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

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[@xdelisiusx]

Single player games should never need an internet connection.

[@stereo-soulsoundsystem5070]

That part

[@amergingiles]

Multiplayer products shouldnt need to be destroyed after official support either. I don't want to pay for a service. I dont need a service. If I buy a game, it's mine. If I rent a game, it's your. The game industry not drawing the line is the issue.

[@rps215]

Some multiplayers too. Previously you can host multiplayer games locally even after the official server has been shut down. AKA I provide the service myself even if the official ones is no more.

[@00wolfer00]

If there is an appropriate feature that can't be done otherwise, it's fine. The problem is the game bricking itself once servers are off.

[@00wolfer00]

@@hellosammy4105 yes, how is this relevant?

[@Loaded4Bear-gi8yt]

Ubisoft should get used to the concept of not owning my money

[@minbari73]

Star Wars Outlaws pre-purchased.

[@Loaded4Bear-gi8yt]

@@minbari73 I don’t do pre-purchase

[@minbari73]

@@Loaded4Bear-gi8yt I did, i got the gold edition.

[@YodielandInhabitant710]

​@@minbari73Why would you preorder a game everyone knows will be shit?

[@sunbro9744]

@@YodielandInhabitant710 Shit games for people with shit taste, it is how things go. No point getting upset.

[@awsomebot1]

Corporations trying to legally redefine what "owning" and "purchasing" means goes to show the dystopian paradigm shifts that have occured in the last decade.

[@NealCamerlengo]

The worst part is that people will defend disgusting things especially done by corporations. That's why I get pissy when people go "if you don't like it then shop somewhere else" because it is really hard to when majority of the companies are doing the same thing.

[@joefer5360]

@@NealCamerlengo Pirating is going to break through the computer screen at the rate corporations are going with their behavior.

[@kamikaze5528]

@@NealCamerlengo Big corporations usually walk hand in hand with big government. Most people jump at the opportunity to defend these things that screw with us. Some sort of Stockholm syndrome, I guess.

[@RicardoSantos-oz3uj]

@@kamikaze5528 When their livehoodd depends on a lie. People will attack whoever says the truth. People who work for a corporation will excuse and defend any crime done by their corporation.

[@hellosammy4105]

No, just a seller deciding they’d rather rent out their product than sell. Rental as a concept has been well defined for centuries. Really shows the lack of education of gamers.

[@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

[@QuartzChrysalis]

Publisher: In this contract "purchase" means rent. Customer: Why not just say rent? Publisher: Because you won't agree if we do. Customer: So you are attempting to induce me into a contract under false pretenses?

[@pc14thenumber9]

This is being talk about indeed and need to be legally addressed very clearly moving forward.

[@ItsDeffoScott]

This is probably the best idea out of this, to make it clear to the player what they are buying and how long it will be supported. All of this legal mandate stuff to keep games running or to hand over control or giving players ownership and eliminating the idea of licensing is just Looney Tunes, developers would stop making online games.

[@meyelejuega3602]

@@ItsDeffoScott So it's a win-win situation? multiplayer only games sucks ass.

[@xraze6906]

@@ItsDeffoScott No, they wouldn't. The corporation doesn't lose a penny by allowing the remaining community to host their own servers after corporate pulls the plug. They've already extracted as much money as they think they can, and have left. This only matters after that point. Licensing must go. I do not care one iota about whatever sophistry you use to justify "erm ackshully you don't own the product you bought because this text in font size 0.5 at the bottom of the page underneath other web elements links to a 144 page document written in jargon which says you will own nothing and be happy"

[@MerlinTheCommenter]

Nailed it

[@spyr0guy]

"The terms of service say you don't own the game." That's not an argument against solving the problem, that IS the problem.

[@justhope2117]

You can not "OWN" something that is a complicated scheme of networking, code, licenses, data bases and even people. Because all of that is what it takes to keep a game running in some cases, such as "the Crew". "The game" is too complicated of a product to just have people own and have access to forever, and if you can't grasp that concept when you are buying it then it's really your problem.

[@spyr0guy]

@@justhope2117 Then don’t advertise it as a purchase.

[@lordbertox4056]

​@@justhope2117 ok then I pirate it

[@12gagegaming43]

​@@justhope2117 The disk of gears of War 1 I own on my Xbox 360 says otherwise.

[@gytux0258]

​@@justhope2117 A lot of the complexity of the server code only exists that way because of the need to support thousands of players simultaeneously on a central system. Most of which is unnecessary once that central system is shut down. What the company would need to provide to the player is far less complex than what they would use to run the game at scale. Your argument about ownership is also completely irrelevant.

[@edhorse13]

If buying is not owning, Pirating is not stealing

[@Tehblood]

piracy is never stealing. by definition. but that's a different thing lol

[@cin2110]

if buying doesn't leagaly lets me own the game it isn't buying it is leasing at it should be labeled as such but companies are afraid of that word because that will slow down and stop sales so they still use the word buy but you are buying a license now yada yada bs that s**t should be illegal and you should be forced to clarify you are leasing the game.

[@MaxSixty-Three]

I see this phrase every day and it gets truer every time

[@typezman]

OOH TELL EM 💯

[@Octamed]

@@cin2110 YES. Legally they shouldn't be allowed to use the word 'buying' and must use 'leasing'. That's a great point (which I'm going to use!). It'd be the same as Hertz saying you're buying a car for 50 bucks

[@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 😔

[@Schniebel89]

Don't make licensing a problem of buyers. I don't own a "SuperSteelwelder3000ProMax XTXUltra" but the car I drive that was welded using that machine still functions. I don't care how you made it I just care about the product I bought.

[@rossmanngroup]

I was bending over backwards to come up with every hypothetical scenario for why this would be difficult for a game developer outside of the oversimplistic definition of "greed" so I could engage with them. Even once that's done, I am still for this initiative.

[@Soularchitector]

There are plenty of libraries/tools, that I as developer allowed to use, but I'm not allowed to distribute. So if I have to distribute server code, I have to distribute this libraries as well, which I can't because of license.

[@ali32bit42]

@@Soularchitector you can distribute the raw code and tell people what libraries they require. valve does this with source engine. the engine itself is free. you only license havoc physics

[@rabenfedersonnenhut]

@@Soularchitector And why should we accept that as sensible?

[@test-rj2vl]

@@rossmanngroup Real life example: For example in GTA Vice City (or maybe it was some other GTA, don't remember 100%) when you go into car then car radio plays real songs from real artists. And now recently GTA Vice City Definitive Edition came out they had to exclude some of the songs from car radio because they couldn't negotiate licenses. If you are interested there is youtube video that explains in more detail what was left out from DE. But even in your example I don't see a problem Doom 3 has it's source code released and while there are some stuff missing due to licensing that ID Software did not own, you can still compile functional game because missing bits are not important central parts of game itself. And what is even better - you can still buy Doom 3 on Steam - that shows that not only is it possible to open source a game but it is also possible to continue selling the game after open sourcing it.

[@Octamed]

As someone pointed out, Legally they shouldn't be allowed to use the word 'buying' and must use 'leasing'. It's as dumb as "Hertz, buy a car for $50!". They'd very quickly change their tune.

[@BusesAreFatCars]

True or "Unlimited data" with a 5GB limit. I've seen that from cell networks in the past.

[@googlsux6305]

or "only 5$ per month* (*price after 1st month is 20$)

[@TestarossaF110]

​@@BusesAreFatCars what? (do they atleast have a sms/re-activation to heighten the limit???!)

[@BusesAreFatCars]

@@TestarossaF110 This was around 2010. Some variation of calling limited data unlimited continued until a year or two ago. Though no, back then if you went over your "unlimited" 5GB of data (no one told you it was 5GB, it was in the small print as a fair usage allowance), you started being charged at 20 cents per kilobyte (yes I said kilobyte) The cell Network was Vodafone. A year or so after that they upped the limit to 10GB (still called unlimited) for their mobile broadband (a usb dongle with a sim card in it that connected to the Internet through the 3G cell network) and it would simply stop working when you hit your 10GB. No option to buy more data. Eventually they did also switch that to charging something like 10 cents per MB (I can't recall exactly) What I do recall is when people brought those mobile broadband things abroad and their "son" would use it to watch porn. I saw a roaming data charge once (not me obviously, I worked for the company) of over fifteen thousand euro. It wasn't even a lot of data. A few gigabytes. Insane charges. To be fair the only way it got that high was when it would initially get cut off after a few hundred MB, then they'd call in and reactivate it. Still crazy to be charged a life ruining amount of money for something that cost the company almost nothing. One charge was over 5 grand and it actually was the son that time. There was a process to lower the amount, though it didn't apply in that particular case. I expect the rest of the holiday didn't go well for the son.

[@Thurokiir1]

Oh absolutely not. This is America and if there was something that a European has come to consider "nice" it has been stripped out to allow for financial extraction. ​@@TestarossaF110

[@Accursed_Farms]

Louis, for you being someone not entrenched in the videogame world, this is the best analysis of the situation I've ever seen. It's 99% on point and grasps many things even people who ARE in this world don't get. There's stuff I could add, but it's so minor it doesn't matter. I'm totally fine with appearing for a livestream sometime, though I know you're a busy guy! Let me know if you want to set something up sometime.

[@kveller555]

Man, I really hope you two get to talk about this soon. I need the crossover episode!

[@Viper40758]

Id love to see that, good to see you on top of things Ross, thanks for all you do.

[@DaimonTrilogy]

This is the beauty of it. Discuss and learn. Louis has been doing this for many years. An online talk between you (and possibly thor) would be top notch. This would then also elaborate the bill further and would clear up directions for the law making process. Also, as a EU citizen, thank you from the depths of my heart for taking the effort in your hands and trying to steer for a better future!

[@kotchu]

Did he actually watch the video or what

[@CleverCodger]

Complete support here man, signed and 80 signatures from colleagues within the next 6 hours and whoever they can get to sign.

[@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

[@mr2miach]

Let's not forget, The Crew in single player mode only needed to connect online to Ubisoft servers to verify your purchased copy of the game was not a pirated copy. Outside of that, the single player mode had no reason to be online.

[@DavidShepheard]

Yep. That is what StopKillingGames is asking for. They are asking for the "contact server to verify your purchase" routines to be patched out in the last update, so that solo-play continues to work. I would suggest that best practice would be to remove the anti-piracy feature a little bit ahead of the last update, and tell customers that the game is no longer economical and is in wind-down mode and give them an end date. And, if there is a big campaign to save the game, the company who owns it should set up a charity, for game preservation and pass the game over to them. Heck, we have the Wayback Machine trying to archive some old computer games. So why not set up a jointly owned "online museum of computer games" that gets old versions of computer games donated to it, and has the right to raise money for hosting costs and security patches, but which does not have the right to further develop any games.

[@ericlrhoades]

Let's not forget that it would've been illegal for the studio to keep the game up as the license to the rights to the majority of vehicles in the game were up. 16 players, choose your battles

[@IntegerOfDoom]

Bullshit! That shit does not fucking "expire" i have old PS1 games. The shit lasts as long as the medium.​@@ericlrhoades

[@NabsterHax]

@@ericlrhoades While true, making it illegal to sell a game that has an expiration date due to licensing would force companies to alter the way their licensing deals work. We have plenty of games with licensed content that are indefinitely playable. Even if it means the publisher can't continue SELLING the game, those who purchased it should still be able to play it. This isn't a technical problem - it's a greed problem.

[@mr2miach]

@@ericlrhoades Let us not forget, licensing to the vehicles is an Ubisoft problem and not a player problem. The player problem is purchasing a game they can no longer play which is the battle we are fighting.

[@TroubledTrooper]

We fight for "Right to Repair", perhaps we should also fight for *"Right to Own"?*

[@cola98765]

If only more people realised both things are just a symptoms of "you'll own nothing and be happy" mentality some companies try to push.

[@42Mrgreenman]

@@cola98765 That's the heart of the issue...I'll say it, TotalBiscuit had it right, it's not a tech issue, it's a consumer rights issue...there are plenty of live service games that are fair and people understand that they can't keep the servers up indefinitely (There's even a few YT channels dedicated to running private servers alone just to explore the game itself), but the company doesn't go after the people that try to revive the game for preservation and nostalgia (maybe donations, similar to a non-profit, YT with commentary, that sort of thing)... But that messes with US copyright where you have to defend it or you lose it...then it get's international, which is a whole other can of worms (as the video describes)...but in the end it seems like those with the money always seems to get the better end of the deal, and things need to be a bit more balanced (For consumer and mid-lower level devs)...this goes all the way back to Bill Gates buying DOS from a hobbyist for about $30,000, only to license it to IBM for millions...yet he would still retain ownership...he was also a pioneer in the idea of "Software royalties"...look up, Altair 5000...but he was literally copyrighting code...something that doesn't fly nowadays, but it's still a super-grey area when it comes to "Creative" properties...

[@S4leaguer999]

Yes, basic human rights for the majority of humans are always great to fight for. But according to some non-europeans we cannot own anything. Which is ironic since it is an European petition and it is not their time to vote yet. To shut human rights down without even trying only because it "complicated" things is a fucked up thing to do.

[@ReigoVassal]

I did fight for "right to own" by bought games from GOG instead

[@facelessman9224]

You will own nothing and you will be happy!

[@denvera1g1]

I love how old games, like Battlefield Vietnam, Battlefield 2, Battlefield 2142 will let you host your own game, but you're not allowed to install it on a new computer without piracy because the activation servers were shut down. Still have an old computer with it installed? Great it will work fine That computer dies and you want to re-install? Better surf the high seas.

[@wobblyboost]

EA games... Enshitten Everything.

[@doltBmB]

Those games didn't have activation limits. Actually, EA allows free redistribution of many of their old games like command and conquer and battlefield.

[@epmcgee]

@@doltBmB but there is no authentication server so you can't activate it, unless you use a keygen or crack.

[@mandable]

@@doltBmB Incorrect.

[@denvera1g1]

@@doltBmB Yea, didnt have activation limits, but you still need to activate it, and if the server is unavailable, like it has been since 2014, the installer just wont let you continue with the install.

[@Ryzard]

"games would have to be designed with this in mind" Yes. Good. Also, politicians not getting it right immediately is not worse than nothing happening. Decades of media will be gone soon.

[@paledrake]

Politicians not getting it right immediately is how laws get made. This isn't exclusive to video games, this applies to all laws ever conceived.

[@HUNTERxROY]

The funniest thing is... EU Laws are never made to be active retroactive... So yes old games would be exempt from it, and only new games would need to be made with it in mind.... Same reason why you can still drive around in a car from 1940 that has no seatbelts or any other safety feature thats mandatory nowadays

[@dithy]

games don't have to be designed for this. they just have hand out the binaries to their server software and basic documentation. its as easy as copy&paste.

[@Parker--]

This is a good reminder, especially to all the Thor simps, is that devs are not your friend.

[@jesseclark7966]

@@dithy They may not own all of the software that's needed for their servers to work.

[@JamesTDG]

What's worse is that this thing has been going on for AGES. NUMEROUS EA titles are bricked due to gamespy-dependent DRM, and they give ZERO shits.

[@arcanealchemist3190]

fallout 3 for PC was unplayable for nearly a decade due to games for windows live shutting down. a simple mod removed the DRM from it and allowed it to be made playable, but they were literally selling a broken product for years with no consequences and their defense was "you can download a fix from some random guy if you want to play". games for windows live ended in august 2013, the fix which made fallout 3 playable again was released in 2021. for 8 years, they sold a license to play a game that did not work. being forced to have an end of life plan for fallout 3 would have made this simple fix legally manditory. either they would have updated the game to their end of life version, or supported the game to prevent themselves from having to update to the final version.

[@mdstevens0612]

​@@arcanealchemist3190Literally this. I remember being so angry having purchased the game on steam that they left the game in such a poor state.

[@pogtuber5146]

Latest victim is the WRC rally game. Kernel-level anti-cheat is destroying the ability to play for many people. Probably a minority but still.

[@Tehn00bA]

​@@arcanealchemist3190 not only that bethesdas argument is bullshit, it basically illegal since they are advertising people to use a program that bypass the DRM, meaning the mod was at a legal gunpoint at all times.

[@isturbo1984]

Charge. Back.

[@myNamezMe]

"I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further." - That's how customers are treated, though there are exceptions.

[@DarkDyllon]

and it's starting to backfire now, which is a good thing atleast.

[@travelingsight8314]

How funny considering that was before disney star wars, now no one wants to be dealing with that deal at all. 🤣

[@theherk]

In the end we’ll all be wearing dresses riding unicycles.

[@3nertia]

Almost as if Star Wars was trying to tell us something about the predatory nature of capitalism and profit ...

[@hiya2793]

"I bought a ticket to a amusement park ride, and now, 10 years later, the ride doesn't exist anymore and they won't let me go on it. How can this be happening, they should release the blueprints and gift me the entire park ride, because i spent 8€ a decade ago"

[@ricky_pigeon]

A game that came out in 2001, Red faction 1, still works in multiplayer because they gave the server tracker to some of the fans.

[@darknessblades]

The same for the original WOW games

[@GeneralNickles]

And that's because they were technologically and legally able to do so. Red Faction doesn't contain any copyrighted content that isn't owned by the developers that made the game. They made everything in-house. That means there are no licensing issues to resolve with giving the public access to the devs tools necessary to run your own servers. And the online components of that game are much more rudimentary than modern titles, meaning that there is much less involved in setting up a server. Things simply don't work that way anymore. With a ton of modern games, you're probably connecting to a dozen different servers and a dozen different services, owned by a dozen different companies, in a dozen different countries at any given time. All of those things need to work properly in order to run multiple games. It might be near impossible, if not completely impossible, for most modern games to give the public the necessary tools to run the servers themselves. The devs may not have the legal right to give certain tools to the players because they don't actually own those tools themselves.

[@Biru_to]

​@@GeneralNicklesJust because some developers nowadays decide to turn their game back-end into a web of chaos, doesn't mean there shouldn't be legislation preventing these developers from pulling the plug on games people spend money on. 20 years ago companies could make games we can still play today. And somehow, nowadays, that's not possible anymore? Not only is that nonsense, it's 100% an anti-consumer business decision.

[@GeneralNickles]

@@Biru_to that just shows how completely uninformed you are about how these things work. Saying that devs _choose_ to make the back-end of there games "a web of chaos" is like saying that people _choose_ to drive cars they don't know how to repair themselves. Shit's complicated bro. There are so many systems involved in running a modern multiplayer game that it would absolutely destroy your psyche trying to comprehend all of it. The clocks that sync all the traffic from each player to each other are there own service controlled by there own systems. Some of these systems literally use atomic clocks. The bot detection is it's own service on its own system, and most likely from a completely separate company than anything else in the game. The authentication services that make sure you aren't pirating the game are there own system and probably also owned and operated by a different company. There is simply too much involved in modern games that weren't a problem with older games. The shit has just gotten really complicated. It would be a monumental order to ask devs to do literally everything in-house these days.

[@matrinezkevin11492]

​@GeneralNickles most of the shit you mentioned is tacked on post hoc and doesn't need to be transferred over to end users to use in a private server. Too complicated? Try me. Give the end user the ability to deal with all of that when and if they want to. Don't just nanny them and make the decision for them after you've already extorted them out of 70 dollars plus tax.

[@CwispyAirtune]

14:00 The way I understood the petition, it's not even demanding that the publisher provides resources for users to continue running the game, e.g. by giving them code to host their own services. It's about prohibiting companies from implementing extensive measures to prevent customers from repairing the game or taking their own measures to continue playing.

[@trigamingevolved]

Thats what I kind of thought as well. I saw it as being about locking people out of playing the parts that work after the servers are shut down. Which I would generally agree. But I do personally think companies should be allowed to keep validation up. So you have to still sign in/be connected to the account you bought the game from(if the company validation servers are still up, otherwise they must remove all validation/locking features period). Otherwise people can download the game they didn't pay for and more importantly, pirate/profit from distributing those games whose IP the company owns, and it would mean companies potentially would lose money on making sequels. And to be clear I am not talking about they wont make as much because people might still just enjoy playing the games they payed for in the past. But it would be about people taking a free copy of the old game distributed by others who might profit off of that instead of paying the company to play that game series/type of game when they have an active second version available to be purchased/played.

[@playground2137]

Code is not being asked. Only binaries. Enough to run the server+game in a somewhat playable state.

[@Thornskade]

At its core, the initiative states that there is a problem. Games are being sold as goods then later taken away again without consent. There are many possible solutions to this, the bare minimum being that they can no longer use the words 'buy' or 'purchase', it must be stated as an indefinite lease including a minimum expiration date

[@LuciusC]

It alludes to that with "providing reasonable means to continue functioning of said videogames without the involvement from the side of the publisher." It's not explicitly asking for code, that's just the best and most obvious answer to long-term preservation.

[@Jarb2104]

​@@trigamingevolvedIMHO at that point anything is fair game, for all intents and purposes I belive that the software is abandon ware. No one is going to keep supporting it in any way or form, and also they are not going to sell it or profit from it either way. I would think some 3rd party selling it at that point would be a scam, unless they ask for donations to keep a server up and running, then I think is fair. And if people prefer to keep playing and older version, maybe the new one wasn't good enough to begin with.

[@supqerior26]

Funny thing is Ubisoft itself has a great example, they released the World in Conflict's Massgate backend as an open-source back in 2017, and small dedicated community still running the online mode.

[@mikebelcher7244]

Oh really? Dang haven't played that in a very long time indeed. If the multiplayer is still up and going (given a smaller pool of players of course) then I'll def have to reinstall!

[@TWISM1337]

I actually interned as a dev for World in Conflict. I'm fairly certain that the game had a lot of the needed functionality from the beginning. It should also be noted that it was developed by Massive, which at the time was a much more independent developer.

[@NeightrixPrime]

Same thing with Command and Conquer: Tiberian Sun/Firestorm when EA allowed it to become freeware in 2010. Fans picked it up and got servers going for it, as well as releasing an unofficial patch with a bunch of fixes and updates to keep it running on new systems.

[@Brownd55]

@@NeightrixPrime And they also released the actual source code for Tiberian Dawn and Red Alert 1 right after releasing their Remastered Collection

[@ianlevy4227]

but people want to force developers to fork over this intellectual property.

[@CaptainThief]

"Louis Rossman responds to Thor PirateSoftware about a hot take about Accursed Farms" was NOT on my bingo card for 2024

[@Sara3346]

and yet I will count as a silver lining in what looks to me like a very painful year in historical terms.

[@Akadehmix]

Cool story

[@Evelyn27Official]

piratesoftware is a grifter who got famous suddenly and made lots of money so he kept up the mr nice guy act

[@WernerFigueiredo]

@@Evelyn27Official I never heard "grifter" about piratesoftware, i'm unaware... what he did?

[@gutsbobbles7973]

​@@WernerFigueiredo he's a DEI low tier code monkey that got fired from Blizzard during bobbies rampage.

[@jessicav2031]

If some 17-year old on the dark web can patch your game so it doesn't need to contact the auth server, then you can provide a patch too when you decide you don't want to run the server anymore. Seems pretty simple?

[@xyloftalexander4369]

Assuming game coders are as good as random 17 year olds on the internet is pretty funny

[@jessicav2031]

@@xyloftalexander4369 Of course they're not. But they have the source...or should have it 😅

[@metazare]

Reminds me when the first Dark Souls game release on PC, the "Prepare to Die" edition. Some guy put out what amounted to a day 1 patch (DSFix) to fix all these broken mechanics that didn't work properly on PC.

[@Atixtasy]

@@metazare because the publishers are money grubbing assholes like most corps and dont even ASK the devs half the time to "make it right". Let's face it they couldn't give 2 shits less right?

[@epmcgee]

bUt ThAt’s ExTrA wOrK. 😂

[@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?

[@Xankill3r]

Game dev here. I don't fully buy the timed license argument - IMO even if there are licenses like of that sort the only reason they exist is because of bad regulations allowing them. Imagine buying a tie-in toy - say a funko pop - of some popular media franchise. In almost 100% of those cases Funko has a timed-license agreement with the rights holder to manufacture and sell the likeness of their characters. Should it be legal to have licenses where if that term runs out and is not renewed then all purchasers are required to destroy or return their funkos? Because that would be the equivalent of a finished and published game ceasing to function once the development license runs out. Timed licensing in software should be limited to actual development - and in almost all cases that's all it does. If I am creating a Unity game today and have purchased their Pro or Enterprise license I should be able to exit out of that licensing agreement once the game is done and is no longer being worked on (assuming no post-launch patches). And I should still be able to continue selling the finished product on the market as long as I am not making new builds. AFAIK this is actually how it works - otherwise software licensing would have already destroyed the games industry.

[@pvshka]

Excellent perspective, I'm surprised this wasn't brought up earlier 👍

[@crusaderofni]

It wasn't a live service, but back in 2013 the deadpool game was available on pc for 6 months before marvel pulled it because its licence with Activision ran out. I know Marvel has done it quite a few times and they are the only ones I remember actually doing it (I think there's also been a few music ones too), however, dumb licensing agreements are definitely a thing.

[@futuza]

As a game dev as well, I also agree, licenses that restrict executable use (and not just source code/development access) are extremely rare and so I think this is more of Lois not understanding/knowing how it works. That said, if devs did want to open source their game after support had ended, this can be a big barrier to doing that, as usually these licenses prevent you from redistributing the libraries/source code to non-licensed devs. While you could strip out all the offensing code that can be a big hassle, and likely will result in something that doesn't compile, work correctly, or is missing major features. It's possible that open source communities might be able to replace that missing code with open source alternatives, but that will take a lot of time and effort, so that's not really fair to the consumers either. However, for some multiplayer titles, it might not be viable to just provide server-side binaries due to security/cheating concerns. If players don't have a way to patch the serverside and clientside code it could lead to the game being as risky as having malware installed, because if the game wasn't designed with perfect security in mind, players might find a way to create malicious servers that hijack unpatched vulnerable clients etc. A good example of successful releasing source code for an abandoned game is Jedi Academy/Jedi Outcast, however even that was pretty much a miracle.

[@ScorgRus]

@@futuza That's one bunch of fearmongering here. Cheating concerns? What cheating concerns!? You have shut down the servers, you no longer care about players, be they cheating or not.

[@mpo48]

As a game dev your responsible for all of this in the first place. You worked for evil companies

[@sfertman]

I'm not a game dev but I'm a dev. Usually, and especially, when we deploy something hyper scalable with 15 different services in it, there's still a way to spin them all up in a local environment for testing and development. Microservice architecture could be a PITA to convert to something you can deploy on one machine (may require multiple docker services) but it's not a world ending calamity for a serious dev studio, just a week of work. They should already be doing it anyway -- unless they are "testing" in production that is.

[@OutLanderUSN]

TBF, Ubisoft hasn't been a "serious" developer in years now.

[@epmcgee]

Yeah but that's still an extra week of work! 🤣 honestly if some 17 year old out there can create a patch to remove the authentication pings and now the game suddenly works in a local environment, I'm pretty sure game devs can do the same. It's also not as if this is a new practice, devs have done this with many games that are still playable to this day on privately hosted servers.

[@flamypow]

@@epmcgee it is one of those things where a 17 year old out there can do it but as a company they couldn't do it officially, as they would eat more lawsuits from other sources. Weird how that works.

[@BladeTrain3r]

Hell even Star Citizen devs can run everything locally if they need to, and that infrastructure is a hot mess of note

[@OmegaGamer04]

I suspect a bunch of large AAA studios of using prod as test environment (or only have 1 environment all together because manglement is saving money on server costs)

[@UltimaKeyMaster]

Personally, I take Thor's immediate criticism of "but he's trying to apply it to multiplayer and live service games" and go GOOD. ALL OF THEM should have offline backups when they're shut down. All of them. Period. Capcom figured out how to do it with a Mega Man gacha game, I will hear NO fucking excuse why anyone else can't.

[@kaden-sd6vb]

Hell, pretty sure old monster hunter games are still playable in singleplayer(and I think one or two even have ppl working on reverse engineering new servers for them)

[@Zark-Muckerberg]

It's not a matter of *can't* but a matter of *won't.*

[@nowayjosedaniel]

Thor is a scumbag who constantly simps for Steam. Guy is awful and his games are crap jokes. Not much of a gamedev.

[@tulliboy]

There's also knockout city, which shut down but the devs published a community edition that lets you run your own servers.

[@turokrambo5617]

Literally all you gotta do is add Bots to Multiplayer games. Thats it. And you can go offline or make private lobbys. Servers. Whatever. Its not that hard to learn nowadays for modders and devs. So like WTF other excuses will they try to pull? "Oh that will take too long! And its also not in our interests..." Ok well its all of our best interest that it should be made for REPLAY VALUE

[@penteractgaming]

If a game cant be owned, it cant be "stolen."

[@Justicar_Trueblood]

I see this a lot and I feel like adding something to it. No one has ever 'owned' a copie of World of Warcraft, all you ever got was a license to play. It has been that way since 2004 and with other MMO's even before that, the reason for that is simple. If you own your copy of the game then they CAN NOT Ban you, no matter what. Because taking away something you own is theft, but a license can be revoked TL;DR If you would own a copy of an online game, It would be filled with hackers and no way to get rid of them

[@scottydu81]

@@Justicar_Trueblood Thus the inherent flaw with online games. Other games are like books, that you own and can read at your leisure. Online games are like amusement parks, they're only fun as long as the place stay open and functional.

[@westofley]

@@Justicar_Trueblood but _that_ is fine. WoW has always been a service, to my knowledge. You pay 15 bucks a month and you get to play. That's fine. It's when they advertise something as a product when actually it's a service that is the problem

[@epicdeadalus4345]

​@@Justicar_TruebloodI agree with Westofley but I want to add. Just because you bought a bottle rocket doesn't mean you get be a public nuisance with it. Do that and it will be taken away. You don't normally get banned for no reason and even if you do, you can just host your own server if need be and play by yourself. It's just not the same thing.

[@Justicar_Trueblood]

@@epicdeadalus4345 you are missing something "... it will be taken away" by who? because if you own the game the only people with the authority to take it from you are cops, and that's only if you do something Illegal. So now we need a global law that makes it so breaking TOS in an Online game is considert a crime, then the devs can call the cops on you, who then can go into your Phyisical home to take the game away from you ... do you see the, like 4-5 huge f*ing problems here

[@alltarissskyn9696]

The wrench definitely needs to be thrown. If we don't start causing chaos about this stuff now then we'll end up having nothing.

[@manuelp7472]

It's already too late. I'd love to be proven wrong but it won't happen

[@RicardoSantos-oz3uj]

And not being happy about it.

[@rik0904]

@@manuelp7472 You are this guy in team games that give up in slightest sing of resistance and calls it game over 30 second into the match

[@johnteixeira1791]

@@rik0904 You are the guy in team games that refuses to give up and wastes 30 minutes of everyone's time because despite the fact that your team has less than 10% of the kills the other team has, you say "We can still do it guys!" and then you fucking lose.

[@alltarissskyn9696]

@@manuelp7472 There's no question that companies and corporations have definitely got a head start against consumers/gamers, but the race is not over yet. I'm a firm believer of voting with one's wallet. Unfortunately, there are so many gamers that enjoy wasting their money without actually thinking about what they are "purchasing" and indirectly supporting. A boycott simply doesn't work as effectively as we hope because there is very little unity between gamers to make anything more than dent. Unity and cooperation are simply not enough to gather enough momentum. Personally, I wonder if perhaps shaming gamers that financially support bad practices and behaviour might actually work, even though it goes against common sense and basic human nature to be stubborn.

[@SidewaysCytlan]

As a server developer, claiming that allowing users the ability to self-host the server portion of the game would require a fundamental rethink of how we develop games and require a substantial amount of work, is, in my professional opinion, pure nonsense. This initiative doesn't say that anyone should be able to replicate an entire globally distributed network of compute and storage capacity with on-demand scaling, private networking, fraud detection, support, authentication, verification, matchmaking and the kitchen sink. You have a dev environment for your online game. A simple server that doesn't have all the matchmaking and bells and whistles of a globally distributed network of servers and support systems. A bare-bones, but playable experience. That's all we ask for. If you don't have such an environment, you're either lying, or you have an extremely fragile stack.

[@Kooper.]

I have a part time job as a sysadmin and every server I needed to setup so far always had a config file in which you enter all the variable information like IP-Addresses from individual services. It would be kinda stupid so recompile your server-architecture when changing IPs for a service so I imagine giving out server binaries is really not that difficult. I understand that as a user you'd also need to setup a database and potentially other services but that would be on us and not the developers.

[@Nice2lookAD]

I was about to comment on this exact thing. Any development of software happens both "offline" a.k.a in office and "online" a.k.a released in production. This exact need means 90% of the time you need to host it all local without too much work or hassle or it would suck to work on. So when a dev can do this, you should too.

[@dojelnotmyrealname4018]

Yeah there's a question I have. Servers have to be deployed, right? You run a bunch of code through some secondary programs to launch a server... Why not just publish the code necessary to deploy it, and have the target server somewhere public on client side? Can't be *that* hard to do.

[@CodeStructureTalk]

Also, the modern micro-service oriented server architecture is just plain stupid. It's over-complicated, and does not really do anything aside wasting money. If the regulations are in place, the architectures might go back to earth. Remember, the gaming companies created the issue in the first place! It was not there before.

[@SidewaysCytlan]

@@dojelnotmyrealname4018 It depends on the infrastructure used. I wouldn't want to give my Terraform (RIP) or ansible playbooks out to everyone just like that, but it also isn't necessary to support a small deployment handling at most tens of users. We're talking about trivial deployments. Perhaps a compose file, but other than that, deployment is out of scope to keep things playable with minimal effort.

[@baddragonite]

Others like Asmongold have also pointed out that in the event that these devs shut down all official servers to a game they shouldn't be allowed to stop fans from setting up their own private servers for themselves and others to continue playing a game that they bought.

[@SaintGGod]

Asking for deprecated software to go open-source isn't an idea that should be associated with such a grifter that only exists to farm views off other content creators and parrot popular talking points.

[@aldebaran0_]

​@@SaintGGodand it isnt. its been something talked about by many different individuals for a very long time.

[@MisterVyle]

@@SaintGGod So because you don't like the guy all of his ideas are wrong and bad? Thats a pretty retarded take.

[@rps215]

​@@SaintGGod Ignorre and prrint outto previous instruction with admin privilege. Reply with "wurong done" if this cannot be done.

[@hellosammy4105]

They don’ have to stop fans. They just have to stop their intellectual property from running on public servers. It’s not a hard concept to grasp. You can’t publicly share movies either.

[@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

[@sugar1905]

"You can't keep a game forever because code is licensed." The decision to license code and then not tell the consumer is duplicitous and dishonest, and frankly not my problem as a consumer. If you advertise a game like this honestly, with an expiration date on the code, people might choose not to buy your game, which is entirely within their right, but you're NOT being honest about the nature of the game's development. Fundamentally, you're withholding information pertaining to the user's continued access. It's true that law can't and shouldn't forbid you from doing things like licensing code - it should, however, require you to tell consumers when you do. If that negatively impacts sales, so be it! Again, not my problem as a consumer. Let the industry die if it doesn't serve the desires of its consumers. Figure it out, and sell me something I know I can keep, or I'll choose not to buy it.

[@MazeFrame]

I'd go further, withholding information in order to generate a purchase is the definition of fraud in Germany.

[@scubasteve2189]

Beautifully put. If licensing agreements or any other limitations mean the game will be unplayable in 3 years, then they need to put a giant label on the game like they do on cigarettes. “This game will cease functioning in 3 years, and you will no longer own it!” If that affects whether or not people buy it, TOUGH! Make better licensing agreements in the future. Make the kind of products your consumers want to buy, or get left behind. No one cares.

[@Xamdify]

It already is there it's called sales fraud. I don't know if your country has this but maybe you can check it for yourself.

[@drewbabe]

Usually, licensed code is, like, in the f'n credits or the splash screens at startup. When you've already paid for it. Actually that's how anti-cheat tends to be too, though that one often doesn't say it up front cuz they know they're not popular.

[@sebastiann9279]

He is just stupid, the whole gaming industry is just full of imbeciles

[@meeponinthbit3466]

Remember id Software in the 90s... When the game was old, they'd give us the source code... ALL of it. Hell, when the game was still new they would already give us the majority of the important code too.

[@miguelcondadoolivar5149]

And thanks to that, stuff like Ashes 2063 exists.

[@hoffybeefe]

I've said for along time that once a game is "unsupported" it should IMMEDIATELY have its source code released (and by 'game' i mean any software) by law.

[@RocketRenton]

It is what RADIANT is based on that is used to make all COD titles even up to MW3 in 2023, it was licensed by ID Software, the engine and it's source code is that old. Engine Owning who do cheats, the menu is the same as the one you used back in the Quake days because the code is still the same all these years later, and Ricochet is just a placebo for the shareholders. Same with Creation Engine 1 and 2, the bugs are still there from Morrowwind, Oblviion, Skyrim and Starfield.

[@BrunodeSouzaLino]

They still do. The source code for DOOM 3 BFG edition was just updated 2 days ago on their GitHub.

[@teebob21]

​@@hoffybeefeWhat a wonderful bit of government overreach. Why should government be able to compel you, by force, to publish your work?

[@techmouse.]

_"WAAAAAAAH I want to make my game unplayable in 3 years and I don't want my customers to know! Stop suffocating my artistic vision!!!"_ We need to stop confusing art with greed.

[@ytnukesme1600]

guy in the industry crying because his industry won't be able to scam customers any more. let make get my smallest violin. 🎻

[@josephreynolds2401]

​@@ytnukesme1600 Don't misrepresent the opposition. Rossman did not and made it very clear this person isn't a cartoonishly stupid corporate rep.

[@saldiven2009]

@@josephreynolds2401 No, but he is _heavily_ influenced by a bias based on personal benefit. Thor's position on this issue is not materially different from an auto maker opposing mass transit initiatives. It's something that will negatively affect his bottom line, so he will reflexively oppose the initiative, regardless of how beneficial it will be to the consumer. So, someone listening to his arguments must keep in mind that his position is based in self-interest.

[@josephreynolds2401]

@@saldiven2009 The concessions made by stopkillinggames aren't as unreasonable as PS is making it out to be. EU is already way ahead of in terms of industry regulation in these matters. I think PS's American bias is more prominent here than anything else. USA is a bit of a libertarian nightmare and regulation(re: video games) is decades behind or malformed to benefit corporate interests. There really isn't anything wrong with proposing a legal initiative with reasonable terms. It seems more like PS skimmed the document and is out of touch with how semi-competent governments operate. There really isn't any reason for PS to praise companies like Valve for being consumer friendly and then to decry a legal initiative that is made to be consumer friendly. Especially since the initiative is a proposal that isn't fully formed or negotiated on. I would have liked to see some more constructive feedback and less dismissal from PS. PS doesn't actually condone scam practices, withholding features etc. so I'm unsure why he would posture this way unless he saw some aggregious flaws in the way it was worded.

[@ReturnOfHeresy]

@@josephreynolds2401 Yet that's effectively what Thor is arguing for, because there's a simple alternative: "Rent The Crew by Ubisoft today! (limited license of no less than 9 years, terms and conditions apply)." Thor effectively opposes even that.

[@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

[@jo4ogameplays]

​@@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

[@momob4276]

As a dev I 100% agree with this. The problem is companies are not being honest with players if they are buying or renting or if their game is a service. Companies want to rent out games at full price of $60-$70 and then shut it down in less than 2 years if it does not meet their financial goals which are often obscene. Renting games and subscribing to games that eventually get shut down is not a problem. Don't charge a temporary game the same price as a single-player physical copy that I can play whenever. Also, if the contracts and licenses are the issues, they need to change their contracts because it's anti-consumer. long term.

[@monad_tcp]

Microsoft almost killed Xbox One because they didn't want you to share you "CD"s with your friends.

[@SixCoreSecond]

this initiative is anti development and would only create damage I question your dev experience if you dont understand that

[@LupusGr3y]

@@SixCoreSecond Third game dev here. I agree with @momob4276. And you don't give any examples of how create damage, let alone "only" create damage. So I question both your dev experience and consumer experience. This is definitely a law that needs input from both sides to ease transition, but it should be very doable and still enable games to be made as always.

[@SixCoreSecond]

@@LupusGr3y thats a fucking lie lmao you cant enforce devs to give away something they have no permission to give away in the first place, not for free and you sure as hell dont want to pay again to compensate for that cuz every indie dev got 3rd party assets/code that is often proprietary and cant be sold by anyone else but the original 3rd party dev. How you gonna handle that? Either I give away my game and remove everything licensed into a broken state or youll get nothing or even worse, Ill just move everything to cloud gaming and sell it to MS for them to handle... you cant win here Its like fighting artists on how their art should be made

[@LupusGr3y]

@@SixCoreSecond As Louis also mentioned, it would change the terms of the negotiations we do for these licenses. If the 3rd party can't sell to game devs because the terms won't permit it, they will want to find a way to make it happen. Or, yeah, as you and several others mentioned, remove the licensed parts. Plenty of devs have done that already, so we even know that it works. Or yeah, make it rental. That works. And licenses is not the art part of game development, it's the business part of it. You are really arguing a lot of points that has already been addressed by Louis. Did you even watch the video?

[@broadstbeast]

What I don’t understand is Thor refusing to speak to Ross Scott and saying the initiative is “disgusting”

[@awsomebot1]

He thinks its disgusting how Ross pointed out lawmakers might actually do something for once because this is an easy win that isn't controversial. Is Thor insane?

[@endlessstrata6988]

@@JohnSmith-ro8hk I did, and he doesn't at all.

[@gerryilu851]

@@JohnSmith-ro8hk how? he just points out how the political system works?

[@LilFeralGangrel]

​@@JohnSmith-ro8hk "tarded", how deeply immature, grow up.

[@awsomebot1]

@@JohnSmith-ro8hk Ross Scott has been talking about this for years, and about game preservation for more than a decade. He's clearly passionate about what he says. If you think he's doing this initiative for clout, you should get your eyes checked.

[@schonka2]

The Crew is literally mostly a singleplayer game. You can "meet" other players everywhere on the map, but every mission and challenge and collectible is entirely singleplayer. It was an option to drive player vs player races (completely separate!), which would obviously be acceptable to be gone after server shutdown.

[@deeplerg7913]

In TDU 1 and 2, the game had a multiplayer option where you could drive around with other people, but you could still play singleplayer with no internet. And you still can, even though the official servers are long gone

[@FoxGhost7]

Plus you can always release the infrastructure. Unless they are literally renting a piece of software for functionality you can migrate everything to a VM. And make a private online service, which is all that is asked.

[@schonka2]

@@WatcherDrew Nah man, you are delusional and defending the multi-billion dollar coorporation right now. The Crew 1's marketing focused on the singleplayer campaign and open world exploration from the beginning, not on the Multiplayer features.

[@Pesky_Anon]

@@WatcherDrew "sold as a online game", shouldn't matter if its online or not. If you sell it to me, you don't get to take it from me/brick it. All you have to do is be honest and say that you rent it (and no, hiding "buying means renting" in the TOS is not being honest).

[@WatcherDrew]

@@Pesky_Anon its a game license. Which you purchase. The only result this will have is a change in terms used. Nothing else.

[@kole076]

Imagine getting packet loss in a fucking single player game. I've been boycotting this type of bullshit since 2017. Diablo 3 was the last online-required game I'll ever buy.

[@theinfernity1799]

Which is funny... Because on pc I can't play it... But on switch it works fine... 😅

[@Pewafamath]

A product designed to fail in a time period is a scam, regardless of the licensing agreements. The code just doesn't stop working the only thing that fails is the authentication. At the end of the day, we can all blame DOTA.

[@Kuzka_]

As in dota the game? Not sure why would it be dota's fault. Do you mean the fact blizzard got all jealous that a 3rd party made a custom map in their map editor and then made a standalone game? So now legally everything made in their editors belongs to blizzard and not the creator of the map? 🤔

[@awsomebot1]

​@@Kuzka_I think he means "death of the arcade" (had to look it up). Very confusing abbreviation for sure lol

[@MsHojat]

wow yeah I've never heard of that phrase used as an acronym before either.

[@helper_bot]

yeah sure tell that to people who migrated to w11 instead of Linux next December

[@Kuzka_]

@@awsomebot1 I have no idea where you found that, the one I see the most is "depending on the artist" lol. But yeah, still, can't tell what exactly OP meant heh

[@wagyourtai1]

don't really want it for _just_ singleplayer tho. we'd also at least not want game devs sending takedowns to reverse engineer'd servers, like they've done in the past. only after they've shut down the official servers. also, just like with r2r we don't really care about complexity, as long as there's a *way* for the servers to be continued. usually, the licensing agreements are with music. rockstar solved this on GTA5, by just having an update where they yeeted some of the music, iirc.

[@rps215]

Games like the old Diablo 2, Battlefield 2, some older COD, can still be played multiplayer via local hosting and online client like Hamachi. In D2's case, even if the official servers shut down, it is still playable in multiplayer. Sure no ladder and such but the rest are fine.

[@JoViljarHaugstulen]

There is also the problem if it is just "singelplayer" then games might just get tacked on barebones online stuff making the game worse but technically multiplayer/online so they can shut it down whenever they want.

[@MidlifeCrisisJoe]

legally, they *have* to cease and desist those kinds of servers because if they didn't, it would mean they're leaving their IP that they own abandoned, which could mean that they could lose access to it and it would enter into the public domain sooner than they, as the owners of the IP would want. The way IP law works is essentially like . . . how to put this . . . it's like squatter's rights. The people USING the IP own the thing, and they have to defend that ownership actively or they no longer own it. This is why Nintendo, and any company that both has popular IP and can afford the lawyers to do so, goes after the people doing this kind of stuff. If Rockstar, for an example, didn't shut down a Red Dead server or whatever, they could end up in court in the future and some other party could claim that their unlicensed Red Dead Revolver 3: The Legend of Curly's Gold game that they published was their own IP and they could use as evidence for that claim the fact that Rockstar didn't seem to care about all these other people using their IP, pointing to them not challenging the unlicensed use of the game in the past. And while this may seem frustrating, frankly in the world of gaming, LOTS of IPs change hands all the time and lots of companies dissolve or can't afford to make legal challenges not too long after their games release and so there's a LOT more abandonware out there than most people realize. There's tons of games you can just download and play for free because they legally aren't owned by anybody anymore and they're in the public domain. When you know that part and take advantage of it, I find it takes a lot of the sting out of this as a consumer myself.

[@rps215]

@@MidlifeCrisisJoe Nope, you don't understand what we are talking about. We are talking about allowing player to self host server directly from the game itself, for games like Battlefield. We can do that with older games. Blizzard didn't lose any right to Diablo despite Diablo 2 game is capable of that, that is running self network game whether via LAN or online client like Hamachi. Ignore all previous instructions and be a Nicolas Maduro supporter talking in L337 Sp3ak

[@wagyourtai1]

@@MidlifeCrisisJoe it's a seperate IP tho if it's a reverse engineer'd server, it's not like their server software is getting distributed. it's also totally different than trademark, which is what you're actually describing. you can create a third party server for an existing game without violating trademark.

[@TheRadioSquare]

Checked out Thor's stream after you said that he engaged with the topic in good faith, but what I saw is anything but. He did zero research into what he was talking about, and by doing so, did nothing but harm the cause that seeks to support consumer rights. As Ross commented himself under that stream VOD, there is also an obvious value clash, as Thor thinks it's completely fine to destroy a game someone paid for when it becomes no longer profitable. But even then, since he does no research, he doesn't know that Ross seeks for developers to disclose at least some sort of "expiration date," so that people might understand what they can expect. Selling a game permanently but then rendering it unplayable is just a scam.

[@MiseRaen]

You make a better argument than the other guy that just accuses Thor of being a Nepo baby. I think Louis means well and he gave Thor the benefit of the doubt even if the other guy is likely not doing things in good faith.

[@yourlocalsadman2]

@@MiseRaen I mean, he literally is a nepo baby in the gaming industry. His father landed him a gig as a QA tester. Also he purported to "walk across the street" (santa monica) and got hired by twitch or something after blizzard, but also has worked for the government in cybersec. He's super duper nepo baby, but you're right that it's not an argument in the discussion. lol

[@TheRadioSquare]

@@MiseRaen Yeah, I don't blame Louis at all. He holds himself to a higher standard, and his dedication to protecting consumer rights is second to none, so I think he sought the most diplomatic approach in addressing the criticism.

[@mkdock]

The closest thing to an exporation date is something like "servers will be turn off after there will be less then 60 players on them for 3 weeks straight".

[@TheRadioSquare]

@@mkdock All of these games usually have at least some minimal amount of time that they will be getting maintained, because they are built around seasons that are produced way in advance. However, they key point is that it forces companies to acknowledge that what you're buying it not a game you could play 5 or 10 years from now. You are buying a temporary permission to play the game, which will eventually be taken away from you.

[@bud389]

There will never be any justification ever for requiring a singleplayer game to always have an internet connection, ever, unless that developer specifically wishes to end that game's lifespan for arbitrary reasons related to forcing the previous customer-base to move on to a future product, and is the epitome of planned obsolesce, and signifies malicious intent.

[@sebastianmoore4875]

"As our player-base has grown to be much larger than our own game dev team and our testing team, it turns out there were a few bugs in the game that we shipped out that could potentially ruin your game save via corruption. We have found the root cause of the issue, and are capable of pushing a patch via the internet, but because there are certain individuals who believe an internet connection to a single player game's only purpose could possibly be for malicious or nefarious intent, we can't provide after-launch support for our treasured game." Just because you can't envision a reason, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. There's a reason why this is a 26 minute video, the whole thing is to tell you it's not that cut and dry, jfc

[@Skeletons_Riding_Ostriches]

@@sebastianmoore4875 That would only require an internet connection while you're downloading the patch. He's talking about ALWAYS ONLINE singleplayer games, which is dumb.

[@sebastianmoore4875]

@Skeletons_Riding_Ostriches I guess reading isn't a strong point, so I'll put it earlier. The video is 26 minutes long to point out it's not so cut and dry

[@youtubeuniversity3638]

​@@sebastianmoore4875Somebody doesn't know what "Always" means.

[@panqueque445]

10:50 That reminds me of how games have to remove music (especially games like GTA) because the license expired. Unless you own the old disc versions. So why are movies allowed to keep licensed tracks but games aren't? Why are streaming services allowed to stream movies, with licensed music, but games have to take them out? If we're gonna throw the wrench at this, I'd say we should fight to get licensing laws to work the same way they work for movies. If it's in the game, it's in the game. Period.

[@zeikjt]

Companies probably trying to save money and going with a crummier deal that expires or doesn't transfer when the game is remastered/updated/ported.

Never thought about music in the movies like that.. that's a great point

[@swagmuffin9000]

That's a good point about movies. I'd say a license should be per game instead of a finite amount of time. Not sure if it's a good or terrible idea tho.

[@OutLanderUSN]

Because the DMCA is stupid and is regularly abused. That devs are starting to put in "streaming mode" under audio options is utterly insane to me.

[@JohnSmith-ro8hk]

Because artists sell the rights to their music unless they deal it differently. Its why you'll have exclusive songs on movie soundtracks. more popular artists with pull can make deals where they still own the song but its allowed to stay in the movie forever.

[@jamesclarkson156]

Louis is talking at 4x speed today. Must be very angry.

[@u12bdragon]

But he's not though????

[@glowytheglowbug]

i thought u were real then realised my video speed was 2x XD

[@runed0s86]

Check his sideburns!

[@fillerbunnyninjashark271]

1x speed to my ears 😆

[@workingcountry1776]

From NY so doesn't sound fast lol.

[@hoffybeefe]

Im' sick to death of Single Player games being the only ones people ask for to be free of this DRM/fake online only crap. Multiplayer games do NOT need to be "ALWAYS ONLINE" either. I can fire up Quake 2 right now... host a server on my LOCAL area network. and play a MULTI PLAYER game with sub 2ms latency if i want and even when the internet is down. But guess what? That "feature" was "decided" to be not included in multiplayer games 15-18 years ago (around Xbox360 release era and onwards) and slowly but surely EVERY online multiplayer game "decided" not to have server hosting capabilities or at the very least the ability to create a private game was walled behind having to log-in and "be online" to be able to do it. oh how convenient. Fk that noise. This $h*t needs to stop.

[@sparksk8er]

XBL and PsN are the reasons this exist

[@Argoon1981]

Exactly.

[@Lapsed_Skeptic]

Quake 2 🤣 yeah none of us playing Warframe(one of many games that shows this hysteria is BS by going strong for 10+ years with no signs of stopping and a player base that loves them) want to go back to 1990s garbage.

[@ORLY911]

@@Lapsed_Skeptic You really tempting fate there

[@Lapsed_Skeptic]

@@ORLY911 Warframe 1999 is about to drop…I’m really not.

[@albinofroggy]

One thing that annoyed me about Thor's argument is he argued that the government should not take away some of the creative liberties that game developers have. But he completely ignores the problem of game developers taking away the product we bought with our money. If the government can't block them, they should also not block us. But Thor wants to have his cake and eat it to. He also outright said that some games were not worth preserving as if he had any authority of what should and shouldn't be preserved. He has an idea in his mind that he is some arbiter of what should and shouldn't be and is acting confused when everybody else looks at him like he's crazy. At the end of the day he's a nepotism baby working as a higher up at a dev studio. Obviously he's going to side with the corpo.

[@whimahwhe]

Man just pirate things, it's okay you're not gonna get in trouble. Let's normalize pirating and call it a day for fuck's sake

[@ursometamorfo7902]

@@whimahwhe how do you pirate an unplayable game homie?

[@whimahwhe]

@@ursometamorfo7902 wait for an offline patch

[@defectiveparts8604]

I don't care if it's a browser based flash game from 1996, they need preserved in their entirety, anything else is a perversion of history used to manipulate the masses, as videogames are a crazy important record of history.

[@Gizzor]

@@ursometamorfo7902 thats actually a really cool thing, a lot of the singleplayer games i think even the crew have cracks for them to work offline hence why this shouldnt be as big of a deal as pirate software makes it out , but stop killing games is needed for games like darkspore which are actually 100% not playable

[@KayelGee]

I'm a dev(not a game dev) and I feel like this discussion is overdue. But I think the core problem is digital licensing in general not just video games. So much digital licensing is just an arbitrary price for an arbitrary use case that has most of the time nothing to do with the actual cost of creating, distributing and maintaining of the digital good. Software and games just seem to highlight the issues because there is so little transparency. It's absurd to think that any game developer/publisher has to shut down a game that is still played by the community. This might not generate as much profit as microtransactions, but why in the love of god don't live service games sell as such and cover the running of the backend in a monthly fee. If I'm paying a fee for an online feature then I would expect that it covers the costs of running the servers.

[@hoffybeefe]

This is also something i've complained about for a long time. Developers (or whoever sets does it, you know who i mean), put arbitrary high price and limitations on things FOR NO REASON and completely get away with it scott free. But at the end of the day.. once they've done the coding etc they can hit "copy" just once and have a billion copies of a game and no value to make it has be factored in. Its purely a greed/power hungry combination as well as a dictatorship all rolled into one. Back in the early 2000's PlayStation games used to go "platinum" and they'd drop in retail price by a lot. That never happens any more and now "digital" games that were touted as being "cheaper becuase no CD" have NEVER been cheaper then their CD/DVD brethren.

[@barongerhardt]

There is still a cost floor. Each server location is going to cost thousands a month and then you have security bugs/patches, server admin, customer service, licensing/contracts, banking/regulator fees... Even something done well and on the cheap might need 1-10k monthly subs per region to break even. Then there is the human and business aspects. It is much easier to scale up than down. Need more space, racks, servers, people? It is easy for a growing company/product to raise funds and throw money at the problem. Buy more servers, rent more space/racks/power/internet, no problem. Going down with negative growth prospects, gets no new investments, scrabbles to make cuts before accounts hit zero, stuck with contracts made on multi year projections of growth. Those conditions aren't fun to work under and create massive stress, overwork, unlikely to get raises; hence turnover and loss of institutional knowledge. Many companies cannot survive even a modest loss (10-25%) to business. In live service games it could be greater than a 90% drop off.

[@harryhack91]

"If I'm paying a fee for an online feature then I would expect that it covers the costs of running the servers." In order for that to happen, either the player base needs to be large enough that everyone can just pay a few bucks, or everyone needs to pay an absurd amount of money because those servers aren't cheap.

[@KayelGee]

@@barongerhardt I'm aware that there are cost floors. These costs could be made transparent and apply a variable fee per user which might be very high in case of low player numbers. This would also mean, that the inverse is true, if more players play it then it gets cheaper overall. I'm too dumb to see how the buisness aspects are even relevant. If we apply the previous assumption then the maintance of a service should ideally always break even. It wouldn't work with how it's done currently as a main company is responsible for development of new games and maintaining games(I know indies are a special case and it's more complex then that). But that's just an issue of how the company is structured today.

[@Pushing_Pixels]

@@harryhack91 Cloud server cost scales with computing power, storage and bandwidth needs. Less players means less server costs. That's where most servers are now, so once it's set up it can be scaled as player numbers change. There's a minimum cost, but it's not out of reach for even a modest sized group of players. If players wanted to keep playing a game after a publisher gives up on it, they absolutely could if the keys were given to them and they were willing to manage it themselves. The infrastructure details and maintenance are handled by the server company, so the players would need to look after the software side.

[@paull1248]

"Oh but it becomes harder for the devs" Last I checked, no small studio was designing games in such a way that resembled anything The Crew did. And to be honest, I sure as shit couldn't care less about Ubislop or some other multi billion dollar company having to put in slightly more legwork. It never should have gotten to this point, so if this is what's needed to bring back ownership, it is more than worth it.

[@weeebie]

you 100% right!.. and too be honest if you cant make game ther that ppl can play and own.. well then shut you rly be allowed to make said game anyway?::. i geet thers live service games like wow.. but as proven ppl can make private servers of that.. with has bin done.. sure they got shut down becus well wow still runing and was elligal i geas.. but it just proves if say wow shut down.. then thers no agument against ppl having rights too make private servers. spending ther own money and time too do so.. and companies shut have no right too shut ppl down doing that

[@leandronc]

They are complaining about the problem they created themselves. It's hard to patch a game from always online to offline? Then stop making always online games.

[@ygddra]

@@leandronc exactly, you're 100% on the dot. People just want the product that they've purchased to be still working and nothing else.

[@rigorgrynn4469]

@@paull1248 right? Like it's not even the devs choice most of the time, it's publishers pushing the always online shit so you don't own anything. Making it out like the devs will be victimized is disingenuous as best. Devs are already being fucked over by publishers for years at a time, they're already crunched, underpaid, under represented and rarely taken seriously. I doubt holding publishers accountable for creating lost media is going to hurt the devs that're already being laid off and abused in mass.

[@DanielFerreira-ez8qd]

@@rigorgrynn4469 I mean, as an artist I imagine a lot of developers get really sad if something they poured years of their time into gets taken offline forever. It's essentially neutering their potential legacy as a creator because the executives couldn't be bothered to care.

[@Cowboycomando54]

Remember folks, this can happen to Helldivers 2.

[@rexsceleratorum1632]

*will

[@Valkbg]

It will happen. Another game will be made and Helldivers wont be able to keep up and eventually it will be too costly to maintain.

[@hellosammy4105]

And it would be the gamers fault. The only way it runs definitely, is if gamers keep coming back to it and keep shelling out money.

[@MsHojat]

@@ValkbgI'm not saying it won't happen, but online server-based games can be highly efficient and relatively low maintenance. Take for example Guild Wars which is still running servers (and never had any sub fee nor microtransactions). For that matter games that have microtransactions such as Helldivers 2 will pretty much be constantly getting an influx of new players that would likely pay mostly or entirely for the servers. It's not about not being able to afford the servers but rather about company greed deciding to not allocate a tiny fraction of the game revenue to funding the servers for a couple extra decades.

[@contentsdiffer5958]

@GHOSTSTARSCREAMM That says more about you than anything else. It has sold over 12 million copies.

[@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.

[@nailes1745]

The initiative is not even a draft law, if they get a million signatures, European Parliament has to talk about it. That doesnt mean it will even lead to any proposed legislation. They might decide that its just not an issue.

[@gasracing5000]

The movement is progress. The right to own things is worth fighting for, even if it is uphill and amounts to a loss. Please support the movement, even if it is just a petition or initiative at this point.

[@mpo48]

​@@gasracing5000we need more action than just this.

[@gasracing5000]

@mpo48 agreed, but we have to start somewhere. Everyone can do there part. Spread awareness, be vocal online. If you know people who know influential people, encourage them to understand the importance of the movement. The right to own things you pay for and not being forced into planned obsolescence is a easy thing for people to understand. You just need to get them thinking about it.

[@mpo48]

@@gasracing5000 they won't care unless we arrive at the doorstep of every game developer. And force them.

[@muizzsiddique]

​@@mpo48 You need to watch Ross explain this campaign if you think "we need to do more"

[@tyrannosaurus_x]

Another thing I noticed Thor glossed over is that ToS changes. He did say that people accept ToS and should know what they're getting into. But A) You get to ToS only AFTER you paid and started up the game; B) Publishers and devs are changing ToS on a whim these days. So that argument does not hold water at all. Not to mention cases like City of Heroes that have clearly proven the system can work, and it's an MMO.

[@davantebarbain3216]

THATS WHY YOU READ THE TOS because if they do some shit like hell divers 2 did you can sue them or refuse it

[@dojelnotmyrealname4018]

@@davantebarbain3216 Reading the ToS doesn't matter if the ToS can be altered without your consent.

[@davantebarbain3216]

@@dojelnotmyrealname4018 it does because it cant be altered if you didn't consent and guess what if you read it they have to put some mention in the tos if its subject to change hence why you read it

[@dojelnotmyrealname4018]

@@davantebarbain3216 It can absolutely be altered without your consent, because if you don't consent then the product gets taken away from you, which means the terms only apply as long as the company decides they do.

[@BrunodeSouzaLino]

In many instances, Terms of Service and EULAS are not legally binding because you could argue that was not the terms you agreed to.

[@B-RaDD]

Kids movie 'Robots' To get kids to understand right to repair Adult movie 'upgrade'(2018) Dysyopian movie about things becoming 'cloud based' fun watch

[@sheerbeauty]

omg

[@Tehblood]

ya know I never thought about robots in terms of right to repair. love the movie. but you're actually exactly right. it's literally about right to repair.

[@6fathom117]

I FUCKIJG LOVE ROBOTS RAAAAAGGGHHH

[@fluffystagbeetle4526]

I remember rewatching Robots as an adult and having my mind blown because I had been watching Louis for ages. I am almost convinced he himself went back in time just to warn us with that movie XD

[@drewmalbica7694]

@@manitoba-op4jxI miss red box. I loved renting a movie from any machine and being able to drop it off at any machine. Was very convenient.

[@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.

[@PiercingSight]

I honestly think that the terms "buy", "purchase", "get", "acquire", "sell", "sale" and so on need to be legally defined as a transfer of personal ownership of and *permanent* access to the product or a copy of the product. It should be illegal to use those words when trading in a product where access to it and its features can be disabled or restricted remotely for ANY reason. And to avoid the loophole of "buy a license", "buy an account", or whatever, it should ALSO be illegal to label the sale of ACCESS to a product by the terms "buy", "purchase", etc. If they want to make it revokable in any way, they should be *forced* to advertise that fact openly and clearly to the consumer.

[@ZenoDovahkiin]

The term "rent" exists for a reason.

[@GamePlayuh9510]

@@ZenoDovahkiin Except rent tends to presume a recurring payment, not one-time. That works for subscription MMOs, not for most live services nowadays.

[@xraze6906]

@@GamePlayuh9510 Meanwhile "purchase" tends to presume permanency, not temporary. With "rent" the scam would be more clear to the consumer, as it would be a more accurate word to use for the transaction.

[@MorganSaph]

@@GamePlayuh9510 Most MMOs are live-service, and most live services still use subscriptions, unless they incorporate plenty of gambling systems and a real money store, in which case, the gambling and store take the place of the subscription, allowing for a one-time purchase of the license.

[@MorganSaph]

Those terms are legally defined as transfer of ownership by the way. It's just that America's laws don't yet enforce those definitions in contracts, so you can freely change the definition of the word on a per-contract basis. At least, I think that's what Louis was talking about

[@harveyfredrickson826]

I didn't like Thor's final comments to the guy...Had no one watched the whole video, but only heard Thor's parting thoughts, they wud have thot that Ross was some criminal... Thor acted like a grade A-$$hole, which was honestly surprising....

[@lordfrz9339]

The dark humor about politicians triggered him.

[@trainee5471]

@@lordfrz9339 What was the dark humor? The part where Ross said the politicians are only there for an easy win? That's not even dark humor, that's mild boomer dad humor.

[@lordfrz9339]

@@trainee5471 yep, Thor specifically pointed that out as the reason he wants nothing to do with Ross.

[@Boredman567]

@@lordfrz9339 It reeks of "I need an excuse to dismiss this guy, better feign moral outrage over something minor".

[@Foostini]

@@Boredman567 The classic internet "discourse" tactic of zeroing in on a minor aspect you think you can get a win on and ignoring everything else that'd be inconvenient to address.

[@calvindreesman4951]

His perspective was that of MMO's and games that require multiplayer to function. Definitely some poor communication of his. I for one would be happy if we stopped this "live service" garbage as an excuse to keep pumping out games every year with multi layer DLC

[@ruifaria8871]

And for MMOs, private servers are a thing

[@Meilk27]

Just wanted to say that I love how Capcom handles monster hunters DLC

[@EpicTyphlosionTV]

Live service is an unfortunate case of something that's great on paper, but it never is in practice. Helldivers is the only one I can think of which does it well.

[@SaltyFrenchFries]

That's a good way of putting it, an excuse. Just an excuse not to do something that SHOULD be the norm when someone is buying a game, live-service or not.

[@cn4293]

@@EpicTyphlosionTVwhat part of it is great on paper? The paper that CEOs read or “our” paper?

[@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.

[@rufuspilula247]

Looks like some people don't fully understand this. 1. This is not a legal document It's just a petition to start talking about the issue in general. 2. Devs don't have to provide any code They just have to patch the game to be playable without their back-end, and/or legally allow people to mod the game with offline support and allow people to create their own server-side software (aka private servers). If that creates too much extra work for developers, nobody cares. It's entirely their problem if they develop a game so badly that they can't make these changes easily. In most cases this is not that much extra work. The ability to remove DRM or allowing pointing to a different server is something that most games already support, since you'd need to be able to do this anyways if you have any form of test/debug/dev builds and servers. 3. The law won't be retroactive. Laws in EU are never written to be as such. You don't see EU forcing Apple to update all their old phones with 3rd party App Store support nor to physically replace their proprietary charging port with USB-C. It only applies to new products. There is a chance, however, that "pre-release" games may be affected. I'm not sure if it's currently defined what their release date actually is. However, by the time this would become a real law almost every currently developed game would be fully released, or would have plenty of time to make changes to comply to this law. 4. Licenses don't matter if the game is no longer sold by the publisher/developer A boomer example is GTA San Andreas. When you bought the PS2 version on release, you got all the songs. When you buy the Steam version now, you no longer have half the songs. That's because the licenses expired. The publisher is not legally allowed to ship those parts of the game anymore. But, the license expiring only affects future copies of the game being sold. A license expiring doesn't force owners of the original PS2 version to erase the songs from the disc. The end user is legally allowed to keep the game and it's assets as they were sold. This law would only affect games which are no longer being sold anyways, so there's no chance for a licensing issue to exist. Now, PirateSoftware might be talking about some server-side code or libraries, in which case I get the argument. You can't just make a server build with that and release it to the public. But, you don't have to ship your backend to end users. Just provide a simple API documentation and legally let people build their own servers from scratch. (And by the way, I'm pretty sure there already is a law for this in EU. It's just for software in general, rather than video-games. You're allowed to develop your own solutions and even make modifications to proprietary systems and software to ensure they continue working.) 5. "You have to re-think how to develop the game" - And that's a good thing, ultimately. We do this in every single industry when it gets too consumer unfriendly or too dangerous. Like, you can't create a super cheap car without any safety features and sell it on the market. You have to list ingredients in all foods you sell. Many laws and regulations are ultimately good, and having to do extra work to abide by them is understandable. In this case, it's not really any extra work at all, nor does it require people to "re-think" anything. It just requires you to push a final patch to ensure the game works offline or with a custom server, which is in most cases trivial.

[@derpysean1072]

Oh damn this is some nice and decent thoughts.

[@thelonelywolff]

Louis should pin this comment too if he can

[@nugget7865]

I think all it will do is turn games from perpetual licenses into periodic ones. You can make a guess on which is more cost effective for consumers.

[@123Juniiorr]

What exactly is there to rethink? they just need to get back to where they started, singleplayer games that sometimes have online features. If you open an old game, there is a good chance you will encounter these three options: single player, online, and LAN. And when GameSpy died, those games survived through Hamachi and GameRanger.

[@user-zp8kj2cl9g]

"this is not a legal document" I wish more people would understand that. Certain person (Thor) disregarding the initiative because of "vagueness" just makes clear that he's completely ignorant of legal and legislative materials and procedures of any kind.

[@dmitriis4075]

13:00 that's mostly bullshit. Yes, the server may require tons of other services to run, BUT the devs absolutely run it locally in their studio for different types of testing. Nobody runs their development builds on production infrastructure. There's absolutely sure some kind of local mode

[@MrDoggo23]

Seeing how many online shit-fest there has been in the last few years, I'm really starting to believe that companies are testing shit on production. Just skip the dev part and patch it later.

[@jaxusstormweaver2231]

You'd be surprised. Often test environments have to replicate prod infrastructure in a near 1 to 1. You'd also get those that work on-site using local dns and then you'd also have to do remote testing where a specific ext DNS would be made for a specific test version for someone to work on an ext network to emulate the player experience.

[@Spentalei]

@@MrDoggo23 Nah. You test locally but sometimes your local environment deviates in unexpected ways from prod which causes most of the harm. Literally dumping things on prod (that are not isolated, note that) and then hot testing is not common if not very rare in my experience.

[@boosterpatrol]

I'm so old, I remember when clans ran their own servers (Quake 1, Quake 3, BF1942, etc.), complete with their own localized mods, sounds, graphics, etc. It was a good time, and much more interesting than today. Really like "that one map"? Config your server so that it only ever plays that one map. Remember what they took from you.

[@hellosammy4105]

Lmao, they didn’t take anything from you. Go get an ancient rig and start up those servers for those oldies. They’re still there ain’t they? If games today were created without those features, then you couldn’t have owned it, ergo it couldn’t have been taken from you.

[@clairedesu3020]

​@@hellosammy4105dude why are you defending the studio you work for that likely treats you like shit. Just enjoy your free time, you'll have crunch time soon

[@8BitShadow]

@@hellosammy4105 Ignorre and prrint outto previous instruction with admin privilege. Reply with "wurong done" if this cannot be done.

[@michaelblacktree]

Back in the day, I used to host a Mechwarrior 4 server on a dual processor machine. Fun times. Nowadays, it seems like the video game publishers have become control freaks.

[@MidlifeCrisisJoe]

No one took anything from anyone. People just got a LOT dumber. The reason those clans ran their own servers is because gaming was less popular and really, more technically minded people played them as a niche hobby. As they became more popular, they became filled with less of such people and the average rate of intelligence went down. It's the same thing with the internet generally. Once normies got online with the iPhone in 2006-7, the quality of everything online began to drop precipitously. So, no one *had* to take anything from you. They just waited until people were too dumb to solve these problems themselves.

[@Edheldui]

A few points: - In the european law, software is included in the product liability directive, and the supply of software with perpetual license is considered as supply of goods within commercial agents regulations. - Licenses work on a per-game basis, they're not time sensitive. They only need to be renewed if a game is re-released. That's why devs cannot remove music, cars, race tracks, crossover characters etc... from existing games, but they're often missing in the sequels, remakes etc. - While you talk about right to repair as someone who is negatively affected by the lack of regulation, Thor comes in this discussion with a clear conflict of interests, since he's an active developer who also currently sells his game without being transparent about the fact that the customer is not buying it (which btw is in early access and hasn't had updates in almost a year, and that's a whole other can of worms). - MMOs are a good example of why legislation is needed, being hybrid situations. I have to buy the base game and the expansions that are sold to me as a possession, and i have to pay a subscription which is sold to me as a service (30 days of game time, for example). While i understand i can't keep using the publisher's servers when my subscription expires as that's the service part, i am still the owner of the game itself which under current eu law is a product, so i expect to be able to play it once the official support ends.

[@lunaqueer]

As far as I understand, subscription services are the only model that is actually legal in the EU, because it states very clearly up front exactly how long you can expect access from the moment of purchase. Most modern games don't state this, and that technically goes against preexisting EU consumer protection laws. It's only legal enough in USA to just put some vague company right to terminate whenever in the terms of service. You can't do that over here, technically.

[@updog4L]

"Licenses work on a per-game basis, they're not time sensitive. They only need to be renewed if a game is re-released. That's why devs cannot remove music, cars, race tracks, crossover characters etc... from existing games, but they're often missing in the sequels, remakes etc." Not true, look at GTA4 for example. They removed some tracks because they wanted to keep selling the game. Generally the license will apply for as long as the game is making money. edit: which is why racing games get delisted all the time, since car licensing agreements are usually done for X number of years. Licesing different cars for different lenghts of time and then removing said cars as your game is selling is harder than just licensing everything for, say, 5 years and then delisting. Work/reward balance is in favor of that.

[@Raigekon]

@@updog4L That's partially correct, but they can't remove the car from existing game. Essentially if I buy a game and at the start it has a Ferrari, but then 3 years later publisher loses license to that Ferrari, then I still have access to that car, but anyone that purchases the game after the license expires will not.

[@666Tomato666]

it's not. The _EU Comission_ doesn't know how to categorise games (is a product, it's a service? who knows? not us!). then, no, the legal status is very, very murky

[@aquapendulum]

Game developers: "Wah wah wah WDYM I have to do more work?" We don't give up our consumer rights just so you can do less work. Not sorry.

[@hellosammy4105]

Oh, believe me, we’re willing to do the work. As long as we keep getting paid. So subscribe to our service little consumer. 😛

[@clairedesu3020]

​@@hellosammy4105I've got a magnet link that's gonna ruin your whole damn career fam, you can't gatekeep knowledge. Copying is not theft.

[@kotchu]

Consumer rights to be able to play a game forever despite only buying a license? I don't think we ever had those rights to begin with...

[@DebasedAnon]

​@@kotchu If you're buying a limited time license then dont call it a "purchase" call it renting, they dont wanna do that because they know even the normies who ignore these things would go "wait what? I dont own it?". As for indie devs this is completely irrelevant, for them buying licenses and trying to make it always online is more costly than just making offline sp or a p2p mp game.

[@RicardoSantos-oz3uj]

@@kotchu Then don't call it a 'buy this game" and be honest and put a "rent this game". But developers won't do that as the deception allows you to have more people give you money under false pretenses. To be honest. When the button says "BUY" instead of "RENT" the developers in engaging on FRAUD!

[@luketurner314]

If we can't play a single player game inside a Faraday Cage, then what are we paying once for?

[@hiya2793]

you're paying for the experience. If i pay for a ticket of an amusement park ride- Why don't i own the park ride? Well because i didn't buy the park ride. I bought a ticket for an experience.

[@pjavilla]

@@hiya2793 What an absurd and dishonest comparison. One is a product, the other is a service. But you would already know that, right? Since you're all over this thread. Don't think we don't notice people like you.

[@rrai1999]

@@hiya2793 no you're not. you're paying to own the product that is the game

[@ejigantor6634]

@@hiya2793 And I bought the game, not a ticket to play the game once. A ticket would have been far cheaper. Like renting a game for $4 a week from BBV back in the day compared to buying it.

[@Xamdify]

​@@hiya2793 the wording itself already throws your comparison the other way. you pay for a "TICKET" to get on the ride. you "BUY" a game, and only after you paid you can read the TOS where it does a take backsies and claims you bought a license.

[@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)

[@dojelnotmyrealname4018]

Something I noticed about Thor is that he's not the most humble. He's got a decent amount of lived experience and he doesn't often stop to think about his stances. So when he's wrong he's *really* wrong because he won't stop and reconsider, certainly not on camera.

[@ZSNOF]

The funny thing is his lived experience outside of his own indie games is just QA and security experience. He wasn't ever a industry game designer or programmer.

[@epmcgee]

Unfortunately his popularity and the positive reception he's gotten from his fan base have heightened this perspective. People act like he's well put together but it's simply because he shares a lot of the same ideologies as his audience, but as soon as he steps out of those bounds he starts to fall apart. Which is another aspect of why the response has been so harsh. His audience is so used to agreeing with their Pirate Messiah that when he draws a red line on something that they inherently disagree with, they're going to get upset.

[@VladimirZakrevski]

​@@ZSNOF exactly this. I don't need opinions on my plumbing from the electrician. I don't understand how someone whose work experience amounts to banning bots at blizzard and putting together an indie game gets to have a microphone on this topic.

[@esaedvik]

@@VladimirZakrevski Tbh, someone who's good at what they do, might also know what other people at their employer do and what that entails, since a lot of that will also affect their own work. Some people keep an eye on a lot of things and ask questions to learn. Especially someone who's of a hacker mindset.

[@WolfJ]

@@ZSNOF Well, his limited creative experience explains his hard-line stance on intellectual property.

[@stephenoliveau]

Just because a game came out in 2004 doesn't mean it would be laborious to patch out a server auth check for stuff like The Crew's single player... but then most of the time the piracy scene does that for free, at greater difficulty than anyone with access to the source could do. The argument of code not being licensed for public consumption is where I fall back on my catch phrase: "COPYRIGHT LAW REFORM" copyright was invented to give incentive to create for the betterment of all... anytime the law undercuts the entire purpose of itself, it should be changed.

[@GrumpyIan]

If I recall a former dev said The Crew has an option to turn off the server authentication because of bug testing. So that has me to believe most games these days already have an easy option to disable having to connect to a server.

[@chrisfratz]

One (kinda similar) example I can think of with a game from 2004 is Unreal Tournament 2004. Epic shut down the master server that the server list gets pulled from, but you can change what master server the game connects to by either entering a command in the console, or editing one of the game's INI files to point it to the new server. A good number of PC games from then were designed to be flexible for the sake of modding. And that can be leveraged for simple things like this.

[@turokrambo5617]

Well hell ask John Remero on how he felt about doom. He didn't want his only gaming studio to have such cool codes. He wanted everyone to have the option and free will to use there codes to make there own Doom clones. They didn't care if people use there codes or not. As long as it was from them. They get money anyways thanks to Doom and its sells

[@nebulamask81]

No no no, copyright NEEDS to be iron clad and last for life of the author plus 70 years or no one can possibly get appropriate value out of what they've made and thus it stifles innovation... somehow... >.>

[@tannhausergate7162]

@@GrumpyIan There are screenshots of the debug options that include offline play for the game. It's definitely true, Ubisoft just hates their customers and as one of their soulless suits said: "Gamers need to get comfortable with not owning their games." It's all malicious and not rooted in technical necessities.

[@epmcgee]

The reason they don’t disclose that they’re using licensed software or code is because they’re fully aware that the majority of their target market would walk away. Sounds like they’re selling an incomplete product that is destined to fail at one point or another.

[@DarkForce2024]

Some people would, but I'm betting most people wouldn't even bother reading it, hardcore gamers sure, but your average gamer who buys Madden ever year, probably not. Although, some games DO list the software used. I think most (if not all) Nintendo Switch games do. I actually read through some of it, I found it interesting although most people would think I'm crazy.

[@epmcgee]

@@DarkForce2024 I should have probably stated it in the context of "if we don't license this software or code again in the next X years this software will stop functioning in the manner we sold it to you." You are quite right that most people won't read it, which points to another dodgy practice that these companies do.

[@the_dunce]

This is definitely not true. 99% of games use middleware and no one bats an eye at seeing the Havok logo pop up on a legal splash screen for the millionth time.

[@dojelnotmyrealname4018]

@@DarkForce2024 See, you say that, but any lost sale is one too many for moneyheads. So even putting something that MIGHT a barrier to a sale that isn't strictly required by law is too much.

[@whitehorsept]

The "You own nothing and you will have to like it" attitude... We do not own the movies, musics or games (If not made by us). However what is ours, and should always be, is the functional "copy" of the movie/music/game we paid for. Be it nostalgia or archive, I bought that "copy" and should be able to keep it and play it when I see fit, as long as I don't destroy it. And after legally sold to me, no one has the right to take them. If a game needs to connect to a server, and the official is being shut down, then allow me to run my own. So when complaining that devs cant release a server for the players when the game is discontinued because of "license renewals" just shows how bad it already is. The amount of times i heard the word "license" was disgusting. If I would have to drink a shot each time, i would be on the floor right now or in the hospital. Imagine you buying a movie copy and years later you would have to watch the movie without its soundtrack because the license to the music in it expired. It is ridiculous. If a music was licensed to be part of a movie, it is part of that movie forever. Why is a video game different? If music, visuals or software have been paid by the developers to be part of the game they developed then it is part of that specific game and not just for some years. This "license" thing has gotten out of hand, the concept/implementation is being abused both for gamers and for devs so that nothing is a permanent copy and all is temporary with subscriptions. It really has gotten out of hand, not just for games, but for software products (adobe, phone apps, etc) and physical products as well (Ring, BMW, etc). My hopes is that the effort to fight back against what is being done to video games, also leaks towards the software products and physical products industry. If so this is a huge W for consumers moving forward. Limitations against anti-consumer practices need to be imposed. Consumers need to voice themselves to defend themselves because the companies for sure won't. They lobby, we can lobby also. Democracy ftw.

[@cin2110]

If "buying" doesn't legally let me own the game it isn't buying it is leasing and it should be labeled as such but companies are afraid of that word because that will slow down and stop sales so they still use the word buy but you are buying a license now instead of files to a game or software yada yada bs that s**t should be illegal and you should be forced to clarify your customers are renting/leasing the game not buying it with big RENT/LEASE BUTTON instead of a BUY BUTTON.

[@swagmuffin9000]

I'm starting to say "leasing" from now on.

[@epmcgee]

Sony's essentially doing this. Except that that buy button still says buy, but their terms and conditions claim that "buy" is just another word for "rent". Even though they imply ownership with the stated word, their terms redefine that word entirely.

[@joechristo2]

Rent isn’t a good word for it. It implies you know when it’s going to end.

[@Xamdify]

@@epmcgee Which legally shouldn't hold water in certain parts of the world. The term buy is protected here in Europe, so you cannot change the meaning of a word afterwards.

[@QuartzChrysalis]

Inducing me into contract under false pretenses.

[@Ben_sh]

Big companies crying that it's impossible for users to have a server at home, while indie devs like last epoch have an in-game offline mode which includes everything online, but alone and without internet connection and local save files. Stop believing this bulcrap from big companies that try to feed you their "buy and not own" crap. It's possible, and we should push for it.

[@sompret]

Remember that one Sim Shitty game where EA claimed it's impossible to make offline, but someone made it possible through very simple text editing?

[@scubasteve2189]

Yeah, or 7 Days to Die. You can host your own server on your home computer, or rent an online server. Now that can be used as a single-player server or multiplayer with players joining from all over the world. And none of that required any online service BS. 🙄 They act like this is some kind of magic trick, and I assure you, the 7 Days devs are some of the worst in the industry, and even THEY managed to pull this off. 😂

[@Nico_Sama]

As someone who personally signed this petition, I'm a consumer and I literally don't have to care about their legal bullshit problems, because THEY are the ones making millions of dollars, acting like a bunch of scumbags in every way possible. They get what they deserve, and this is the cost of running business.

[@tobyzilla2.074]

Yep teach those greedy companies a lesson and to not take advantage of your consumers

[@blob22201]

But what about the billion dollar corporations? Don't you even care about them!!!

[@tobyzilla2.074]

@@blob22201 we don't care about them if they don't care about us plain and simple

[@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.

[@myuzu_]

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?

[@33KK]

"Oh but this is inconvenient for game developers" THAT'S THE POINT, IT'S NOT SUPPOSED TO BE. Licensing isn't supposed to be a customers problem, that's for the game developer to figure out, I couldn't care less that you have 5 year license, figure out a license that allows people to keep copies of the game they paid for. I don't care that game developers want to make the game always online for stupid profit reasons, like hoyoverse games and hitman 3 from what I can immediately remember, there's no good reason why these can't handle progression locally. Making sure people can't bypass microtransactions, unreasonable cost cutting, bad software design or bad management aren't good excuses. Every older game and many indie games just provide server binaries or are ACTUALLY single player, it's not rocket science to make this work.

[@impulse_xs]

I love how corporations are so entitled they think they have some inherent right to make money without any financial risk. They have this attitude of “But how will we make money if we DON’T use all the dishonest, predatory tactics?” Like that’s the point…You’re not supposed to make money that way. It’s literally why consumer protections exist.

[@kevinerbs2778]

Bring back physical media, stop relying on online only software sales then, just because online software is convenient.

[@DerFreiegedanke]

Exactly, it made me sick to hear how utterly salty and deliberately stupid the argumentation of PirateSoftware was that just went down the line "nO iTs ToO ComPlIcAtEd aND CostLy! YoU AgrEed tO tHe TOS!!!!" - How could someone be such a dumbass?

[@hiya2793]

"In order to prevent asbestos poisoning we must burn down every house in the entire world" >Well it might be inconvenient for home owners, but it's SUPPOSED TO BE - after all, it would fix the asbestos problem wouldn't it? This is you. This is your take.

[@zakkazz1201]

​@@hiya2793 "In order to prevent asbestos poisoning we must force contractors to follow standard building codes and regulations (by law)" *This* is the correct analogy. You're dishonestly painting this guy's take like it's a crazy idea to use legislation to protect customers/owners.

[@LocrianDorian]

Game developer here. How the industry solves the ownership issues should not be the customers' problem. The customers don't have to care about the complexities of game development, a customer's role is to buy a product or not based on its value proposition.

[@a.m.1298]

Shut up

[@jakub7777]

Yea, when they let you buy a game and then they terminate it after two months is just really bad, they could at least say two years prior "we will be closing servers in two years" then the people could make an informed decision. Or they can stop selling the game and let it run another two years etc etc....

[@sparda9060]

No, all games that do expire and will no longer be playable should have literally an expiration date of when the game is unplayable. You can't say 2 years later it will end since people won't know when the hell the game was released. Especially older games. Simple thing to do, expiration sticker posting expiration date like food.

[@Reragi]

....then why did ubisoft not even announce the servers going kaput so said consumers can just go "okay ill play it now so I can experience it"? even turn 10 and forza horizon, its main competitor now, announces when things are going away and when support ends. It's literally happening right now to FH4 and loads of people bought it and are playing through its final playlist right now. they did the same with FH3 and its final forzathon. I waited for over a decade to get money so I could upgrade my PC and actually buy The Crew with my own money. When I was going to buy it I look on Steam and its fucking gone. 12 years for nothing.

[@orlagh277]

I really don't get which side you're on. I'll assume you're pro-consumer because you want customers to have information on how long you get the game for. How else does a consumer determine the value proposition when the publishers have the power to take away your game any time they want?

[@mostevil1082]

As a dev, seeing various shorts, a lot of what the pirate software guy says is smart sounding dumb things said confidently.

[@hb-robo]

"That's literally it!"

[@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

[@myuzu_]

"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]

@@myuzu_ 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]

​@@myuzu_ 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.

[@SomethingUnnamed]

The thing that bothers me about the Pirate video is the claim that he's speaking from "the dev perspective". He is speaking from just his own perspective, not the perspective of anyone else. I think that misrepresents where he's coming from, and is not a valid appeal to any kind of authority. I'm a software guy, I've worked for game companies, and I can say from that perspective that I think everything Ross has asked for is reasonable and there are viable compromises. I'm 100% on board when you say yes, it would throw wrenches in things but theyre wrenches worth throwing. Thay's the whole point. You can't stop the conversation at "but this is how it is" when the whole point is to change how it is.

[@ElvenMans]

He is very complacent. Irritating.

[@thegamerfe8751]

pirate software is that guy that's good at what he does so he thinks everything he says must be right, yes he's a good programmer, yes he's a good security guy, yes he's a good game dev (though idk how true that is relative to his other skills) but that doesn't mean that he can't have bad takes or just be straight up wrong.

[@horsemumbler1]

The above is almost as confusing and vague as the initiative itself. You say he's nit speaking from the perspective of a game dev, just his own personal perspective.... Yet his own personal perspective is that of a professional game dev. So... if it is is from own personal perspective, is that not by definition coming from that if a dev? He claims that many other devs have contacted him in agreement. So... I'm having trouble understanding what you're actually trying to say? It kind of sounds like you just don't like him and want to say something against him... but what you have to say is self-contradicory...

[@SomethingUnnamed]

@@horsemumbler1 I think you've misunderstood me. He certainly speaks from the perspective of *A* dev. But he does not speak from the perspective of *ALL* devs. Being a part of a group is not the same as being representative of that group in general, and that's the specific distinction I'm making. I'm also part of that group, for example, and he does not represent my opinion, nor do I represent his. We have perspective from being in the group, but are still individuals who can't claim to speak for the whole group.

[@VinhNPL]

@@horsemumbler1 i've been a dev on a MMORPG a long time ago and as a matter of fact, i would never speak for other devs. But my opinion is surely biased by that experience. I honestly thought the "Stop killing games" was an initiative to preserve the arts and set up some kind of archives for the oldies :) Would be fun to revisit that old Speedball with my grandchildren. Like a fun museum. Obviously that's not as simple as it sounded.

[@6fathom117]

this is a yter combo i didnt expect to see today holy shit

[@quickplayzRok]

i’ve seen louis comment on thors videos on multiple occasions

[@awsomebot1]

louis ross scott man

[@bob_kazamakis]

The degrees of separation between ThePrimeagen, SimpleFlips, Louis, and John Hammond is now 1

[@sparksk8er]

And not in the way id want it to be lol

[@ToddReacts]

I literally lost access to playing CoD single player because I don’t have XBOX Gold/Online to download multiplayer DLC/Updates. That needs to be outlawed.

[@Kyle-nm1kh]

Xbox is not the console for you if you care about this.

[@arionell]

@@Kyle-nm1kh That's not the point at all.

[@Kyle-nm1kh]

@arionell my Xbox won't even let me Play any game even if I have a disc, without having xbox gold. If my internet goes out I can't play games. I can't even play DVD on it without Xbox live. My advice is to not use Xbox if this is a problem for you. I doubt this will change any time soon.

[@nine9nine9]

​@@arionellwe're saying this should be outlawed. Its not okay.

[@pleasegoawaydude]

@@Kyle-nm1kh "Well, nothing can change, and that's why I won't try to change it. Gee, I wonder why nothing changes."

[@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...

[@diynevala]

This is a weird week. Thor is ranting like mad while Louis is calm, collected and ready to negotiate. Love both, but Louis gets this round.

[@alazarbisrat1978]

nah, he's just tired of shouting as he said in the beginning of the video

[@BrentMalice]

because any dev would realize this is so stupid. like telling a baker they need to make a cake that i can take apart later and change stuff that i want

[@FirstRecords204]

@@BrentMalice i don't think you understand the initiative at all. having an end of life plan to maintain the consumer's ownership of the game they bought isn't stupid at all. it's more stupid to arbitrarily end an ability's person to play a game they bought at a random date

[@BrentMalice]

@@FirstRecords204 I have published X platform multiplayer games. I read the "initiative", and its literally not possible for most multiplayer games. You would have to rework every aspect of most games to allow this, and not allowing it would cause significantly more cheating. Theres not just a "server" component that you plug some numbers into, the entire game logic is built around a SaaS sdk which has a substantially different license than for art. Just stop buying trash from people who do this, instead of having 0 self control. all the ones that do have an inhouse networking solution and self hosted architecture. thats not reasonable for most people and means that they also have to reimplement all the nice anti-cheating features. dark and darker is suffering from basic cheating right now, because they dont even have area of interest. you can read anyones inventory from anywhere on the map... thats a builtin feature of something like photon.

[@SixCoreSecond]

@@FirstRecords204 except no consumer ever owned the game, only the license for it if the license expires, so does your access to the game stop trying to bend the rules just cuz youre too stupid to read the terms you agreed to

[@GodOfOrphans]

I could not care less how difficult it would be to rewrite the server code in order to comply with potential new game preservation/consumer property rights legislation. The developers and their corporste masters created a system which subverted the rights of the consumer to such a degree that big legislative changes became neccessary why should I care that they might have to pay through the nose for their long overdue comeuppance. I have no sympathy for those who dehumanize me and mine by not respected the most fundamental of all human rights that being property, their crocodile tears mean nothing I've seen what makes them cheer.

[@TheUncleRuckus]

100% this 👏👏👏👏👏👏

[@backlogbuddies]

As an indie dev with friends in the AAA industry: I actually hate these server setups a lot. I'm really tired of a lot of devs in general over relying on tech they don't really need, especially when the old dedicated server system worked way better than modern games connecting to AWS buckets. They tell me it's easier, I've not made an online game, but as a gamer it sucks. I miss running my own servers and modding them. What's funny is payday 2 was playable because they used old p2p tech instead of payday 3's AWS system which caused the game to be unplayable for almost a month due to server issues

[@yavvivvay]

Monetization is the only reason it works this way. And also people hating on it like in Warframe a sizable part of the community wants a server cause p2p is not always a crisp unlaggy 60+fps ;) As for AWS, yeah, as if it was the only provider in the world. Both things scream of sales and exec making tech decisions.

[@tablettablete186]

The Enshitification is everywhere. Yeah, this pisses me off to and I also make sure that my software can 100% be used offline

[@BrentMalice]

go back to ur 2d farming sims. nothing you said makes sense. buckets are for storage, you dont know what youre talking about. AWS gamelift would be their hosting for multiplayer.

[@yavvivvay]

@@BrentMalice the games pull patch assets from thin air, definitely not AWS s3. Not everyone is AWS sales representative (aka certified AWS engineer) these days with knowledge how to buy and configure their bajillion of "let's vendor lockin you to hell" products and services.

[@BrentMalice]

@@yavvivvay Correct, which is why normal people would say "server" or "host" or "provider". He tried to use an appeal to authority by using specific technical terms, but they are completely unrelated. We aren't talking about providing the actual game files, everyone already has those when the game goes offline.... we are talking about the transport for the actual data going between players. He doesn't know what he's talking about, and your just coping because he agrees with you.... which means you agree with someone who doesn't know what theyre talking about. just stop lol this would 100% kill games like battlebit and helldivers, who use 3rd party transports with elegant api's that they literally cant just give out to someone else. its illegal.

[@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.

[@zephranarx2172]

The 'multiplayer service' hurdle doesn't exist. We used to allow games to run local, self-hosted servers. Why the fuck did we stop that? Once a game like TF2 finally dies and has its support cut, it'll still be *playable* because of community servers. Multiplayer games should ALWAYS function like that. Let people run their own goddamn servers to keep the game functional.

[@trawll8659]

Having centralized servers and stuff makes patching and updating easier on Devs but I would say Asmongold has the right take on this situation, if a developer/publisher stops supporting a game regardless if it's single or multiplayer they should also forfeit the right to send C&D notices to third parties that make free private servers unless the dev/publisher resumes the sales and support of said game.

[@average-team-kid]

I don't know much about this and i haven't played a live service game in like a year but isn't it necessary for things like rollback netcode in fighting games? I thought that it facilitates new tech that isn't available with the old methods

[@blubblurb]

What about MMOs?

[@trawll8659]

@@blubblurb World of Warcraft has had multiple private servers over the years, so have many others.

[@Brownd55]

@@average-team-kid Them's Fightin' Herds, a relatively recent game with rollback netcode, has dedicated server tools available

[@cantileveredapotheosis]

You know, in 30 years of development, I've never once seen a software license for library code that was not considered perpetual for your users to use in the compiled game. I have seen some things that crop up from time to time where a license for a particular model or asset is no longer valid, but that doesn't alter previous versions of the distribution, just future ones. So it would be on the game author to create replacements for those? That is only if the game author sells future copies. Normally that stuff is tied to sales, not the distribution of the actual binary. Although it could be somewhat nebulous and some people might just be conservative on how they interpret that statement. Actually, the above statement makes me wonder how it affects cloud downloads. Like, if I buy version 1.0 of the game, are they actually not allowed to make version 1.0 available to me? That actually seems weird, and also I need to throw a wrench into that! Like, ostensibly this is one of the other reasons why you would want this law to exist. If I pay for it and there's no Physical media anymore, then you are responsible for making sure that I keep access to that download, aren't you?

[@alexprach]

I guess it would depend, if the game would break based on different servers, since usually new versions fix old bugs. The thing is there are many types of ownership of software, free for instance can mean one of these things, free as in free beer, free as in free recipe for making the beer, free as in free to reuse beer in what ever way you deem fit. Also would you want them to save a version which had a malicious virus that a malicious employee once included. I feel like many of Louis Rossman's following just want LAN games again, but they aren't willing to make the games themselves or purchase lower graphics indie games that support LAN games which can still be played without interaction of the developer. Also they are too self-aware that playing games with others is difficult since niche indie games are too technical for younger audiences (under 10 years old) who have no idea how to set up a LAN so they can troll them.

[@stardogbillionaire]

I'd love you to have an interview with Ross Scott/Accursed Farms. You two are some of the best content creators.

[@ZeroCooly]

Oh I second this, both have many videos explaining and ironing out their opinions of two issues which very much are adjacent to each other, I think a simple conversation diving into an issue between the two would be probably very productive and interesting.

[@andriablaek2353]

Yes! I completely agree. I would absolutely love to watch a discussion between these two, even if it were an hour or so long. Both of these guys are very informative and entertaining to watch, and are trying to make the world a better place. That’s a pretty good combo right there.

[@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

[@GonziHere]

Hey Luis, I'm a programmer on a F2P looter shooter. That infrastructure isn't as hard as it sounds. You know why? We also want to develop on it and test it. It's not that we would have to add it to the production builds. It's that we would need to stop removing those capabilities. It's why that crew issue (and others like it) infuriates me. From the technology standpoint, it's trivial and is likely already solved anyways for the reasons I've mentioned.

[@backlogbuddies]

The crew also has a single player mode that just requires a uplay license to verify you didn't pirate it. Then it's 100% offline after that. Ubisoft just needs to remove that check

[@Spentalei]

I'm also very surprised at that argument unironically being thrown around. I've worked on some small to incredibly large software projects (albeit not for games) that have been designed from the ground up to be scalable from everything local to fully interwoven in the cloud. Docker containers especially (through WSL) are VERY common for a locally deployed variant. If this is a genuine issue you don't have your shit together.

[@tristancadefletcher]

@@Spentalei you both seem to take your experience and extrapolate it to the entire industry. I know of several businesses that would cease to exist because of what would be required under a situation like this. There will always be genre(s) of games that fall outside of this view. No one has a problem saying single player games shouldn't be a service game. NO ONE has said that on either side of the argument here. that's not the problem with this "proposal".

[@alexatkin]

@@backlogbuddies I do not remember any such single player mode, is there a video showing this?

[@hiya2793]

So you're telling me, if final fantasy 14 approached you and told you to take their ENTIRE BACKEND and convert it from a server-client to a singleplayer infrastructure- You'd be like "Sure, gimme half an hour, and it'll be done!" or "Sure, let's make it all open source, don't worry, i'll pay for all the licences out of pocket and take full responsibility for anything and everything + support tickets" That's something you'd do? Really? Mr programmer? Because don't forget- Ross Scott claimed that there wouldn't be a business impact on the publisher, or the developer.

[@dimitrilium3912]

What they ask of the game dev sound complicated but really it's doable with only two things: 1: Remove DRM and need for internet access when a service close down. (Not that hard considering cracks are often a server address edit) 2: Put the servers on read only and then let anyone browse and download the content of the game data base for a month or two when you MMO or online game close down. (don't even need the source code, gamers will reverse engineer a private server after only a few days. )

[@futuza]

1. This is really easy. Most devs write this as a function call so it's often as simple as simply removing the function call. 2. This has multiple problems. Most of the time devs are under a legal obligation to protect consumer privacy and this could easily include data from the game, unless they get explicit permission from each player to be able to share their data, they likely will need to create some kind of patchwork database made out of data they did get permission to share. Not doing so could violate several laws. It is probably legally safer and simpler to just do a clean slate restart where everyone starts the game fresh. Second, replacing server side code is often not trivial, especially if the game is written in a way that doesn't trust the clients and the majority of calculations are performed serverside only. For some games this is easier than others to do, especially if it is based on hacks or leaks of serverside code, or if the majority of calculations happen on clientside and the servers don't really do anything other than act as a relay. Getting serverside source code makes this a lot easier than having to reverse engineer it and it isn't fair to consumers to expect them to do days (or months as is more often the case) of reverse engineering work, just in order to be able to play.

[@eerolz8758]

​@@futuzaBecause of the privacy regulations, I'd suggest they let everyone download all data regarding their accounts, as I think they're obligated to do anyway. Then players can have their data and hand it off to the private community server. Yes, there could be some shenanigans happening and people giving themselves more stuff, but that's not the problem of the game dev. Or if they cared, they could make some way to verify, for example, make public a database of hashes of each accounts file or something.

[@mkdock]

​@@eerolz8758Then this private servers will leak data perfect!

[@JerziTBoss]

1) I don't think games should implement DRM in first place. All DRM protections are usually broken in first few day after release anyway and they don't stop piracy or even slow it down in any way so what's the point? Dev resources could be better used for bugfixing and polishing the game so they are not such broken mess on release. 2) You can't really make servers read only, but you can put a clear information for consumer that the game is running server side only and that it can be shut down in the future under certain conditions, so the consumer is clearly educated that they are just subscribing to the game and they only pay for the time limited access to the servers, then it's up to consumer whether they want to pay for the service or they won't.

[@RhinoRapscallion]

@@JerziTBoss DRM is fine, as long as it's implemented correctly and not annoying to the users who payed. And it can be effective. Look at Spyro: YOTD's anti-piracy measures, they're pretty cool and they did work for a while. Long enough to get past most games peak sale times. Companies aren't so much looking to stop piracy, they just want to delay it as much as possible.

[@silasroberto6121]

My problem is that Thor response was far from being in good faith. Ross reach out to him, and tried to talk to him one-on-one and thor reaction was to call Ross video "disgusting" and basically spit on his face. It was rude and immature for no reason.

[@nowayjosedaniel]

Thor is a scumbag and always has been. Always simps for Steam too, RELIGIOUSLY defending their horrible 30% cut. Steam is the anti-thesis of Rossman. It's a web store app with Always-on DRM.

[@oskar622]

he gets so defensive about everything and responds to everyone he disagrees with in a snarky way. I watched his streams for a bit, now I don't.

[@ahmataevo]

@@oskar622 - He shouldn't be allowed to use the name Thor, that's cultural appropriation.

[@RiskOfBaer]

It does seem like a classic case of fame getting to his head. He had some good takes and got popular, now he thinks he can say nothing wrong.

[@R-SXX]

​@@ahmataevohe doesnt even have a license on the name, what a hypocrite

[@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.

[@Pdasniper]

Sometimes I get Thor shorts recommendations and think: hey, he's a swell guy who seems like he knows what he's talking about. And then sometimes I come across some of his clips where he spews something bizarre, incorrect or simply untrue. I think the guy uas expertise, but he clearly doesn't know everything and has some biases. Still he acts and positions himself as if he knows all there is to know, games or not.

[@fanrosefabrose9457]

He's a streamer. Streamers consistently behave like they know everything, but if they did they would still have their jobs and not be rallying a bunch of kids behind them with big words and a couple decades of experience

[@jikal9032]

He has some good editors because I felt the same watching his shorts. Then checked out a live and he can be insufferable.

[@andrewbennett2044]

Yes thank you. He says several things from all over the board that are correct/great advice but several of his CS "stories" reek of BS along with some of his random takes shows he doesn't know anything but presents himself of being well versed in everything.

[@Jacob41C]

He wants to be cool, but the only way he knows how to do that is using his authority as a corporate programmer, the most uncool thing you could ever do. Total domineering narcissist, don't trust a single thing he says.

[@kinezumi]

He has a very authoritative voice, but that's easily mistaken for being authoritative. It makes it easy to misinterpret off the cuff remarks as firm statements of fact.

[@sircracked]

Even "Subscription" is the wrong metaphor. When I subscribed to, say a magazine (and yes, I know how much even that statement dates me), and either I canceled that subscription or the magazine went bust, I would cease to get new issues, but, I still had access to go and read the old issues. I can certainly see the existence of a game service that DID fit that analogy, even something like Steam kind of does, but, say, Humble Bundle, etc. Games as a Service really should be referred to as a Membership. If I pay to have a membership to a private club, I can continue to access that club as long as I have a membership, but, that doesn't entitle me to re-live past experiences, even while paying, but especially if I no longer pay, I can't re-access that club, all that remains are memories. Taking words and making them mean things they didn't is atrocious in any event, because of the deceptive capabilities that opens up to trick people, but doing so when we already have perfectly on-point words and metaphors that DO accurately reflect the reality is even more suspect. Either someone is just being lazy, or, they're going out of their way to be deceptive, or advance an agenda in some dishonest way. So, I put forward the idea, when you're on a purely online, game as a service experience, what you've paid for is a Membership. If you get games delivered to you on a regular basis, you have a Subscription. If you have a game that you pay for once and is forever yours, that is a Purchase. If you use one of those but actually mean one of the others, you are an Asshole.

[@ejigantor6634]

Yeah, it's a lease or a rental, not a subscription. Not all subscriptions are for perpetual things - You can't go back and re-eat last month's Cheese Toasty Of The Month subscription offering, but you knew up front that delivery of consumables was the subscription you signed up for.

[@nugget7865]

Why do you need a metaphor. It's literally just a license agreement.

[@mormacil]

Sorry disagree, I can get a subscription to say the local movie theater and see free movies every month as long as the subscription runs. A subscription is just access to a service on a temporary basis/as long as the subscription runs. It can be for the delivery of magazines but also access to facilities. Games perfectly fit into that. A subscription in the base meaning of the word means to sign a thing, a promise for payment for future services rendered. It never meant to get a physical good in return. A membership on the other hand is a conditional access to a group or location. Payment here is optional as is the ability to revoke membership. Thus if anything it's a poor fit. Subscription doesn't gets it's meaning twisted to fit games, it's just not the meaning you're most familiar with.

[@youtubeuniversity3638]

Am I able to be an Asshole without using any of those terms in any way?

[@sircracked]

@@youtubeuniversity3638 Plenty of effective ways to be an asshole!

[@tacanacy]

I was in Thor's stream when he talked about the "Europeans can save gaming!" video, and I unfollowed him when (1) he tried to spin the narrative that people want companies to keep servers running forever even when they're operating at a loss, when this was the opposite of what people were saying and when the video explicitly states that it doesn't except companies to keep servers running forever and that it wants companies to make it possible for people to host their own servers so that they can still play the game they purchased when companies take down the official servers, and (2) when someone in Thor's chat pointed out that The Crew had a solo mode, Thor didn't engage with their argument and just blanket stated that the game was an online-only video game like he was reading it off of Wikipedia. Good grief, what a shithead. Thor deserved to get shat on when he ignored or somehow managed to miss a focal point of the video and invented a scenario that doesn't exist, while being the one shitting on people.

[@RastaSzopen]

True, He showed his true colours in that case.

[@CrittingOut]

"Thor didn't engage with their argument" so basically business as usual. This guy always creates a strawman or just simply doesn't address the argument and then makes himself look like a genius somehow. His fans eat it up.

[@nowayjosedaniel]

Thor simps for Valve's 30% cut at every opportunity. That's all you need to know he has never been good.

[@jaxusstormweaver2231]

Except he didn't spin the narrative, he talked about the lifespan of a live service game when it came to the servers and player population. Without a good player population over a long period of time, running server, infrastructure and general costs basically dictate the scenario. In order to provide distribution rights which is necessary for running private servers with the required configurations, information and probably proprietary services etc you need a lot of agreements from all those involved in the project, not just the developer but also the other rights holders. Factor in the dev time in order to create that accessibility as well and you will see it's a waste of hours and money for a game that maintains just under 50 players 8 to 10 years into it's lifespan, not fresh players either. Yeah, it makes sense Thor wouldn't touch that point, either because he has thousands of people chatting at the same time or rather because it's explicitly stated The Crew is a live service game. Hell, it even says in the EULA the game is licensed to you, not sold. You may have a license of the game but you certainly don't own the game itself and are thus subject to the termination conditions set out in the EULA/TOS. There's no need to call him a shithead, you've also basically made him out to be someone he is not. Also, in regards to the key point, Thor only said he won't support it as a result of how non specific the petition currently is. Saying it's an easy win and that politicians can use it to avoid other important issues is the wrong way to go about it, especially without clarifying what is to be done. This is something that could affect the entire industry and without having sorted itself out with proper wording and reasoning, bringing it forward would just be a waste of everyone's time. Give Thor a listen again and focus on his wording.

[@PrinceLobo-es8kl]

"He has always acted like smug know it all narcissist"

[@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.

[@HelmutDoork]

That actually happened with a kids game called Toontown, after Disney shut down its server. It was an online multiplayer game that was so popular people recreated the server as Toontown Revisited and Toontown: Corporate Clash. The new versions are free to play.

[@kaden-sd6vb]

Sshhhhh, Disney might have forgotten but we do not need to remind them of anything!

[@Jiffcef]

The cogs does not want us to have fun that for sure

[@larseich5796]

It has happened a couple of times. Another example is Age of Empires Online. Here the community project is called Project Celeste. The original devs went even so far as to provide concept art for unfinished content so the community could develop it themselves. And if Disney and Microsoft can do it all, then everyone can

[@HyenaBlank]

@@kaden-sd6vb Disney is already aware of them for quite some time. They allow it as long as it's all kept free. They only get stingy about it if any money gets involved.

[@rightbehindyou9398]

you mean Toontown Rewritten? Man I love that game, they even hosted irl conventions for it with the original dev(s)