that can happen that are already happening for years 4) solutions for this already existing with private servers and him seemingly not knowing about them somehow? Also cracks exist. And all of above started with the worst possible example of game which he thinks wouldn't work being league... A game that came out of mod for warcraft 3 that was hosted by the players. That vid of his really messed up his credibility in my eyes

[@andrewT23]

Explained it perfectly

[@mitch4904]

His "semantics" are 100% what shuts down shit like this. He was looking at the big picture of what it would look like presented to world governments at large and he was completely right about how its presented very ignorantly, very lazily and with zero concept of how these things get passed. People act like its so simple as if its not a trillion dollar industry with the best lawyers on earth on retainer to ensure these companies make as much money as possible and fuck people over as hard as legally (sometimes illegally) as possible.

[@geistar]

The problem with compromising with extreme positions is that you don’t end up winning partially-you simply lose. For example, imagine a village with one farmer who grows all the food. The farmer refuses to sell his produce cheaply for whatever reason, and as a result, most of the villagers will starve. Someone goes to the village council and says, "You need to pass a law forcing the farmer to provide food to everyone, or people will die." The farmer responds, "Let's meet in the middle. I'll give away half the food, and only half the people will need to buy it." The council agrees, thinking it's a fair compromise: you want food for everyone, he wants to sell to no one, so the middle ground is that only half the village gets food while the rest starve. Now, consider developers in a similar situation. Yes, they're in a tough spot, but they made a business decision to implement practices that harm players. They took a gamble, hoping they’d get away with it, but they didn’t, and now players are angry. The developers chose to prioritize profit over promises they couldn’t keep, and now they have to face the consequences of that miscalculation. If we compromise and meet them halfway, it sends the wrong message-that shady practices, like misleading customers into thinking they own something when they don’t, come with little to no real consequences. And let’s be honest: they likely anticipated this backlash. This isn’t a new issue. If they truly didn’t foresee it, it shows they’re bad at business. It’s not the customers' job to bail out companies for their poor decisions. If a business goes bankrupt because of shady practices, that’s their fault. A business needs to plan for the future, or it won’t be able to thrive in that future. Failing to have a realistic view of what’s coming isn’t anyone’s fault but their own. If they misjudge the market, trends, or the impact of their choices, they can’t expect customers to carry that burden. Ultimately, it’s their responsibility to adapt, or they won’t survive.

[@15sherpinski]

Thor kind of has a history of missing the reasons that people are upset by companies in the games industry. This isn't that different from the time he defended roblox by daying that their monetization policy was "better than steams" in terms of user generated content, but ignored the fact that the outrage towards the developers was coming from the fact that the company was actively downplaying the number of predators that used the game to choose victims.

[@illpunchyouintheface9094]

Thor is a corporate shill, that’s why he “misunderstands” sometimes

[@misbegotten3508]

Yeah, he's been angling himself for a corpo job so he's sure to say the nice and acceptable thing. The edgiest or most truthful he gets can still land him a GHLURK GLURK GLURK consulting positions. Corpos are all the same.

[@PyromancerRift]

The dude is a dev. He defends his right to strip people from their games to force them to upgrade by maliciously developping always online games. They know always online games canot be online indefinitely and they sell you the game anyway.

[@illpunchyouintheface9094]

Yep.

[@5x385]

Louis, maybe I'm only speaking for myself here, but the problem I had with Thor was exactly your point at 23:08. I agree that this gets absolutely nothing done, the problem is that this is exactly what Thor decided to do he may not be fundamentally lying but he is avoiding being proven wrong. You may not have watched the entire video but he has outright refused to talk directly with Ross for petty reasons, reasons that can almost only be attributed to ego or a moral high ground. Ross went out of his way to leave comments for Thor and attempt to directly communicate and work out the issues with his proposal, Thor is being adamant about doing nothing of the sort. I cannot stand for that, and I know you cannot either. I wouldn't want to try and leave a link and can't leave timestamps as the worst of Thors opinion happened live. His youtube videos are largely there for damage control as he back peddles a lot of his ignorance. Instead, I'll just paraphrase him (not because I can't directly quote him but because there's context) and you can find this version of events on other youtube channels that have reacted to the full live-stream. Essentially, Ross (the person starting the EU initiative) asks rather nicely to have a discussion with Thor about some of his concerns. Thor says, "I don't think I want to do that... specifically because of your video... [which] made me not interested in wanting to talk to you... [because] your descriptions of this [reasons the bill could pass] i find to be disgusting." the portion of Ross' video is about reasons the bill could pass which lists (skipping the dialogue of the video here, not him, myself): - politicians like easy wins - politicians don't care about video games - the law is already unclear on this practice - falls into line with other consumer practices - diversion from more serious topics Thor essentially refuses to talk to or provide any insight as a developer to Ross purely because Ross has some insight on politics or something. Now, I;d imagine you didn't see this as you can understand any of those points yourself. Get back to me if I'm wrong though as I really want to hear your thoughts on this specifically, I think it is totally wrong for Thor to avoid talking with Ross on this subject and instead just shut down his opinion. The fact of the matter is that (from my perspective) Ross is doing something, Thor isn't. If Thor doesn't like something, he should bother to do something about it. If he can't take the basic step of conversation (even after someone takes the first steps for him) what good is his opinion. It's fine for him to poke holes, but he has to actually back himself up instead of talking shit. As a quick aside I may be all over the place when it comes to where this opinion of Thors came from, I don't know for sure if it was the videos or a stream, honestly this has turned into a drama talking point so I have no idea anymore. That's why I frankly don't expect you to look for it and instead I just paraphrased it. It could have been in the youtube video though I just don't think it was based on my re watch looking for it but i didn't have a lot of time to commit to making this point.

[@blacktemplarbrotherlucius1935]

100%, Thor is entitled to his opinions even if i think their dumb opinions, but his reasoning to not start a dialog with Ross just shows (imo) Thor to be arguing in bad faith an possible not to be proven wrong. Ross isn't a guy to clout chase, his channel is proof of that, as he's been doing the same stuff for a decade plus and with no sign of stopping anytime soon.

[@sixft_under]

Seemed like a lot of people are shitting on Thor BC HE refuses to engage in good faith. He insulted the guy who proposed the idea, and when addressing critcism he strawmaned and conveniently had nothing to say about trying to silence and insult the guy. Not that he doesn't have points, but it's hard not to see him as the enemy when he engages that way. It majes people antagonistic back at him, this is the internet after all

[@LifeCompanionDogs8083]

And now he has banned Scott Ross and his comment on his channel.

[@lt_dagg]

Most of his career is administration, playtesting, and security engineering. It would not be wrong to assume a good chunk of his career, especially at blizzard, was dependent on the predatory mods of live service from AAA developers.

[@sixft_under]

@lt_dagg I can't claim to know what he's thinking, but my ASSUMPTION is that he figured his audience would just defer to his knowledge on the subject of game dev and he's too proud to retract any of what he's said; even as distasteful as parts of it came off

[@OzixiThrill]

@@sixft_under Unfortunately, that assumption of his does have some merit; Many people on his channel are his sycophants at this point. I got to realize this when he made his case for Epic exclusivity deals and people tore him a new one on the very grounds he claimed to have a point with. And I've run into plenty of people who were ardently defending him because "he's the expert here". At least it was a decent wakeup call for me to stay true to the creed of remaining skeptical when it matters.

[@ingrudmessenger1193]

@@OzixiThrill I did stop following him when he said his "proof" for maphacks in SC2 is that the top of the ladder are people with barcodes as names. Don't get me wrong, there are maphacks for SC2, but at the top of the ladder are pro-gamers who have barcodes for the memes or because they don't want others to know which strategies they'll play at the next important tournament. Those people will wipe the average maphacker so hard it's not even funny. And then i remembered he was responsible for banning people from other games and they had pizza parties when people came to complain... and again, i'm not saying like 99.9% of those bans weren't justified. But to me the idea that those people had a party while people who got banned and did nothing wrong wanted to be heard is disgusting.

[@magicalcapi9148]

Main reason Thor totally deserves the L is how condescending the videos are. His videos aren't "let's improve this to be better to everyone", the thumbnail is literally throwing everything to the bin. That's 100% subtractive and dismissive of the problem. Therefore, I don't feel giving any benefit of the doubt. He wants to silence everything, so he should be ignored right back

[@pierrickoger1148]

totally agree

[@mezu-e]

"I think he's being immature so I'm going to ignore what he's actually saying and stoop to the level I have imagined him at"

[@madmantheepic7278]

@@mezu-e lil bro, being reasonable got them a dismissive response you expect them to be reasonable after that? Lil bro hasn’t experienced real life.

[@hazamax2139]

​@@mezu-e 1- He's totally being immature, talking because he's an "expert" as an actual game developer as if said expertise made every other opinion less valuable. 2- Said expert has pretty... dumb takes. Initiatives do not require to be perfectly well thought out in every aspect. The system encourages you to be vague because the general population isn't expected to be experts. Details are worked later, not right of the gate. 3.- Being ignorant isn't bad, it happens. Him being condescending as fuck and refusing to talk things as a normal mature person is the problem. I hope this helps you understand the negative image he gained.

[@iron_side5674]

22:30 Thank you SO MUCH, i needed to hear someone say this out loud. I don´t know how Thor could just simply NOT SEE the issue and misunderstand it ENTIRELY.

[@AverageDoggo]

Calling that dude a video game developer is an insult to us actual game devs.

[@puppetmaskerr]

Whats the lore here?

[@theinfernity1799]

​@@puppetmaskerrThere is a petition called "Stop killing games". The goal of that petition is that the EU Parlament talks about a certain situation and to maybe create a new law to prevent further situations from happening. The situation is that the game "The crew" got all its licenses removed. It was not simply a server shutdown but all the 12 million sold copies were left in an unplayable state because you don't even have the license anymore to start the game or download the latest available game files. The petition aims that games should be left in a playable state without any 3rd party required (therefore no asking for devs to keep servers up all the times but rather that we should be able for self hosting for example... Or reverse-engineer). Now, the dev that people refer here about is called PirateSoftware games. He is strictly against the petition and has some problems with it. Most problems are not really valid as you can see in his second video about stop killing games. If you have seen it for yourself and you don't find the flaw, check the comments by "Newest". There are some good explanations. But the problem here is: That guy dropped those two videos and he doesn't go further. He doesn't react to comments that have some serious arguments. He doesn't talk to the starter of the petition, Ross (not Rossman), because Thor from PirateSoftware thinks that Ross is an idiot. He completely shut off any discussion with him and doesn't want to talk with anyone about this. He and/or his mods even deleted some of Ross his comments on the videos. Well. Just some usual produced drama that no one asked for. Especially not the creator of the petition since he was trying to reach out to Thor for his opinion... And he got an opinion back^^

[@pllplllpl]

what games have you made/worked on... i think calling yourself a game dev is more of an insult to game devs

[@alexandrelaroche2946]

Just watched last Thor response to the initiative, as a RtR activist he sounds like an anti-right to repair lobbyist, his whole argumentation is argumentation by authority, he is against it because the current model suits him. The fact that he doesn't want to debate the idea outside of one-sided videos shows that his position is morally wrong and he knows it, also the way he introduces himself on each of those videos trying to make him look like he is a good guy, he represents the developers... so "look at me" or "trust me bro". The initiative is not a law, it is a way for EU citizens to raise issue to their representatives and it does it well. The way Thor is talking about it make it sounds like it is the citizens that are directly writing the law and if the number of signatures is reached it will be passed as is. This is dishonest at best and he can gargle my balls.

[@50shadesofmycow]

Damn, very good to know. Louis for the win, as always.

[@OzixiThrill]

"This is dishonest at best" No. It is ignorant at best. Assuming that he's making his arguments with malice is the worst possible interpretation. PS - I'm mostly splitting hairs here, but small subtle mistakes like that can pile up into massive errors quickly, which makes me dislike them.

[@WisteriaNerium]

Reminder that Thor made a video saying timed exclusives are actually good, he didn't address the problem people have with such tactics, he mixed console examples with Epic store ones and even included Dead Island 2 as a positive example as to why they work. Thor defends anti-consumer and predatory tactics from publishers and disguises it as him being this pseudo-motivational speaker. He's untrustworthy.

[@illpunchyouintheface9094]

Truth

[@valdimer11]

That's a pretty solid description of Thor. I want to say all in all though, he is a pretty good person. He's just drank too much of the corporate Kool aid about some of the subjects he discusses. However that does not mean he's untrustworthy in my opinion. He really has some good talks. I think it's best to take him on a case by case basis

[@richmondvand147]

mind proving what you're saying or is this a just trust my interpretation bro?

[@WisteriaNerium]

​@@richmondvand147 You can watch Thor's clip about it, and do so by actually questioning what he's saying. For one Epic Exclusives are a dying breed and were only a gimmick like 5 to 6 years ago, everyone agreed it was a waste of time and money even Epic's CEO, not in the developers part but on Epic's part because they could've invested that money wisely into improving their storefront, but whatever. The problem gamers had was that not only the timed exclusivity was arbitrary but because Epic lacked some essential features Steam had, so it really was a gamble to get a game there, he doesn't mention that of course. He says they're good, because when they launch in Epic they're like "early access" and then they get to steam they're "good" or full games or as he said "pure fantastic state". Is that true? Let's look over at the examples he provides in his own comments. -Hades launched as an early access title and stayed as one when it launched in Steam, so not a full game -Red Dead Redemption 2 is a weird example, he specifically talked about Epic exclusives on his video but this is one from consoles, and the PC port was notoriously bad when it came out. -Satisfactory this is a controversial example because they had already set up a steam storepage before they deleted it, moved to epic for 12 months, were dismissive towards the community and then came back to Steam. It stayed in Early Access for like 4 more years, so no, not a full game -Palia, MMO f2p game, so it shouldn't even count, because they have different ways of dealing with updates. -Borderlands 3, as far as I know it didn't launch as an early access title. Randy Pitchford was optimistic because he saw how many zeros the deal with Epic had but even he has pushed back against the practice and said Epic just missed the mark because they didn't do anything, lol, lmao, imagine Randy Pitchford of all people saying that. -Dead Island 2, notoriously mixed game. Can't say say much else other than it's mid, and was in development hell since 2014 and the timed exclusive deal was something that was done like 5 or 6 years ago but they just took so long to release it. Again, a weird example. -Hitman 3, this shit was bad for both Steam and Epic store fans, they wanted Epic customers to buy 1 & 2 again so they would be able to access locations of the previous games unlike console players, which angered them and they backtracked. When it launched on Steam people were mad that it was made even pricier and they had to backtrack by offering free upgrades to the deluxe editions to those who paid for the normal one.

[@WisteriaNerium]

@@richmondvand147 Is that enough proof for you?

[@tsuna666]

We really just need to rebuild the entire copyright/patenting system from the ground up. Oh well. Maybe we'll manage it after things collapse.

[@chris6ix.]

The main problem IS that you don't buy a copy of the game anymore. Nowadays, you only buy a license to play the game, which the company can revoke at any time they feel like it. That IS the problem. Video game licenses should not be a thing to begin with. If you buy a game, you should own that game and be allowed to play it anytime, anywhere and on any device you manage to run it on without the developer having any say in it or any control over it. Period. The concept of "You will own nothing and be happy" can to hell.

[@CraigNull]

How should the game devs handle cheating players in online multiplayer games? With licenses they can revoke the cheater's license

[@youtubeuniversity3638]

​@@CraigNull ...y'know that with central servers cheaters can just be kept from linking into said central servers ye? And after support end when people run their own servers the company isn't even the one issuing bans?

[@morethanjustasloth5528]

The whole "you're asking too much from game devs" argument always smells fishy too me. 1: Games did not have this problem in the past, so it's clearly possible to build games without an inevitable death date. 2: Some games are still made today without these problems, so it is clearly still possible even with modern practices and standards. 3: Many games that have been shut down have had their back-ends reverse engineered by modders, so it's often possible but the developer simply chose not to. 4: This problem only became common after the wide-spread advent of in-game-purchases and data-mining

[@illpunchyouintheface9094]

If anything this is asking devs to do less work. It’s harder to kill a game than is it to just not

[@Akandofaul]

Games as a service has been a cancer sense it’s inception. Imagine renting a car for a few hundred thousand.

[@N1mdok]

i have to disagree with the point of "they have to restructure their games and thats just extra work" - i have been playing games such as Heroes of Might and Magic 3 and Half Life with my friends and cousins for so long that has become our tradition. Even tho these games are much older than some of the games mentioned in the video , the developers back then thought of their games' longevity as a crucial part of the game and have done their planning for it: -- So we can say that "Restructuring their games" is NOT some extra work, it is work that they should have already done that they are just ignoring because people don't seem to react to it badly enough. tldr: its not extra work to think about your games longevity, its a crucial part

[@wompastompa3692]

I think the main thing should be that developers shouldn't be allowed to sue third party servers after they've stopped support.

[@Mc4est]

LOL the guy was Blizzard Dev... His opinion would be the last thing I would consider.. even then I would be skeptical.

[@AngelFromHeaven000]

This video explains the issue very very well. The whole rabbit hole is about explaining what the product really is. Do I buy temporary access to the game? (License) or do I buy the product "as a whole". (expecting it to be accessible at all times at the end of time) I guess most of us were conditioned to the idea that we "owned" the game after a purchase due to having physical copies back in the day. But now since the game industry has turned into a greedy business, shady business models were to be expected. I'm sure if this is pushed further more, game companies will have to respond with more transparency upon "purchasing" games. Sincerely a AAA game dev.

[@RoboGuy2K]

Funny how Thor refuses to engage with Ross because he had some mild cynicism towards politicians and claim Ross "isn't worth talking to" but he can just reductively call this movement "sh*tting on his desk".

[@retagainez]

The worst part of it is too that not a lot of game developers are competent engineers. Game development is advanced compares to the 90s but it's still way far behind and has a lot of archaic thinking to this day.

[@vvebvvaster]

Good to see a nuanced take on this complex subject. Props to you, Louis. My 2 cents follows: I've worked in the IT enterprise space for around 2 decades. In that time I've seen multiple iterations of hardware/software/service licensing models. TBH, it was an absolute hot mess when we started moving from simple one time purchase, key-based authorization to an online, subscription-based licensing model. But as it has evolved, we've come to a more modular approach which for my part is more reasonable for consumers while preserving our ability to sunset products within a given timeline. The original purchase comes with (a) base license(s) in perpetuity, providing basic product functionality. More advanced features, service and support require additional licensing or subscriptions. Product end-of-life dates are published well in advance with support options dropping off incrementally over time until the product reaches legacy status and is no longer supported. Past this date, the base functionality will be preserved, but advanced features and support are no longer available. Granted this approach would surely have to be simplified and streamlined for gaming customers, but maybe such a model (if not already adopted) could provide some remedy for all stakeholders? Just a thought.

[@redwarrior864]

I disagree that Thor is coming at this from a position of good faith. He's a developer with a background in live service games, and listening to him talk he didn't do his homework before making the video ripping up the initiative. There's even a new video talking about the initiative that clarifies some of the things he had issue with (E.g., no retroactive application) in a way that the previous video didn't, but which was /available information/ about the initiative as a whole. The issue I personally took with him here is that I have this image of him as a very reasonable dude. But his approach to the Initiative is "I don't like it, Ross is a bad person and I refuse to discuss this with him so that my problems can be addressed."

[@SilverMystes1]

It’s just ridiculous how these companies can just stop me from playing a game that I bought anytime they want.

[@theidiotchildren]

I unsubscribed from Thor's channel, not because of his criticism of the movement, as misguided and irrelevant as a lot of it actually was, but because he deleted comments from Ross Scott correcting some of the misinformation present in the video and then stated he would refuse to talk to him because he was disingenuous because he said true things in a cynical manner about EU government officials. That, to me, seemed much more disingenuous on Thor's part and showed that Thor was not willing to engage in the topic in good faith. He acted like a shithead, so I called him a shithead. He can realize the error of his ways, engage in good faith, still disagree, and have his head unshitted and I would completely forgive everything, but until then, he's a shithead. When your argument opens with, "Think of Final Fantasy 14 guys!" and ends with staunch refusal to listen to the people explaining to you how The Crew is not Final Fantasy 14, you're wasting everyone's time. In contrast, while I can tell you haven't been following this specific topic on AccursedFarms' channel for years like I have, I can tell that you're actually trying to understand the arguments on both sides and have even asked to be corrected should you get anything wrong. That's good. That shows integrity. At the time of writing this I haven't finished your video but you seem to be getting everything pretty spot on so far, too. Much better than the reactionary tantrum Thor was throwing out there where he claimed they were going after all online live-service games because they're too dumb to understand client-server relationships. I'm just going to keep editing this as I watch the video. On licenses, The Crew does have licensed cars, but these licenses are not likely to legally stand in the way of people accessing the game who have paid for access. The licenses on The Crew did lapse at one point, meaning the game had to be taken down from stores and some or all of the microtransactions had to be stopped for a little while, but those that had bought the game were still able to play it and access all the licensed cars. Lots of racing games have licensed cars which often means the company can only sell the game while they hold the license, but there is no legal requirement to cut access to these already purchased copies after the license expires. You can still play Beetle Adventure Racing on N64, but you're unlikely to ever see it make its way to the Switch. And nowhere in the Stop Killing Games initiative, at least that I'm aware of, has there ever been mention of forcing companies to give up trademarked and/or copyrighted materials. You don't need full access to a game's source code to make it playable on the consumer end, so the bits that are likely licensed, like the physics engine, shouldn't even be a part of the conversation unless they architected The Crew in a way that I can't quite wrap my head around. Now, I'm a developer but I've never personally worked with netcode, so maybe there's something there I'm missing. But the topic of licensed content should be almost entirely irrelevant. Alright, little over halfway through the video now, and we're talking about how this could affect development going forward, and I basically agree with everything said so far. The only thing I think is an exaggeration is the idea that it could make certain types of games harder or even impossible to develop. The initiative says nothing about live-service subscription based games like Final Fantasy 14, so those shouldn't be affected. The initiative does say something about live-service games where you purchase items that you are then supposed to own, and here's where I can kind of see a point. If you know you are buying a license to access the live-service game, then it could be argued you should expect that all purchased items are only being accessed through a purchased license as well. It would be weird if a game like Rust shut down but was required to give you access not the game but just to the skins you purchased. Like, what, do they just give you a bunch of PNGs? But the biggest target is a game with a heavily carved out single-player component which runs entirely or almost entirely locally already, like The Crew. The online component allows for multiplayer functionality and I think it's fair to consider this a limited time thing that can go away, but it also keeps you from playing the single-player content that otherwise requires no internet connection. There are plenty of companies out there that have made online-connected single-player games, but either have an option to play offline or later patch out the online component altogether. These types of games have no excuse. They aren't inextricable from the online connection and there are plenty of easy and freely available solutions out there to let you have your online connection while giving your customers actual freedom to play the thing they paid for. Valve has had this exact system in place on Steam for two decades now. And now I'm back again several hours later to finally finish watching the video! I'm sort of just adding to my last point here, though. Rust is a game that I believe was sold as a product and not a service, although it is an online game with no real single-player component. However, it doesn't require you to play on official servers. You can host your own servers just fine, and this did not require Facepunch to design the game in a way that is not conducive to its own functionality, did not require Facepunch to release any sensitive material, and means the game will absolutely be in a playable state long after the official servers shut down even if you're the only person on your own private server. Rust is exactly the kind of game the Stop Killing Games initiative would be targeting if it hadn't already done everything the initiative wants to be required for all similar online products. There are plenty of other similar examples throughout gaming's history. So to imply that the initiative is asking for anything unreasonable (which isn't happening in this video, I'm talking more about Thor's video here) is objectively false. "Article 17 squiggly shit 1..." Ooh, so you're familiar with proper European legal parlance. Impressive! Also, yes, thank you for understanding the crux of the situation. The Crew was sold as a product, not a service. It did not clearly state when or even that it would be rendered completely unplayable, simply using boiler plate legalese at most points of sale to state that online functionality could be shut down at any time. On physical copies there was fine print stating that the online components of the game may be shut down in the future with the only given date being 2099, which on its own could already put Ubisoft in a legally precarious situation in several European countries. And given that a reasonable person could expect the online components to only be necessary for online functionality and not for driving around offline on the map that is very much downloaded locally to your machine, it could be tough for Ubisoft to argue that the customer was made fully aware of what was even being purchased. "To look at this dude straight in the face and say F you, nothing you've said is reasonable. I'm not going to engage at all because you're an asshole simply because you disagreed with what I said..." That was Thor's stance exactly. He refused to engage with the Stop Killing Games initiative and his audience responded how you're supposed to respond to someone being a chud. I unsubscribed because I don't like chud behavior, especially coming from someone who weeks ago was telling people to stop reacting to shit they hear without actually reading the thing in question before he did the exact same thing. The backlash was people genuinely engaging with his points, which were almost universally bad or completely unrelated to the topic. He misrepresented the situation, misrepresented Ross Scott, ignored and deleted criticism, and refused to make any corrections. It may have been unintentional on his part, as I still don't think he understands the Stop Killing Games initiative at all, but he was very much being dishonest by allowing such negligent reporting. I would love for you to talk to both Thor and Ross, preferably at the same time so Thor could pull up his pants and wipe the shit off his hands and I could go back to liking the guy again.

[@Jehmini]

Holy shit buddy you're WAY in too deep... 😂

[@theidiotchildren]

@@Jehmini I'm a game dev, this is kind of important to me.

[@ikeblade1]

Honestly, this just sounds like your feelings are hurt that a content creator you previously liked (Thor) disagreed with something you are heavily emotionally invested in. So to justify your hurt feelings, you have to trash the guy. The fact that you have been following AccursedFarm's channel, and characterized Thor's take as a "reactionary tantrum", really just tells me that your feeling are hurt by the perceived betrayal and are trying to justify to yourself why you're no longer going to watch content from a creator you otherwise enjoy. You wrote a 10 paragraph comment on a random youtube video trying to create reasons for why Thor is actually a super bad person, all because he disagrees with you about one thing you like.

[@theidiotchildren]

@@ikeblade1 Not quite, but you're not too far off. Most of my last comment is a live-reaction to this video at hand, which was a really helpful way to organize my thoughts on the topic. Only the first two and last two paragraphs are about Thor, and that's because his garbage take was the catalyst for everyone else talking about it. My feelings weren't hurt because I was disagreed with, I was angry that someone would willfully and intentionally spread disinformation about an important initiative and refuse to listen to anyone who rightfully corrected his poorly thought out bad faith arguments. I had only recently subscribed to his channel and didn't really watch much of his content other than a few shorts. I was more interested in him as a game dev that I might like to work with some day than as a content creator. But then he did shitty things with a shitty attitude and I realized he's shit.

[@xbigcalx]

Was a fan of thor being so transparent about blizzard... then I realized like many others that he is more like blizzard than he is a gamer

[@illpunchyouintheface9094]

You can take the Thor out of blizzard but you can’t take the blizzard out of Thor

[@Gauron.]

One of the thing i noticed about this discussion is that the initial idea was taken out of scope, not only those who are against it have the idea that this is retroactive but plenty are arguing this also affect things like new microsoft not supporting old games and are essentially trying to say the developers of obscure commodore 64 games should make compatibility patches. The reality is that this only affects games that have inbuilt killswitch capacity. It wont affect Terraria, Palworld, GTA 1-2-3-San Andreas, it wont affect anything that runs offline fine. The only people who will be affected are those who make always-online games: where with a flick of my finger I turn off the server and the game goes to slumber

[@johnhalliday5420]

The issue i had eith the video is that it felt completely disingenous. It felt very dismissive of the idea and like he was trying to shut it down before it could even breathe. The entire point of the first video was 'heres what I want, im not an expert in legal stuff, help me do this to make it better' which to me, Thor completely ignored. Also there are way too many people in this comment section making claims as to why it wouldnt work when its evident they have zero knowledge about this is astounding. 'its too expensive' or 'its too complicated'. Just dont bother please.

[@illpunchyouintheface9094]

One thing many don’t know is Ross actually had lawyers work with him on this. So even tho Ross himself may not be caught up on the law, the volunteer lawyer sure did

[@mwbgaming28]

Any game that can be played from start to finish by one player should be playable without an internet connection, no exceptions

[@RadicalRegice]

Every time I see one of Thor’s videos or shorts appear on youtube, he gives me the distinct vibe of “guy who is convinced he’s smarter than everyone he talks to because he has a deep voice”

[@killsode4760]

Spot on. He's very much got that vibe of 'im intelligent because I say things confidently' and people have agreed and liked him so far because he just said the right things.

[@themasterseye]

@@killsode4760 You two are way off here (your vibe reading, not you as people) and actually watching his content would prove that pretty quickly. Most of what Thor says is not only verifiable, but he takes the effort to show or explain that verification quite often. He is also incredibly successful at pretty much everything he does and has done a lot of things not many other people can/would do, including multiple high complexity positions in what most consider "high intelligence" professions. Odds are he is smarter than most of the people he talks to in some way (especially twitch chat/youtube lol) People like him because of this uncommon level of success, combined with the fact he is ultra genuine, and he is incredibly supportive and motivational to people.

[@RevantTK421]

​@themasterseye his parents getting him a job doesn't make him over qualified. He's taking the stance that is financially beneficial for his own company and his standing on this issue is clearly "fuck you consumers". Being anti-consumer and calling your self pirate software is so gross it's vomit worthy. Fuck that guy.

[@sorry3333]

Don't forget, Thor Is a director/dev on a couple Live service games soooooooooo, Kind of poisoned well.

[@pvprangergod4024]

and he is a child groomer

[@Agentcoolguy1]

I disagree with your first point about Thor not deserving to be shat on. He only engaged with strawmen, attacked Ross, misrepresented his arguments, and refuses to even talk to him. Where I come from, that's a very good reason to catch shit. He's not stupid. He's doing this on purpose because he has a vested interest in the live service market.

[@Yuh_zhimmy]

True

[@51Boiler73]

he's a programmer, not a businessman. hes unqualified to talk about anything regarding this and is speaking from second-hand knowledge and unnearned confidence. he's definetely stupid, just accompanied with the kind of cadence that makes him seem like he knows what he's talking about.

[@captainsewerrat]

What is his vested interest in live service market? He made single player games, his involvement is in single player games. The only live service games he's involved with is as a consumer and a player.

[@bigassjoe]

@@captainsewerrat He is associated with Offbrand Games, publisher of Rivals 2, which is a live-service game.

[@mezu-e]

Yeah, he's so vested in profits from live service games that he pays his artists/musicians 50% of all revenue of his single player games, and doesn't even make live service games. What are you people smoking?

[@BulletSponge71436]

Just preserve all the videogames. Period. These companies and corporations *must* be held accountable.

[@joefish818]

Imagine a museum that you went to one time shut down. But they kept the art because they own it. You can't just force them to give you the art.

[@BulletSponge71436]

@@joefish818 except you don't buy said art in the museum. We're talking about *purchasable* videogames, not something rentable. A *purchase* is a permanent thing, your property.

[@joefish818]

@BulletSponge71436 Lots of live service games are not something you pay to own. You purchase the "license" to play. You do not own the game. As per the TOS that the game provides. It's the same as buying entry into the museum. You are paying to experience what it provides.

[@BulletSponge71436]

@@joefish818 No. You're literally excusing corporate greed. In fact, disguising license or rent as "purchase" is illegal, which these game companies are doing. I even daresay that you're the enemy of humanity for defending companies and corporations in such a way. It's like you're fighting against human rights... And I don't know if I can write that word in the KZbin comments section without my comment being deleted, so I'll stop at that.

[@joefish818]

@BulletSponge71436 I never stated my opinion on the ethics of it. I've only corrected the misinformation you have written. Instead of instantly putting words in my mouth and insulting me because I don't agree with every single thing you say, maybe you should have an actual discussion on the issue. Otherwise, you're the problem. You're not actually trying to solve issues and allow this thing to pass. You do not buy many live service games to own. You buy licenses to play. That is a fact. It is illegal to advertise games that are "licensed to play" as buying ownership of the game. That is also a fact. Companies should be punished for doing such things. There should be more transparency on what kind of ownership you get when purchasing a game. Is it a service or a good? It should state this more obviously. Even if it's already in the TOS. Just like a museum, you purchase a service. But if you purchase the painting itself, it's a good. That's the difference. Same with games. Many live service games are license to play. They're SERVICES. Not goods. You don't force a taxi to drive you around for the rest of your life just because you paid them one time. So... what is the actual plan to allow users to continue to play live service games after the official servers shut down? You can't force them to give their rightful property out to the public. That's their copyright. Sometimes, they legally can't give it out because they don't own the copyright. They just have a license to use it. Just like museums, you can't force them to give their rightfully owned artwork to the public just because you want to see it. Nor can you force them to stay open. Sometimes, the artwork isn't theirs to give away. It might be a temporary license to show from someone else who actually owns said painting. We need to figure out alternatives. Otherwise you'll be battling the copyright system. Which affects all entertainment industries. Such as the film industry. Ya'll better be ready to fight Netflix and Disney+ cause they use the exact same system. You pay a license to use their stuff. I'm not saying this is a bad idea. It's just not well thought out. It's not an easy process. Ya'll need to think about the actual issues that it might come across. Otherwise, it will never pass, and you dig yourselves into a deeper hole.

[@lucasLSD]

Thor was part of the industry, he just drank the kool-aid and will need time to finally come around.

[@hippieash2799]

I disagree that Thor was acting in good faith. Good faith means that you are open to criticisms and an open dialogue. He said it himself, he does not want to change his position nor open a line of dialogue. What he said is final. That’s not good faith

[@TheXavierfull]

Being open to criticism and saying things in good faith are 2 different things 😅

[@Lulu-ot5gw]

@@TheXavierfull What about uncalled for personal attacks and lying? Thor did those too.

[@Avalanchanime]

An adult did a video, another adult adds more info into it, informing, not attacking. Glad to have u in this platform

[@OhCanadaGamer]

As someone who plays on tons of private servers and emulators, like City of Heroes Homecoming, any BS the company puts out after shutting down the game officially and not letting players continue playing it is just that complete BS. In fact every online game from the get go should have the feature to run private servers alongside the official ones. The only reason they don't is corporate greed and an F U to customers.

[@ShadeNightz]

I don't shit on PS because he disagrees. It's his Disrespect of Ross when disagreeing with Ross. It seemed a little ridiculous. Even more ridiculous that an open discussion couldn't be had when somethings were straight up misread.

[@tomwoggle9411]

I am one of those people that purchased the game The Crew, twice even. And of do i feel like Ubisoft "$hit on my desk" telling me it's an "inactive game" and that I "no longer have access to the game" and even gping so far as to teling me I am "not eligible for a refund", not even for a partial refund. EA hasn't been treating me all that much better than Ubisoft have treated me, for some time now ever since they changed from the Origin app to the EA App requiring me to connect to the internet to launch the game, even for older games only played in offline mode, which has been an issue when travelling to places with very poor or no internet (which is exactly the main reason why I purchased some of those games for because they were playable offline in these situations). At least there seem to be ways that i can still launch my EZ purchased offline games without any internet access. Ubisoft on the other hand locked me out of my own property and even having the audacity to tell me I am no longer eligible to access my property. Ubisoft is NOT bankrupt they are still in business, they sold me a game with offline content that I paid to have unlimited access to and now they are depriving me of access to my property without any compensation whatsoever. If they went bankrupt and out of business I would understand, that would have been a known risk customers face. But Ubisoft are still in business, they are still making money, and up to this moment they haven't even been willing to offer me any form of compensation whatsoever.

[@Muppemania]

I just think that some arguments that Thor use are shitting on the customers desk, to borrow that phrase. Like FFXIV, it has a monthly fee, if I do not pay that fee I can not play the game, I and I think most if not every gamer that play that game understand that at some point in time the game will no longer be playable, and we accept that because it is an MMORPG and not a SINGLE PLAYER game. What I think most people want to deal with is how some games with single player components, and even just small co-op components, have those components be unplayable when the publisher wants to sell you the next game so that they in that one as well can sell you season passes, loot boxes, and have an ingame shop. There simple are some games that have been turned into live service games with no other reason then the publishers greed.

[@hummuslord6521]

It was so refreshing to hear you open this discussion with another content creator in a kind, respectful, and professional manner. Discourse so often devolves on the internet. I really enjoyed watching both yours and Thor's videos.

[@06blackmetal]

Thor isnt doing it in good faith, if he actually cared about game preservation and consumer rights he would be giving advice on how to fix the issues he himself made up

[@XlightninX]

I appreciate the clarity of the video and especially pointing out the ideological difference we're dealing with here. I feel Pirate Software wasn't making a bad faith argument per se but the way he argues his points and dismisses counterpoints in a way that misrepresents them under the guise of "I'm a developer so I know what I'm talking about and you don't" comes across as bad faith. It's a lot easier to distinguish legitimate concerns without the abrasive verbal tactics. Part of the issue here is from what I've heard from you, you have no distinction in belief from Ross Scott (the youtuber that pushed for the initiative) I could be wrong but I think you're coming from the same place and you're covering for legitimate concerns, the goal was never to hobble devs only to find a way for consumer rights to be protected with minimal cost and damage to all involved. But when Pirate Software says "I won't speak to Ross, I can tell based on his listed points that he's not worth talking to" and this is spelled out below his video in a comment... what is that? You say you have legit concerns which is why you won't support the initiative yet you refuse to even consider the discourse necessary to make sure those are represented in it? I've seen lots of clips of this man discussing various topics and with this new emergence it's become clearer than ever that he has a dismissive attitude towards most people when arguing in general, there's no desire to bridge gaps it's just "you don't know what you're talking about" which, even if true, is not a constructive way to educate people which is what he claims he is doing. Couple that with the fact that between his two videos he lists several points that have been fully addressed by Ross Scott in past videos relating to exactly this issue and it starts to sound more like a developer having a gut reaction and trying to legitimize it than someone who has actually considered all the points presented and ended up at that position. Forgive the rant, but his comment section is a shit show of ad hominem and shit flinging, it's beyond trying to communicate valid points. Hearing you speak soberly on the matter and seeing this comment section is a lot more civilized I figured this was a much healthier environment to spell these points out. Thanks for the video it's well made and doesn't waste time, the clarity is refreshing, this topic gets people heated.

[@ronjohnson2760]

The issue I take with Thor is that a lot of his argument is "we have it so good right now, if you do this it will hurt us game devs. You dont wanna hurt us do you?" during a time when game devs are actively trying to harm the consumer for their own benefit.

[@illpunchyouintheface9094]

And what’s even crazier is the game industry has been terrible for the past few years. Has there been a game that has released which is fully done with very little to no bugs? No! Thanks to bad devs like Thor so screw them

[@TheRogueX]

My issue with the modern licensing issue is that it violates decades of precedence. You don't see publishers forcing their way into peoples' homes and recovering copies of old PS1/PS2/Xbox/Xbox 360 games because it has "licensed" materials in it. I can still toss old copies of Forza in my console and play it off the disc with the licensed cars it was released with. It's disgusting how I have ported games on newer consoles or PC that, for instance, have completely different music in them than the copies I have for the actual consoles because of bullshit licensing. I support copyright for creatives, but this bullshit is corpo bullshit.

[@TheRogueX]

Oh hey, I just needed to watch more of the video.

[@CAPSLOCKS0N]

for what it's worth, if you've seen the last year or so of ubisoft news they're doing a really good job convincing people they don't want to own their games.

[@illpunchyouintheface9094]

Yea thanks ubi! Even Ubi fans are turning their backs on them

[@cithria583]

Hey Louis, Isn't it odd that both Pirate Software videos are titled "Stop Killing Games"? No "reaction," "response," or any other description added on? Sure, the official title is "Stop Destroying Games", but it is still the name of the initiative's website that he visited and is actively being linked to people. It is an iffy title to use in the case that a KZbinr wanted to support someone else's cause, but using the exact name of something when you oppose it seems downright diabolical, especially when the second video was released using the same thumbnail and nearly identical title. I could see why he made that choice when I searched for the title on KZbin... Is there a way for smaller creators, businesses, groups, or whatever to deal with being blotted out like this? I doubt Navy Software is the first to try something like this.

[@cithria583]

I hope the guy is actually going on vacation and not setting up corporate meetings, bots, or whatever.

[@Pylo904]

So about shipping “the server binary” with the game client: these days making “the server” a binary is damn near impossible in some (maybe even most) cases. There are many reasons for this, but here are some of the top of my head: - programming languages tipically used for backend are almost exclusively interpreted languages that are not meant to be compiled - server architecture is meant to be distributed across the cloud, meaning it’s not a single program but a bunch of separate programs working together and connecting to a shit ton of cloud services/APIs and 3rd party libraries with various licenses - the whole web/cloud tech stack is a steaming pile of shit that needs to be constantly supported (modified and updated in the code) and if you so much as turn your head for a second, it collapses in on itself immediately Now you could say: “just ship the code then” but the thing is a lot of those services you use for one game, you would want to reuse for another so it would basically force developers to open source their propriatery tech that they still actively use in other projects. That being said, devs tend to tie everything to the cloud just because they can (often with no benefit for the user) and I agree that aside from actual multiplayer gameplay, games should be made to work offline if you can no longer support the online part. And I have a funny feeling that for most of the products, it actually is a literal “work offline” switch in the code, becuse if you want to have a reasonable iteration time during development, you pretty much have to have something like that. Similar to DRM, no sane person would want to deal with that shit while they are programming/testing. That crap is only added just before public release.

[@AlMujrimun]

NEVER buy Rockstar games digitally, they will remove your license from your game library and gaslight you into thinking you never bought it. happened with 3 different rockstar games

[@illpunchyouintheface9094]

Sorry to hear that man. Luckily there are cracked copies online, they normally normally work better and take up less storage if you wanna try those out

[@ShadowTaiga]

Thors video was a reverse meme. The nicest person you know has a really bad point.

[@liamvt2]

I personally really dislike piratesoftware. I watched a bit of his content, enjoying myself at first. But then I saw a segment where he defended roblox and child labour and pretended that corporation runs differently than it really does. That is just unhinged to me as he is an industry professional that absolutely knows how that really works. He straight up just doesn't care about issues like exploiting creators/kids as long as it is smart business. The guy by now has a populist persona. he's a streamer. He panders to his audience he is even well liked by some creators i genuinely like. But before that he was a corporate shill deeply entrenched in the industry. and that mentality of his hasn't left him... I think it's perfectly appropriate to shit on a guy like that that actually defends highly exploitative child labour for one. I'm sure he engages in "good faith". But he simply doesn't look at things from the perspective of an indie creator but as a business owner even if that's of an indie studio... But his opinion is based around his history of being an industry shill The lens through which he sees the industry is just fairly toxic. When he does put out video's where he tries to show off good things he did, keep an eye on how he frames it. Usually the issue was also good for his bottom line so thats why he covers it. he's savvy and corpo. But when it's good for business he will have ruthless opinion like with roblox.. Ethics come second. He is brilliant at creating this pro consumer persona generally by picking and choosing his battles. But he just oozes slimy corporate shill if you actually have some knowledge before you listen to him on many topics... he can't help himself.. The fact he didn't sign the petition and his argumentation for it speaks for itself to me. But if it doesn't do yourself a favor and look at his video on the roblox business model. And then look at the video's of roblox from "people make games". That should tell you all you need to know about what kind of person you're dealing with...

[@illpunchyouintheface9094]

Wait, he defended Roblox and their child labour problem? Yikes.

[@DropIet]

(not so) fun fact but some copies of the crew came with DLC that stated an expiration date of 2099. It was never advertised as live service

[@freedomextremist7215]

People were mad at this guy because he attacked the creator of the initiative in a dishonest and uncalled for way, and used the attack to justify not being willing to speak about the issue directly.

[@That_One_Guy-.]

Honestly the fact that he acts like the creator of the initiative is beneath him is quite telling of how he actually is. Makes you remember that he used to work at Blizzard.

[@thesheeepjd]

PirateSoftware has completely lost credibility with his insane and corpo-greed-driven take on this.

[@illpunchyouintheface9094]

All the guy had to do is not speak

[@PandamoniumBruu]

The worst part is that he not only double it down, he tripled it down

[@Alex-s7z4p]

He's farming views and attention at this point. Majority of people already know who's in the wrong here and he isn't that dense not to either.

[@Tomo_mo]

Lets be real here nobody is really mad at thor for having a an opinion. Its the fact that he comes off really agressive and pushes back towards petition without any intentiom for deliberation is which pisses people off. However bad this proposal may be it is still not too late for a person like him to give important feedback to make it better. But he doesnt want to which is pissing me off.

[@TheCaveman256]

Don’t forget. Thor’s a corpo rat of a developer from one of the companies that pushed the “games as a service not a product” model, blizzard. Once a corpo always a corpo. #stopkillinggames

[@thesilentgod7863]

There is no good reason why a single player game needs access to internet Piracy is now a survival tactic, especially after the disney+ crap

[@MelAncholynus]

Destiny 2 taught me to never buy a big budget game again until it's about 90% off. All the content I paid for is gone. If I'm renting digital games, I'll wait until the price is rental level, and spend the rest of the money on old games that run as long as the disc is readable.

[@LilBleachThaGod]

Publisher Gun Media says it will release one final update for Friday the 13th: The Game before shutting the multiplayer slasher fest’s dedicated servers down. The good news is you’ll still be able to play online through peer-to-peer and private matchmaking, and you won’t lose any progression you’ve made due to the server shutdown. !! this honestly was valid effort to preserve the game more publishers should follow

[@LilBleachThaGod]

also steam is best i own only up and friday both works now that the game is offline which is cool !!

[@illpunchyouintheface9094]

Idk much about that game but that is really cool they are doing that. Other games should follow their lead

[@tsqaured5709]

I would have been a bit more receptive to thor's opinion if he had put forth his own solution to the problem.

[@illpunchyouintheface9094]

That’s the funny part! He has no solution!

[@lenajohnson6179]

People are continuing to completely miss the actual concern of the movement as well. All this 'we just need to be transparent about what is or isn't live service!?' isn't the point. If we do that, developers will just call EVERYTHING a live service and make the problem WORSE. They SHOULD be doing this anyway, but again, it's not the concern of the movement in any way. They don't WANT to sell a product, they want to create something they can milk for profit indefinitely in a way basically no other production medium has the capability to do, and then throw in the trash when it stops making enough profit. Making a law that they must 'distinguish' between these things will only promote they all word EVERY game purchase as a lease and will only make the problems which the movement is concerned about WORSE. While absolutely we agree that retroactively enforcing laws is silly and Thor arguing that's what we want is more disingenuous than ANYTHING he accuses Ross of, Nobody is saying 'go back over the last fifty years of videogames and bring it into compliance' that's INSANE... but we DO basically want an end to 'games as service' because games as a service are what promote the ACTUAL CONCERN the movement represents. That being that the history of games is being erased one game at a time each time one of these games vanish into the aether. No one can experience or learn from a game that 'died' ten years ago. Gradually even the video evidence of games on KZbin and such eventually disappear. There should be some 'archive' somewhere (such as the film archive with movies) in which EVERY GAME going forward could theoretically be preserved in FOR HISTORY. Some place in which ALL the games we've ever made can be learned from or experienced by those with the desire to do so... because we, human beings, spent time and effort and LOVE creating and Live Service is antithetical to that. It exists just to milk money, and dies, vanishing forever after. THIS is what Ross's issue is, he doesn't give a shit about the language in live service contracting, he's not even PRIMARILY concerned with terms of ownership. He's worried about the history of the art form from this VAST and growing period of time, disappearing entirely due to these self destructive practices. Ask yourself if Mario or Zelda would be the beloved franchises and cultural force they are today, if the original games were games as service that we could no longer play today. THATS what this movement is worried about. Ross is simply trying to be realistic about HOW we fix this within the framework of the law as best we possibly can.

[@nolainnogain]

A civil, concise counter argument? This is how you politely disagree with someone, folks. Take note.

[@Steve_Norris]

I'd LOVE to see you and Thor discuss this together! I think it'd be incredible to see two of the most influential creators in their fields have a thoughtful and good faith back and forth on something so close to both. 2:11 What an incredible point. It's a shame that so much of online discourse is driven by "you agree or you're unreasonable." I mean, that's what gets clicks, watch time, engagement (good or bad, both drive up attention), I get that's just how media is. It just sucks that content that reasons both sides is as hard to find as it is, because that's usually what you can learn the most from. And after finishing the video, I'm glad that's what I got. It's hard to argue against someone when they already explore both sides. If the publishers of an online game don't want to advertise it as a time limited experience, then it needs to in some way allow players to keep playing it past EoS. If the publishers don't want to do that extra work, they need to make it clear to the consumer before purchase when EoS is likely to be, if it's no longer turning profit enough to continue. Makes sense. I'd love to know Thor's opinion on this!

[@maxkore278]

This applies to any service/software, the only time you should be able to charge a service fee, is purely for a service. The moment the company shuts down their service (ie; servers), there is no longer a public entry point, and your key should be yours to use freely other than to monetize. You can't sell copies, can't sell internal purchases or a subscription fee, the only exception being resale. Beyond that if the company stops selling the software all together, than its no longer piracy to distribute it.

[@maxkore278]

anything else is a scam

[@YukonHexsun]

I feel like a lot of the arguments against this stuff can boil down to, "But then companies would have to do more work." Yes. Obviously there's an unreasonable amount of work to expect, but yeah, no shit a consumer protection law would change things. That's the POINT. Now, some of this stuff is games arbitrarily made to rely on a central server for no good reason. It would just as easily run locally, they just won't let you because they want to be in control. But it is a good point that modern games run with a bunch of microservices and external systems. Fine, then release the code that runs on those. If we have to assemble our own poor man's recreation of that system or modify things to make it work, or pay Amazon? Fine. We can at least get the damn thing running. Also if the people who revive dead MMOs have shown me anything, you will find someone dedicated enough to modify it for everyone else.

[@lehran2516]

I'm consistent with the license idea being shit for both customers and the company. The devs should be able to get the code/copyright perpetually as long as it's part of that original game. You can't buy games like Mortal Kombat 9 anymore because it had Freddy in it and the future games have all had similar guest characters that can have a similar problem in the future.

[@DudeSoWin]

The problem is when they install a kill switch with premeditated plans to shut down the server.

[@Danielss250]

you're giving the guy a lot of credit, from his response to Ross it's pretty clear he is not enganging with good faith. He immediatelly demonized Ross and the initiative, saying that it's disingenous and disgusting and other inflamatory words, refused to talk with him and even deleted Ross's comment on his video and keeps deleting the reposts of said comment. I don't know where you got the ideia that this was in good faith. So I think that shitting on him is deserved.

[@madrox1989]

That Pirate dude spent too much time in California and the Business world, preaching to a bunch of posers.

[@illpunchyouintheface9094]

Yea Thor has no good faith, giving him any credit is a insult to Ross and everyone Thor has attacked with is 99% of the earth

[@grygaming5519]

to go with your example at 9:50, there's a thing called ubiquitous clause when it comes to advertising. If its seen everywhere then the IP can still be owned but it can be used anywhere. Its like buying a Ford sticker and sticking it to a go-kart. Is Ford going to charge me money to have their logo on my go-kart...no. If anything they will see it as free advertising. The same way goes with these racing games, car companies see Need for Speed or car games as free advertising. Its a big reason why gun games no longer can use manufacturers because CA laws saw the use of manufacturers as a way to promote firearms.

[@DavidJohnsonFromSeattle]

The problem with Thor was that he was sh*tting on Ross. He outright says he wouldn't even talk to Ross about this he is so against it. His over the top reaction is the problem, not that he disagrees.

[@illpunchyouintheface9094]

Because Thor knows he would lose in a debate. Not because Ross is a good debater, but because he is right

[@chaudx]

I wouldn't say Thor engaged with all that much good faith, let's not forget he's part of the problem, he's friends with those that have interest in preserving the current status quo. Also he deliberately made up lots of BS interpretations of the initiative and is basically "oh the poor devs", he will always take the devs/companies side cause he's one of them.

[@misbegotten3508]

Yeah, he likes to dress modest and mingle (parasocially only, you filthy poors) with others and pretend he's with us. He's not. He's a corporate snail. Let's not forget that will remain true at the end of the day, week, month, year, lifetime.

[@aBadWizard]

I think maybe we need to look at regulating the gaming industry...

[@marcosdheleno]

people talking about the crew as if it was the worst case. do people not remember how destiny 2 LITERALY erased content people bought.

[@lurksnitchtongue8986]

Virgin thor vs Chad Louis Rossmann

[@TheRockstarr33]

PirateSoftware makes me feel even more like I live in a dystopia.

[@midorifox]

Please, don't take PirateSoftware seriously. He claims he's worked for 20 years as a game dev, but the truth is that he's done basically nothing. Yeah, working 20 years at blizzard 'cuz your dad is one of the founder and your job is basically being a script kid? Then don't except your credibility to be the best lol. He's just a more credible YandereDev, nothing more.

[@LazerDisk]

THANK YOU. Jeez the guy is so full of it.

[@wisemage0]

This is some crybaby bullshit and the people upvoting it need to have their diapers changed.

[@TheP0lix]

Lmao, take my upvote

[@kaisercreb]

We went from being given mod tools and server files in Battlefield Vietnam and 1942 to by the time of BF3 not be allowed mod tools because of "licensing agreements" and server files were only given out to server farms for rent by the customer.

[@Eskolol]

Thor was too stuck on the language in the initiative. He should’ve spent more time in thinking about the actual issue.

[@Immudzen]

Most live service games are perfectly fine as single player games or coop games and they don't need a server. I don't want companies to get out of the requirements of a law like this by just saying their game is a live service game and adding something small to it just so they can shut the game down later. Ubisoft DID JUST THAT with some of the Far Cry and Assassins's Creed games. They had a huge sale on steam and then announced a couple days after the sale that they where shutting down the game servers and that most of the DLC you purchased would no longer work. The games where not online but apparently it required a server to allow the DLC to work.

[@heylolp9]

after looking into it Stopkillinggames is one or two steps to the side of what is actually right Because the founder goes with this goal because it's easy, not because it's right This should be the starter for a solid, democratic, discussion. Not the final draft Which it obviously isn't, it's a Citizens initiative, in the EU there have to be hearings with Industry sources even after initiatives There is valid criticism for what stopkillinggames specifically asks for, but It's A first step to get the ball rolling from

[@testacals]

It is an initiative. Quite literally not a final draft

[@heylolp9]

@@testacals yea exactly that's what I said

[@thomasfisher1829]

What is so awful about local SQL? I don't want games where every save and asset has to be uploaded and downloaded from a cloud server every time I start the game... Put the multiplayer behind a network check, when the server goes off, multiplayer goes off

[@ayumuaikawa]

it's not impossible it's just never planned by company, sadly this is decided very early in the developement, if they really wanted to, they could do what ark/palworld did but it takes planning in advance, not to mention that would stops them from forcing you to play the way they want, i can see many reason to make it work but i also see many "greedy" reason why they wouldn't want to do so

[@Voidoath]

Thank you for giving context to how things differ between the US and the EU. The political and legal landscapes are vastly different and its incredibly difficult, culturally first and foremost, to understand how trust in government, comsumer rights and initiatives like this can be received by laymen and experts. If nothing else, this video is a great example of how we can use the tools we have today in communication and unity as customers and citizens to defend and further our general rights, especially through civilised fair discussion.

[@dairreagh6468]

Everybody in the eu should still sign the initiative, even flimsy legal frameworks are better than the current system

[@wmvmetalsmithing]

For a guy with a KZbin channel called "PirateSoftware" he sure does love toeing the company line. How many lobbyists/politicians have we heard use the "we can't rush into this!" argument to convince people that they need to leave everything just the way it is? I'm sure he sees the industry circling the wagons and knows the best way to advance his career is to slip on the jackboots and fall in line.