They Are Destroying Your Games - Don't Let Them

[@UpperEchelon]

Take your personal data back with Incogni! Use code ECHELON at the link below and get 60% off an annual plan: incogni.com/echelon

[@archeryfinn1658]

But how can I blame trans women?

[@SBImNotWritingMyNameHere]

​@@archeryfinn1658 What

[@sYd6point7]

The problem is, no one taught, or at least none of the last two generations LISTENED or LEARNED about "VOTE WITH YOUR DOLLAR" us gen x been screeching it from the hills all our lives, but nope still whine about privacy on that smart phone, hate Facebook but still use those apps, etc, people create the things they hate now. they don't even try top prevent them. I hate to be that guy, but, The CONSUMERS are broken, Not the industry. Fix the consumers, the industry will alter itself to survive. Vote with your dollars kids, just like those old boomers TRIED to teach you to. I am a OLD gamer, and I can say, all your Green light early access hype train stuff, ruined it all and gave all these bad actors the open door to do what they wanted to you. We USED to buy finished products and valid products...sure lots didn't make it to market, but the market is saturated in garbage.... we don't need 90000 garbage games and 10 good games... The gaming world Consumers did that, not the developers. The developers and companies may have done the nasty parts, but the Consumers 100000% all the way from day one, gave them the permission to do this to us all. The logic of "If you don't approve of that company, stop using its software.." is beyond the minds of far too many.

[@r3gret2079]

I don't know enough about all this "personal data" shit to care. Why should I care that FB sells my messages to netflix? Why is that bad? Why should I care about people selling info on the sites I frequent, or the food I like, or the stuff I buy. Targeted ads and all that other stuff, which again I know shit about, just makes the online experience easier n more streamlined, imo. I'm not being an ass, I am genuinely curious why that is an issue??? Im a fuckin nobody who does nothing interesting. I don't think I care who knows that. But its obviously a very serious topic to bajillions of people. I'm just not knowledgeable enough in the topic.

[@pvshka]

@@r3gret2079 well, targeted advertising based on search history and interests is one thing. But when services like social media start combing through your personal messages, voice recordings, your personal photographs, and start blacklisting you or uppricing offers based on that... Yeah, that's not a very desirable experience. So you should aim towards being as anonymized as possible on the internet. How good this promoted service is at that, I cannot testify, but yeah, anyway, that's how bad data collection/selling has gotten.

[@Accursed_Farms]

Thanks a bunch for the mention! Just to clarify, options are unfortunately minimal for people in the USA (unless you own The Crew), a whole of this is focused on other countries, since those were the only openings I found. That said, the more complaints get filed, the more likely something will be done about this. Also, governments are dragging their asses on opening initiatives we submitted over 3 weeks ago, but as soon as they open up, more people can take action in more countries.

[@plexus42]

Hope you do another video and PR campaign when the European one opens up, got about 20 people to send a complaint to the Verbraucherzentrale, I know it's a long shot to get the million. but definitely worth a try.

[@shaunpearce6846]

Can you become a company that purchases the old game? I think conpanys don't want to keep old games if there's no profit/money is tied into the service. Crowdfund to acquire and maintain?

[@danieltoth9742]

@@shaunpearce6846 That would cost an insane amount of money -- more than any normal person or Ross can afford to spend without a plan for getting return on investment. Games get stolen from us specifically because not enough people are interested in them to maintain profits anymore, so recouping your investment on such games would not be feasible. And that's assuming the publisher is even willing to sell at all.

[@danieltoth9742]

@@shaunpearce6846 That would cost way too much, and that's assuming the publishers would even sell. What Ross and his team are helping us do is a way cheaper and more reliable method. We need to punish bad behaviour, not reward it.

[@Dawamesk420]

@@shaunpearce6846 That only sounds good on the surface, as far as I can see. 1. people who'd support the crowd fund would mainly be players of affected games. Thereby, they're basically buying the game twice from the publishers who are ripping them off in the first place. 2. it incentivizes publishers to follow those scummy practices of planned obsolescence, while at the same time making extra money + avoiding bad PR because players are still sufficiently sedated 3. it's significantly more feasible to run a collection of legacy services from within a publisher, with new titles covering the expanses, than to rely solely on continuous goodwill of consumers

[@DeafEnder]

This problem goes much further than just video games. The idea of ownership itself is being erased.

[@SourDonut99]

Everyone wants to replicate the real estate model to everything. The thing about real estate is its not THAT bad of value considering depreciation of the assets. It cost like $10k a year to upkeep a home. You might not think it costs that much money but between property taxes and infrequent costs like renovations and roofing which can rack up way higher than $10k but occurs infrequently. If you spread it out, its about that much just to maintain a house without a loan. If you have a loan then its even higher. Buying is cheaper than renting but not THAT much cheaper. The main attraction to buying a home is actually the potential of flipping it at a higher value. This being all said. These coporate assholes want us to pay rent on things without this upkeep cost. Things we can't flip for higher value. Stuff like digital assets which cost them basically nothing on a per customer level. Things that never depreciate. Often theres no scarcity either. The cool thing is. Because theres no scarcity, they are going broke. But there is this interim before the market corrects itself where customers get scammed for the first time and a period before new companies come up with better strategies.

[@mightyraptor01]

Kinda like their trying to remove independent businesses.

[@shaunrye7740]

The WEF mantra. You will own nothing but be happy.

[@lunatic0verlord10]

@@shaunrye7740 Well, it's not working.

[@gfys756]

​@@lunatic0verlord10It's actually working quite well. The general public doesn't know and doesn't care.

[@IK47-d2l]

If buying isn't owning, then piracy isn't stealing!

[@jaydamalley3398]

That certainly rings true now.

[@tacituskilgore8747]

Booyah!

[@ambrosiogiovanni6952]

Oh, i'm never buying a Ubisoft or Blizzard game after the bullshit they said. It's a pirates life for me.

[@montyturner6511]

Ikr.

[@MikeisRelic]

If buying isn't owning, then piracy isn't stealing!

[@asmkalrizion7078]

Most irritating thing about the shift to digital is how many times I've bought a disc box for a game, only for a gamecode to be inside instead of a disc.

[@volvo09]

Wow, so if you want to play that game in 20 years you literally won't be able to because I guarantee that server will not be running for you to download it.

[@BraveAbandon]

Gross. What a disgusting deception

[@MephiticMiasma]

That happened to me when I went to a Microsoft conference-- they just gave us registration and download codes. I downloaded the install exe's and keep them on a usb, so I can reinstall whenever I want. that was 2007 or so. Not sure that'd work today.

[@levibull6063]

Don't my friend got a ps5 with god of war ragnarok ... opens the case And a code is inside ..... like huh wasn't everyone annoyed with plastic strays but a case is made for a code .... I smell some high tier BS

[@FuzedBox]

The worst case scenario of this happened to me: I purchased a hard copy of the Wings of Liberty expansion for SCII that was on sale at a store. While it did have a disc, it was just a launcher. I couldn't install it because Blizzard said the serial couldn't be activated. After a month of back and forth with their "customer support", I gave up. They told me the serial was out of date and wasn't redeemed fast enough. I told them it was a hard copy from a store, and even showed them the receipt, but they refused to activate the product. I couldn't even return the game to the store because I had bought it at a location out of state. I never played a Blizzard product again.

[@QuiteSpiffing]

Worth noting that this is not just a shift within the video game industry. The automotive industry putting seat heating behind paywalls, or cars that refuse to start if they cannot install software updates. The smartphone industry making us ever more reliant on their services to the point we are no longer _allowed_ to break open the shell of one to repair them ourselves, this same goes for other electronic/smart devices. The creative industries too, with corporations like Adobe no longer selling physical licenses to their products, and instead selling us revocable "services", renting out their software instead. All of these industries and more have shifted or are shifting toward the "live service" trend, taking away our rights as users in the process.

[@dividedstatesofamerica2520]

enshittification of the world and life as you know it.

[@QuiteSpiffing]

@@dividedstatesofamerica2520 And it won't stop as long as we allow these corporations and their r*p*st mentalities to run free.

[@flydrop8822]

Pirate everything, modify everything, or just don't rent these stupid things. Why are people so fierce about "consumer rights" against things they can simply choose NOT to use? I get the one about smartphones because there is an oligopoly supported by government and the companies that make them are all pushing for these changes collectively, also modifying them is easier said than done. I fail to see how this is unavoidable when it comes to games and easily piratable software, however.

[@MikuHatsune159]

If they can get away with doing these for a month with no utter backlash that requires them to take it back, they know that people will not be vocal enough to stop them. They'll continue as long as we don't yell at them and spam every day for making everything a service.

[@QuiteSpiffing]

@@flydrop8822 I get you, however, we shouldn't HAVE to do these things if we want to use specific kinds of hard/software, that is the whole point of it all.

[@gronkgrunk]

You used to purchase games. Now you lease or rent them. 'You will own nothing & be happy'.

[@mikea9943]

If when you purchase a game, it's not ownership of the said game, then pirating that game is not stealing said game. Let's keep it simple! Not another penny at this point for any of these twats.

[@RealRatchet]

​@@mikea9943let's keep it simpler, piracy de facto is not stealing.

[@IK47-d2l]

Capitalism at its finest!

[@paul.9828]

@@stigmaoftheroseThat’s a good point. It is disingenuous of an online shop to use the words “purchase” or “buy” instead of “lease” or “rent.” There is no doubt that they would lose sales if they were honest with their wording.

[@beanman853]

@@stigmaoftherose yes you purchase a license

[@mightylink65]

If they're entering the grey area then so am I. The last few years I've started pirating some games I've already paid for simply because I don't want to lose them. Luckily we have amazing developers like Larian who make their games DRM free so it's as simple as copying the game folder to a backup drive. Owning the products you've paid for, what a crazy concept!

[@Dat_Jonx]

I wish there were Titanfall servers for cracked versions.

[@funkymunky7935]

Piracy is the gaming archives

[@cynicalia]

Bro didn’t pay for 2023 goty

[@OxyShmoxy]

That's why acquiring games through "alternative" means is not just okay, it's our duty until our rights are protected by the consumer laws.

[@BloodyMobile]

"If `buying` doesn't mean `owning`, `pirating` doesn't mean `stealing`."

[@paulaccuardi9071]

We aren’t talking about games that are already cracked, those are safe. Modern games are almost impossible to crack, so no one pirates them and they die forever when support is dropped. Everyone could only get pirated games and it would solve nothing.

[@d.ink3d]

@@paulaccuardi9071 What are you talking about, most games get cracked eventually, cause denuvo is hella expensive after 1+ year they usually remove it and then its insta cracked. And many modern games still get cracked on Day 1 cause not all publishers pay for denuvo, everything else is easy to crack.

[@FirstNameLastName-gq3uv]

As long as you don’t steal from good developers, this holds. I hate it when people steal from good developers.

[@GregorianMG]

​@@FirstNameLastName-gq3uv When nobody steal your game at all, that means it literally means no demand for your game. While yes it's morally wrong to pirate stuff, I think it actually help the game in the long run as a free advertisement and those potential buyer will buy it if your game is that good even though they may pirate it in the process.

[@rd-um4sp]

oh, if it were only games. Everything is becoming a live service. Your car, your tv, your computer, everything. It is the recurrent revenue model: If you're not paying x% of your income to us you cannot have a normal life. The sad part is when we arrive at that point, where more people will be affected and start complaining it will be too late. Games is just easier because it is so unimportant in the grand scheme of things. But the worst offenders are people who say: "That's how the world is. Nothing we can do about it"

[@dividedstatesofamerica2520]

The latter quote is the typical npc response.

[@Rexhunterj]

Games is because most people over the age of 40 look at video games like a childish toy and refuse to change their mind on that mindset. Since most people over the age of 40 see them as trivial toys, the people in charge of things (making law, legislation etc.) Also view it this way.

[@LordVarkson]

Cars have always been a live service. If you don't pay microtransactions at the petrol station, it stops working.

[@lennysmileyface]

@@LordVarkson What?

[@LaughingMan44]

​@@LordVarksonterrible analogy, if you don't buy fuel you still own your car

[@existentialselkath1264]

This is why GOG is one of the few actually good competetors to steam. Those games will last forever. That doesn't solve always online games though, they need offline patches

[@Sweetestsadist]

Push for laws that protect you. Ones where "Terms of Service" are removed or cannot be changed. Laws that state if a game you purchased is changed afterwards, it is considered a bait and switch entitling you to compensation, and laws where companies must offer a full refund of every dollar you paid into it should you ever be denied access to it.

[@breeminator]

There's definitely a need for new laws in this area. I'm not sure exactly what those laws should be, but I think a good starting point is to try to re-gain parity between digital and physical media. For example, there should be a legal right to be able to trade digital products like you can sell your unwanted music CDs etc.

[@tempestvenator9809]

​@@breeminatorYeah, we can trade physical copies for other physical copies. So why can't we trade digital games for other digital games? It would give more value to digital games if they were something that COULD be exchanged on the digital market between people who owned said games.

[@player1_fanatic]

Remember when dedicated servers were a thing?

[@cynicalia]

And still are

[@LMNTRON]

I hope they still do.

[@meyes1098]

Here's the thing though: unless the GAME is literally a subscription service (so not a one time purchase), then it is by international law a PRODUCT. It's an international agreement called the "Nice agreement", which recognizes software as a product. And as a product, you OWN it, even if it's software. By OWN, we understand ownership of the INSTANCE of the product that you bought. So it's technically illegal for them to not allow you to download the game anymore, or to not play it anymore. All we need is some ballsy people suing these assholes and starting precedents.

[@Skeletons_Riding_Ostriches]

This, so much this. I see so much people saying things like 'I don't own my Steam library'. Yes, you DO. You bought the game, there's a legal TRANSFER OF OWNERSHIP.

[@Freesorin837]

All of this is without mentioning the fact that the cost of running servers long term could be completely eliminated by including the ability for players to host their own server, which is how online games used to work back in the early 2000s specifically of how expensive server hosting is.

[@Me_Caveman]

I don't buy live service games. The anti-consumer trends aren't on me.

[@jacobpipers]

Ubisoft literally shutdown single player games

[@ytzealot]

@@jacobpipers Singleplayer games with an always-on requirement are still live services.

[@RobotCrafter1]

A lot of WB's games they are delisting are single player offline games.

[@LucasCunhaRocha]

I don't buy pretty much anything anymore. I certainly won't ever buy an AAA game ever again unless it is 90% off, and even then I will still think hard about it.

[@ahmadrunningwild85]

So you are ok with games that do not update at all?

[@CherryPauper]

Piracy is not morally wrong if publishers can just delist games from your library or shut down servers or close your account that contains your games library.

[@SFJake250]

Unfortunately a "properly" designed service game cannot simply be pirated.

[@ambrosiogiovanni6952]

@@SFJake250 It... Can. There are pirate servers.

[@DragonOfTheMortalKombat]

Piracy was never morally wrong, you are NOT stealing and piracy was always a service problem.

[@sYd6point7]

@@SFJake250 I don't know my old world of warcraft servers,[still on a HDD somewhere here] would beg to differ.

[@FlavorsomeMusic]

Just as these companies aren't responsible if you'd sit on your physical media/dvd rom for your game, they're not responsible if you don't back up your licenses/data. They're also not responsible if you engaged in a live service and lost stuff because they shut it down when they warned you in your license that this might happen. That being said, there's a trust relationship between both parties, it's in their interest to not break your trust so they can keep getting your money, which is ultimately what they want. They're not making games for you, sadly. It then falls on the consumers to not put money towards bad practices, but they are still pulling hundreds of millions on these games. I'm not against piracy for preservation and such purposes, but if you're gonna steal from them, yeah, it **is** morally wrong. In fact, it's as close as you can get to the literal definition of morally wrong. If you want the moral high grounds, **don't give them your money and don't play the game**.

[@ZachSeineVideos]

It's kinda funny that 'Gordon Freeman' of all people, had to raise his voice so people started doing something about this.

[@etaxalo]

i had to think a moment for the penny to drop, but man did it hit the center of the earth.

[@humanismagenda7]

Its depressing, it sucks that there are old games stuck on old systems. They are being intentionally or unintentionally forgotten. Publishers, developers or whoever are just making the remakes and reboots of these games. In an aligned universe or an alternate universe, we get the Resident Evil classic collection, Silent Hill collection, sly cooper collection, God of War collection, Ratchet and Clank collection, Jax collection, spyro collection etc on current consoles/systems. Its 2024 and all that time is wasted on always online live-service games, no singleplayer offline games. Greedy suits, business men and women (non-gamers) only care about money, instead of us gamer's interests.

[@masterlinktm]

It is intentional. They cannot "print money" with old games. To the people that are doing these things, games are not products. They are a means of obtaining more money and thus more control. The forces at play are intentionally centralizing everything.

[@voiceofreason4551]

I bought a pc just to emulate everything PS3 and older. Gonna back up those files on an external hard drive, along with copies of the emulators. Big tech wont preserve these games, so people take matters in their own hands.

[@LaZd-]

@@voiceofreason4551 Is there a place that can teach me how to emulate? I doubt you can answer that here, for obvious reasons, but I genuinely want to learn emulation cause I'm sick of seeing so many of my favorite games just lost to time.

[@voiceofreason4551]

@@LaZd- the emulators for ps2 and ps3 are called RPCS2 and RPCS3. Google search them and follow the guides on their websites. For Ps1 i have duckstation. There are also guides for this on youtube.

[@voiceofreason4551]

@@LaZd- google search ps2 emu for pc, same for ps3, should not be hard to find. There are even videos on youtube about it. Just type it in the searchbar. (My comments get deleted for some reason, i hope this one stays up)

[@TheVisualParadox]

Building an offline mode at the end life cycle of these games would be a very good thing for anyone wanting to play them even after theyre gone.

[@LiamNajor]

As a hobbyist developer, I think it should be a legal requirement.

[@sherrybeckett22]

Remasters and remakes are too big a cottage industry on their own to justify this to publishers. People wouldn't buy the new one if they could keep playing the old one forever. They don't wanna compete with themselves

[@arthurwintersight7868]

@@LiamNajor - I wouldn't make it a legal requirement. What I would do is completely nullify the copyright on any game that is rendered unplayable, for even a single hour, because the game publisher is unable and/or unwilling to provide continuous uninterrupted server access. Developers will be almost guaranteed to offer single player and/or some kind of "private server" option just so they don't lose their copyright the first time they suffer from a server outage.

[@GamerFromJump]

@@sherrybeckett22 - I don’t think so. If the remake or remaster is worth buying, then people will buy.

[@mattyb.5628]

Remember when you used to be able to download the server software so you could host your own dedicated servers? It didn't matter if the official servers were shut down, you could host your own indefinitely. I know some people work very hard analysing network traffic to reverse-engineer a server, with mixed success. I suspect if popular games keep getting shut down then people might start doing that.

[@parafitality2730]

Not even games only anymore, companies are doing it with hardware. For example, Samsung recently rendered older gear watches (e.g gear s2 and s3) useless by not allowing them to pair with any phones they made from 2024 onwards. The phones no longer allowed the watches to connect to them via Bluetooth.

[@breadmoth6443]

"they got comfortable not owning their CD or DVD collection.." , wrong, I never stopped buying DVDs (now blurays), and CDs.....the convenience of digital media is outweighed by the fact that my "purchase" is not permanent and I can suddenly lose access to what i PURCHASED.

[@breadmoth6443]

@FreePigeon luckily i don't have that issue, but the point stands ; when i purchase something , as far as i'm concerned it is mine when it comes to books, movies and tvs, and games - although i stopped gaming during the mid life of the ps2, for that i just emulate ,, but again the point stands.

[@Mr.Unacceptable]

Saying we gave up our DVD's and CD's and MP3's is highly disingenuous. Many of us still buy and collect them. They just don't count us because we don't interact with their scam products. I have 4500 DVD's and blurays in my movie collection. I still have all my MP3's from the90's. They just want to be able to sell you the same crap over and over. Which is what a subscription is. If I wanted I'd rip everything off a music subscription onto my NAS and cancel my subscription. People are lazy that's the issue. That's why they are doing this.

[@Novskyy621]

People are not more lazy than before. But the digital transformation made many things more convenient and simply faster. You probably won't like it but you are a minority in this regard. Aswell as people are that pirate stuff. Physical media will die out pretty soon

[@RetroProg]

Still buy all my music on CD/Vinyl. No One can come into my house and steal my 3000+ music library on a whim.

[@Pulmonox]

See, I feel like you calling him disingenuous is in and of itself being disingenuous. Obviously he's not talking about you or to those select few who have held on to their physical media or personal digital copies, but even you have to admit that you have become a minority of the consumer base. PC and laptops haven't been sold with a built-in optical drive in years. Cell phones no longer come with MicroDS card slots, and even consoles are phasing out optical and physical media options, going purely digital. They are doing this because the market has allowed them to. Yes, the consumer is not blameless for this, and I will never argue that fact, but reality is what it is, and even if you've taken the extra steps, most people haven't bothered, because convenience is a heck of a drug. In terms of movies and books, they can be easily preserved and maintained, but games are a different story. They're locked to proprietary mediums, whether software (servers) or hardware (consoles). This makes preservation a more involved manner. THOUSANDS of flash games were lost when Flash went defunct, and while there have been mass efforts to convert/revive them, they are often not the same game as they were in their native environment. This movement isn't just about bad business practices and poor consumer behavior. Whether or not you choose to participate in a so-called online services or mass subscriptions, when a game is lost because the publisher kills it, every asset and aspect of art contained within that game is gone. You cannot view, experience, or admire them except through old videos on the internet- which are also impremanent and only a fraction of the experience. Also, even holding physical copies is no longer a guarantee. Let's take 'The Crew' (the game that sparked this whole debacle with Accursed Farms). When it goes down, not even your physical copy will allow you to play it. It is rendered a useless object. How much longer will it be before every multimedia industry goes that route? Subscribe or get out? Not only will you not be allowed to purchase physical media, but eventually your hardware will sputter and die, and the only option left will be their propriatary and completely controlled locked-down systems where even if you try to upload your MP3 to listen to it, they will recognize it as a bootleg file and prevent it. This movement is only partially about consumer protection. A lot of Ross's passion comes in the form of preservation of the art. People's time, sweat, tears and money went into that project, and companies can just kill it at their whim, to never be experienced again, and that is something that should be fought, because it will be better for all of us, whether we are a discerning customer who is careful with their money or not.

[@ram89572]

You're an exception to the rule man. I know because I'm one too. But the overwhelming majority of people did stop buying things on disc. I play games on pc so I haven't bought my games on disc in many years. And while I do still buy a ton of Blu rays and dvds, games is not something I buy physical for the most part. But after the Xbox 360 era physical disc's didn't matter for games anyway because the consoles won't let you play without updates

[@limetime9045]

I feel like it's disingenuous to imply that anyone gave them up, even the ones who buy digital. Sure, there's plenty of people who prefer pure digital media, and it's a great option for indie devs who can't afford manufacturing costs, but if I could buy physical media of every single game I enjoy, I would. Companies simply don't offer the option anymore half the time. Even when physical discs are offered for PC users, they're more often than not just Steam installer discs with an access key in place of a game manual. They don't actually have game data on them, it's a waste of plastic.

[@utubenoobie01]

"You vill own nussing unt you vill be happy!" - That Guy - 20XX

[@volvo09]

Guy that literally looks like the perfect movie supervillain.

[@robinnewhouse1563]

Nice made up quote you have there. But I love how it goes to show the dumb just gobble everything up.

[@Wierie_]

⁠@@robinnewhouse1563it’s about klaus schwaab ya dumb dumb

[@meh.7640]

we're not happy though ... not at all. btw he told us that in 20 fcking 16!! took people 8 years to notice and most still haven't heard of it.

[@Wierie_]

@@robinnewhouse1563its reffering to klaus schwaab ya dingus

[@johnblaze8092]

I don't buy into live service games nor do I buy microtransactions. I'm very careful about what I buy, so I haven't owned a game that has been shut down. I do own The Division 2 and I'm sure that will probably be my first, in due time. I'm glad people are taking action but we also need to start spending our money wisely. The power over the gaming industry is in our hands, in the hands of the consumer. Never forget that.

[@AdonanS]

Yeah, I've heard a few people claim we have no real power. On an individual level that's true (too a very slim extent), but they always seem to forget the collective level. I haven't played a live service game in about two years, and the only one I even consider jumping back into is FFXIV. Once you realize how many good single player games are out there-old and new-avoiding live services becomes a lot easier.

[@sYd6point7]

We always had the power. Youth forgot, or were not taught. "We used to vote with our dollar." It was Highly effective. These people toss money at frivolous trendy ideas like it is worthless. The consumers are broken, not the industry.

[@flydrop8822]

@@AdonanS How is it true? This problem literally does not affect you if you don't buy these shitty service "games". The most damage it can do is ruin all time classics like CoD and Battlefield, but honestly this is just another nail in their coffins.

[@_anon]

"Just vote with your wallet guys trust me, the consumers are broken not the industry" The industry really has to start hiring better shills, come up with some new lines for your propaganda.

[@flydrop8822]

​@@_anon ah yes the guy saying he doesnt buy any live service games or microtransactions is a shill for the "industry " lmfao.

[@ChazDragoon]

well I did not expect this... thanks for covering Ross's Video and efforts to try and save games. Hopefully this helps spread the word further and the chances of success get better.

[@lunar1199]

When they take disc drives out of consoles then we won't even be able to buy physical. I think this will also kill the remaining dvds since most people watch them on consoles nowadays. I'm relutant to pay £70 for a game I can't hold in my hand so I may just have to hold onto my old consoles and play old games.

[@timothyvanhoeck233]

Speaking of Ross, I wonder if this has anything to do with why Google/KZbin is constantly waging a demonetization/video takedown war against his channel (aside from his being pro-adblocker, I mean)*🤔 *Update: It seems I confused Ross with another KZbinr. With this revelation, I'd like to clarify that I do not know what Ross's stance on adblockers is, though apparently I was correct in KZbin's censorship against him, albiet purely by coincidence, as it it wasn't Ross whom I was thinking of. Sorry for the confusion, everyone.

[@JiriJustra]

Oh, new info for me. Thanks, mate.

[@Rexhunterj]

@@JiriJustra KZbin actively hides his videos in searches with exact word matches for titles and tags.

[@mordsythe]

@@Rexhunterjno it doesn’t… I was watching multiple videos of Louis just today that I was keyword searching for. Stop making shit up to sound impressive .. you just sound like a tool.

[@aquilafasciata5781]

It should be required of all companies that shut down servers for games to open source the server software so people can spin up their own instances.

[@CincyRaz]

Destiny 2 removed half their content 4 years ago only to drip feed it back into the game as seasons and charging for it again. Now that they are losing players and not making revenue goals they are dumping a bunch of the best missions and weapons that had been removed as a "free" update and lots of players are praising them for this. This is shit we paid for that bungie removed! Don't praise them for the bare minimum!

[@voidimperial1179]

Bungie's fanbase is collectively suffering stockholm syndrome

[@Rexhunterj]

Every time I see a Datto video I cringe, because it's clear he's on the copium canister in the background. I played that game daily 4 years ago and then they vaulted most of the content and I stopped playing. They literally removed over 60% of the raids in one moment, that's 60% of the end-game content anyone really cared about.

[@tempestvenator9809]

Yeah I stopped playing D2 when I realized entire campaigns that I PAID FOR would be gone from the game. Osiris, Warmind, the main campaign. All of it gutted by Bungie. It almost makes me wonder who was the actual abusive parent of Destiny. Because Desttiny 2 single handedly got worse after it became solely Bungie's thing.

[@CincyRaz]

@@tempestvenator9809 the game absolutely got worse when Bungie went independent. Missed deadlines, lower quality, less content and more micro transactions. Bungie has proven repeatedly they work better when a parent company holds them accountable.

[@Dethgato5060]

Kinda like whats going on with home ownership around the world. Unless lucky or already rich GOOD LUCK. The irony is they say you cant afford a morgage but 10 times out of 10 your rent is higher. Nobody can afford s-hit. Definitely cant afford to own. Low and behold renting is the only other option, least that I know of.

[@SioxerNikita]

One thing I find... interesting, is that we use the term "Digital" for the online, but physical media is also digital.

[@Scruffynerfherder10]

Exactly. Fallout 76 had no physical disc, it was a card with the code for the Bethesda launcher. What if the Bethesda is completely dead, that card is then useless

[@16xthedetail76]

No it isn't. It's mainly ONLY AAA games. So many people peddle this shit, it's false.

[@IN-tm8mw]

Its about accessibility of admin rights on those digital files. Hard Copy of Digital data, where you have control of all the files vs Online Digital, where anti cheat programs prevent you from editing the files. Most today, just say "Digital" meaning purely or only accessible by those means.

[@SioxerNikita]

@@16xthedetail76 Wtf you talking about? It is LITERALLY digital media on the physical media...

[@wamba2097]

The terms digital and physical are used to describe the delivery mediums. Not the media itself which is, obviously, digital either way.

[@itsprivate3061]

it should be a no brainer than when you modify the terms of a sale, you either full refund or egg off, imagine walmart will go and knock at your door and try to charge you extra for groceries a week after you consume them

[@EthanAbate]

I thought about Evolve as I started watching and audibly gasped when you said the name. I was a big fan of the initial release of Evolve, one of my most played games at the time, and it was incredibly sad to see the original game die and then be taken offline entirely. All the extra DLC monsters and money spent gone. Years later they tried to resurrect it as free to play Stage 2, and I tried it, but it was never the same game as the original. That too has obviously quickly died and been taken offline entirely. It is a travesty this is becoming the norm across the industry. It's hard with multi-player games, where if the player base is gone they are essentially dead anyway. But entirely removing ownership is insane, when there could be small groups of people playing their own matches. Glad you talked about Evolve, excellent quality content as usual.

[@AaRoNaNtHoNy80]

I think that's what a lot of this newer generation doesn't understand. They are so used to instant gratification and having things at the push of a button. If you don't have a physical copy of anything, you don't actually own it. Sure you pay your money for the digital version, but basically it's just a long-term rental. These companies can take it away anytime they want.

[@montyturner6511]

I reject the future of buying games digital only. The only people who benefit from this are publishers. Not gamers. I don't care how convenient it is to buy digitally,physical copies should stay around. Edit:Good thing that Ross is fighting for preservation of video games. Edit#2:Gaming publishers should not have the right to just killswitch games. Their cruel for doing this.

[@grandstarstudiosFORMER-YT]

NOT EVEN THE PUBLISHERS BENEFIT, ONLY THE GREEDY @$$ CORPORATIONS BENEFIT!

[@ServantOfBoron]

As is mentioned in the video, please join Ross from Accursed Farms in his campaign to change these laws in Europe at least. Spread the word about The Crew game being shutdown permanently. He is planning legal moves against Ubisoft.

[@hrthrhs]

@11:10 - Another reason why I have almost never subscribed to music or video streaming apps, because if not owning a product is popular in one industry then other industries will take notice and likely follow suit.

[@theredwedge9446]

This is why I dont gent into mostly any new games that come out, they get shut down soon after launch.

[@l-_-lForkBombl-_-l]

2 years ago I turned my old computer into an media server and now I have 6000 movies and 350 pc games that need no internet whatsoever to play.

[@Evanz111]

Had a feeling this would end up being about The Crew as the headliner. Absolutely gutted that game got taken down. It’s not just a case of “well just play the sequels, they’re improved and have more content” - because The Crew 1 was so different. You actually had to explore the map, making travelling have purpose, and you uncover the entirety of the USA. The story went in such a drastically different direction in the sequels too, hell they barely even had a story, they went in a sandbox direction. Will definitely be checking out Ross’ channel. Would love to be able to find a way to stop publishers from getting away with this.

[@Jaeger_Bishop]

Look up the B.R.I.D.G.E Initiative. This DEI and all this propaganda, it's unfortunately much bigger than we thought.

[@archeryfinn1658]

But... Is it woke? And is the Race Theory Critical? N-word. F-slur.

[@varnix1006]

@@archeryfinn1658 It's just DEI but renamed, essentially the same bs.

[@theupperechelon7634]

It doesn't get much bigger than Blackrock, so we knew it was big from the beginning.

[@Jaeger_Bishop]

@@theupperechelon7634 What I'm saying is, this is another head of the same Hydra.

[@TheVisualParadox]

Bridge 2.0 is also a thing.

[@DJRiyzen]

I dont mess with live service games.

[@Skeletons_Riding_Ostriches]

Go to the website and take action anyway. Otherwise, in the future, ALL games will be service games.

[@berkkarsi]

This is even worse for people who have physical copies of these games, because the contents of the game is still on the disc, and yet it won't work because it can't connect to servers.

[@dylanhohn3713]

4:30 this is why I quit warzone. I was a whale. I spent probably 2k on warzone. I owned most in game skins. This is why I am never buying another one of their products.

[@grit9938]

Many of us saw this coming 20 years ago when the courts allowed publishers to start selling games as a "license" and not actual ownership. Publishers have now since realized they can force sales of new games by shutting down the old ones.

[@jaggoff6949]

I've pretty much resigned myself from ever paying for tripple A games at this point. Even the ones I really want to play im just going to pirate, if I have no guarantee that the money I spend is going to keep value at all, I will just take it.

[@ShemPayne]

When are people going to learn, it's all just horse armor.

[@someguy4252]

thats the thing, via clever manipulation of data, surveys, and statistics. marketing and to a lesser degree political lobbying teams have bloated the "gamer" demographic to basicly include anyone with a mobile phone. by diluting this pool in such a way they can lie in creative ways to make unpopular things seem popular... cherry picked data is the norm for this tactic, and some people will latch on to it just because it seems popular or cool.

[@fernandofaria2872]

Im perfectly comfortable not owning any Ubisoft game.

[@blastkillskank]

They are destroying their own games... Watch us make our own and only buy our own instead. Indie dev companies on the rise and coming.

[@Digitaldreamer7]

We didn't get "comfortable" with not owning our CDs or DVDs, we just learned how to share and steal them without consequences. We do the same with single player games... Why do you think companies are pushing for online software as a service.... We'll figure that out to. This is the cycle of Media

[@Skeletons_Riding_Ostriches]

How are you supposed to figure it out when 100% of the game is running on the company's server? You're sending them button inputs and they're sending you audio and visuals. You can't 'crack' or 'emulate' that - when the server is shut down, it's gone for good.

[@docnecrotic]

I'm glad people are spreading Ross' campaign! Keep doing it, everyone!

[@Fudmottin]

You're describing rent seeking. And this particular topic goes back to the DMCA or earlier.

[@gnoelalexmay]

Audio recording has a similar business model now. It's very difficult to get new software for use offline.

[@KyogresHideout_Vegito2121]

If buying isn't owning then piracy isn't stealing. Yoho mateys! 🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️

[@cowboy1980]

Finally, someone who is actually interested in wanting to fix the ACTUAL problem with modern games. From the bottom of my heart, thank you for not poisoning the well with the conversation by spending the whole video complaining about gay people or whatever.

[@avereth]

I'm so happy to see so many big names picking up this crusade. Virtually every gamer has suffered the pain of having a game they loved and wanted to keep playing ripped away from them forever, along with all of the connections and everything they purchased. We could finally even possibly get insurance against a platform like Steam, GoG, or Epic shutting down and your library being deleted too.

[@OneofInfinity.]

Just like FB will do with my VR library next week (about 700 Euros worth) unless I link accounts, something that was promised "never" to be mandatory when they bought Oculus. Mindless drones still fall for it over and over and enable this type of practice.

[@avereth]

@@OneofInfinity. Yeah I had to migrate my account. My sticking point was I refused to do it while it was going to require a Facebook account. The Meta account is all the data Oculus already had for the most part. But I agree, you should be able to legally contest Facebook trying to delete products you own.

[@jpteknoman]

Remember the good old days when for most online games servers were ran by the community and the server cost was not an excuse to ask for more and more money and they couldn't shut the game down because as long as you have the client and someone runs a server you can play.

[@RodentContainmentBreach]

We are gonna end up hoarding games like the mona lisa in the movie equilibrium

[@doomspud6302]

I realized years ago that the big shift to live service games was partially a sneaky anti-piracy measure. Because as long as there is a central server the game needs to contact to function, you can't pirate it. You can download all the client side parts of the game, but if those are useless on their own, there's no point. So if you want to pirate a game like that, you would also need to somehow recreate or spoof the original server functions as well. Its unlikely that anyone outside the company will be able to do that, and anyone in the company is unlikely to want to help you pirate their games like that.

[@the_cyberchill]

This isnt just game, it's electronics too, pushing out updates that slowly take away your ownership of the product you bought and payed for.

[@HyJyncks]

I think the big word that shoulders the weight of "defending" these corporations is "service." While you pay for a service, you don't own it and only pay for the action. I think it's one reason they coined the phrase, because a service is temporary by nature and they can use that argument to defend their grey area. The real joke is it's not a service. You're not getting serviced anything but a wallet sponge, and an almost fun game loop propped up by FOMO and psychological predation that is habit and addiction forming.

[@khveteran013]

When games go fully digital, I will not be buying unless I get an actual copy of the game or the installer and I can play it offline, a la the GOG Store. If I cannot fulfill this criteria, I will either go without or go sailing, if you catch my drift. I'm more than happy to stop paying $70 for new games to then instead spend the same amount on 2-5 old games at a hobby store. I will own a copy, whether the corpos like it or not.

[@RazeAndJadith]

Publishers are the number one reason piracy is a necessary evil.

[@desmien679]

Any publisher that supports buying isn't owning games will never see my money again.

[@Yesnaught]

Any developer of a "live service" game should be legally obliged to prepare a "sunset" package - i.e. an offline version with equivalent functionality, or make the server software available for download, if not open source, and add a server select setting to the client.

[@GeFlixes]

All purchases of games and im-game things 3 months before a shutting down notice need to be refundable. There needs to be a legal process where absndonware looses the parts of its copyright protection pertaining to opening up and ripping out anti-theft and activation features. You should be able to apply and develop cracks for authentication servers that do not exist anymore. On a separate issue, make companies liable to you revoking your purchase if they deactivate features of a product that has been advertised. Be that mp servers being disabled or your baby monitor suddenly needing a subscription for notifications that were free before.

[@hurricane7727]

That's why I like Ps1- Psp Games .

[@jb_makesgames2264]

Good Video - another interesting well researched video. I am not surprised that gaming is going the subscription vs ownership rout as most no game software companies have gone that route (eg: Windows 360)

[@NerdyCatCoffeeee]

Publishers are doing an equivalent thing to fishing: They wait til you bite, get hooked, and then just pull the plug. Funny how that works

[@BioAlpha5]

The fact The Crew also has a "Offline Mode" in the files or the Splinter Cell Blacklist DLC is just a ticking a box in a SAVE FILE (no joke i made a video on my channel how to fix the "LOST DLC" of Blacklist) Im so sick of Ubisoft and their "business practices" Their Splinter Cell Remake will somehow have issues. Watch. Im not expecting them to do it justice. I hope im wrong. But i doubt it.

[@F0XRunner]

This isn't unique to gaming. You will notice that Microsoft Office is now an annual license not a set release version that you bought at Officemax. Movies and music are mostly streamed or added to an account rather than physically purchased. This is happening to all digital products and I don't see this every going back to individual discrete physical purchases.

[@Skeletons_Riding_Ostriches]

Welp, off to LibreOffice.

[@VideoQuestEx]

"You will own nothing, and you will be happy." by Ida Auken, Danish Politician, at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in 2016. Taken from his essay originally entitled "Welcome to 2030. I own nothing, have no privacy, and life has never been better." He later on changed the title to something less controversial.

[@mikex3908]

Star Wars Galaxies, Atlas Reactor/Rogues, City of Heroes/Villains, Shadowrun Chronicles, PlanetSide, etc., are sorely missed.

[@igorthelight]

You CAN play Star Wars Galaxies as far as I know ;-) Google that!

[@NaoyaYami]

This is why my GoG library has grown quite a lot in recent years. Sure, it lacks most of the recent'ish games I paid for (Steam's convenience when it comes to online play is huge, also many games are still Steam exclusive), however it's great for actually old games - those that are more probable to have licensing issues (like how Soul Reaver 1 disappeared from sales). Great thing about GoG is I can simply download offline installers (along with patches!) and burn them to a CD/DVD or whatever. GOG Galaxy is useful and works nicely but is not needed at all after all (side bonus - playing without any launcher that would give you achievement system helps achi-hunters like me to instead focus completely on purely having fun with the game).

[@DeltaDragon79]

As soon as you own nothing you are at the full mercy of whoever owns your online accounts. Want to game? Don't say anything against the grain or dare to criticize whoever is in charge.

[@SweetandFullofGrace]

Eventually yes UN 2030 agendas and other would create you a "digital ID" which you would need for everything, since everything is digital and yes carbon credit and kind of social credit are planning stages, its not slam dunk but have remember there is patience and 1or 2 more "crisis" could push the change. It only would take few generations and voters too will welcome it. I personally thought Facebook was stupid idea way back never joined, I knew it was just data harvesting, but think about how many people willingly gave up every info they had for it. Now think about that except there is no "delete" button since you need it for everything. You cant even go off the grid since you cant pay taxes without "digital ID", and you can escape everything but death and taxes and there always will be taxes.

[@Sam_Hue]

The rat race between gaming corporations is complicated.

[@darwinxavier3516]

As someone who has lost several favorite websites due to people no longer upkeeping them, do not ever rely on something being accessible on the web. Picture, music, videos, information, all of that can be taken down by the platform or the domain stops existing. Save and own anything you can if you like it. If you can't be bothered to manage the space either physical or digital to do that, then at least don't pretend that you're better off than people who aren't as lazy as you. You may be happy owning nothing, but others are not.

[@flydrop8822]

The reason this is happening isn't because evil publishers want to destroy your games, it is because the sad reality is that most consumers simply don't care. Most of these games that got the kill switch were already falling in playerbase and rents (not sales, rents), with few notable exceptions like The Crew, which is more of a statistical anomaly. It doesn't matter how much we, "true gamers", whine about it, because the average Joe will just continue buying new copies of these triple A games without even noticing. And if average Joes don't care, than certainly politicians, judges and lawmakers care even less, which makes me very skeptical this campaign will work at all. There is a reason why "normie games" are the ones that are being the most affected by this and the companies pushing for it are already known for having terrible consumer relationships (EA, Activision, Ubisoft). I think what is more important than a legal campaign is rising awareness about this, boycotting and supporting games that go against the flow. This won't make the problem disappear overnight, but it will create a niche in the market towards games that are actually sold rather than rented, allowing us to continue supporting good new games. If we show companies that we despise this "games as service" mentality, that creates a market vaccum for games that defy that, which is more important than saving the triple A trash that is being rented nowadays.

[@rps215]

Ubisoft isn't the first one either. EA has done this before, Darkspore was cut loose by EA to the point that the only way to play it is to get it from pirate bay.

[@Skeletons_Riding_Ostriches]

Why not both? Everyone, go to the website in the description and take action. And everyone, ALSO raise awareness. Boom, two-pronged. Also, publishers definitely do want to destroy their older games so their newer games don't have to compete with their older games.

[@flydrop8822]

@@Skeletons_Riding_Ostriches because we are punishing the company for fulfilling the demand of the consumers (the average Joes), and that has negative impacts in the gaming industry as a whole since we are basically reaching more control over to politicians. If this campaign succeeds (which i doubt), that creates a precedent that lawmakers can shape how games are done, instead of the consumers. This is very bad, especially nowadays with this idiot narrative that everything the media disagrees with is "fake news", this can and will be used by politicians against us in the future.

[@eddyram4932]

This is why I rarely buy any new things. I’ve only bought a couple games in the last few years as well. Helldivers 2 I bought online because I don’t mind if it ever shuts down, I have already put in 100+ hrs into it. Second game I bought this year was Dragon’s Dogma 2 as a physical disc, and I’m loving it👌 I’m buying less and less games as years go by, because most also require online play at all times. If future consoles only have digital versions, then I will not buy them. I have many games that I will be able to play for the decades I still have left.

[@CallMeTeci]

Best example for the never ending "let them buy and destroy it later" practice (similar to Warzone 1 now) are most sports games. And the Cycle as well as Spellbreak had two big issues - they first came out Epic Store exclusively and honestly nobody should have been surprised by this. Honestly, im not sure what should be done legislatively, but it would be nice to have laws that prevents companies from making games completely unavailable aka. force them to turn Always Online games into Offline playable products and for things like MMOs to put necessary files Online so people could open community run private servers if they choose. Especially the extra work needed for Always Online games might convince developers to not develop their games as such in the first place anymore. Also the quote from the Ubisoft dude lacks context in basically every quotation that i have seen. As far as im aware he said that in the context of the question of what would need to happen to push Subscription based models further forward. And in that regards his answer is absolutely correct.

[@Rexhunterj]

The Cycle Frontier you mean? If so that game was plagued by cheaters, utterly flooded by them from the Escape From Tarkov cheating community. The game had to be shut down because the small dev team just couldn't keep up with the reality of the cheating epidemic. This is another issue we need to legislate against, cheat production for video games should be a criminal offense, the same as doping in sports if it is illicit/part of a fraud ring.

[@someguy4252]

might be just idealism talking but i think lines of use it or loose it to the public domain within 10 years and must be avalible to consumers in a readly accessable fashion being inserted into copyright and trademark law would fix most of the mess. their ip going into the public domain would slow ip hoarding and squatting. the readly accessable part will stop them from doing cute things like release it in swahili only with propritary coding knowledge based on brainfuck being required to compile it

[@MacenKrace5530]

product vs services. Games used to be products, now they are licenses advertised as products Glad someone brought this up. PPL should stop buying licenses.

[@clashcon11]

I really hate it when it happen, especially when the game just made for "online.".

[@Mothware]

Reminds me of WildStar, I adored that game, but with most stuff I play in bursts and shelves them for several months. Imagine my surprise when I was ready hop back on, only to find out everything was shutdown. I've heard of a fan community since then attempting to set up private servers, but I'm unsure if they made any headway. The "you own nothing" mentality in the industry is appalling, hopefully we as a community can come together and force the issue back in our favor.

[@Gn8Lif3]

the problem is that the shift has to be made by us the consumer devs and companies will go where the money is and if they can get there with low efford or the cheapest way ,they will go this rout lets take the cheating problem f.e. ,that every dev is sooo badly trying to fix if a game would require you to have a physical copie it would be a big step sure there would still be cracked versions (again) but those are far easier to detact ,not like some hacks today do they do it ?no because they would lose customers and have the cost of producing and shiping a physical product

[@IidosGamingDen]

When you purchase a game, you should be entitled to that product. It doesn't matter if it's digital or physical. Imagine if you bought a physical game, then 5 years later, an employee of the company came knocking and demanded you hand over your disc? What's the difference between that and permanently losing access to a digital purchase? It's wrong, and has to stop now.

[@babbersabber]

My bearded sailors, you are warmly invited to join my crew. Let us sail the seas and uncover many treasures that will bring us immense wealth. Let us proudly fly our pirate flags high.

[@mamotalemankoe3775]

May the spirit of Captain Kenway guide is the great wealth and adventure.

[@Andyisgodcky]

The digital distribution of games was only a natural progression that evolved alongside widespread broadband internet. Always online services arose from gamers demanding updates and balances to games. This was all gradual, not sudden. MMOs started us down the path of "gamers will pay forever" with subscriptions to play a game you bought. Like... what? I mean, I fell for that just as hard as millions of others. Frankly, it needs to be law that if a 'live service' game stops being live, the company is REQUIRED to release the code for their game as open-source, with a free license to run private servers so players can still access their game, AND a version of the game that does not require internet connectivity to play. Payday 3 being online only EVEN FOR SINGLE PLAYER WITH BOTS was a slap in the face.

[@lycanwarrior2137]

Gaming started with the arcades IIRC. The very epitome of nickel-and-diming you-own-nothing gaming. Not really a new concept to be honest.

[@arminxvs3372]

"You will own nothing and you will be happy".

[@someguy4252]

santa klaus in a nutshell...

[@arminxvs3372]

@@someguy4252 Santa Klaus?

[@someguy4252]

@@arminxvs3372 bit of a joke on the quote atribbutations name.

[@padawantyronbr4085]

I'll play devils advocate here for a brief moment: everything enforced by government tends to increase in price (basically, government intervention tends to create additional costs which will ALWAYS gets passed down to the final product price, causing inflation of prices). In other words, if you try to enforce the preservation of a product into companies through legal action the result is either increase in prices or the removal of that product in the market in question. A good middle ground (I think, at least) would be a open public library of games for any games that gets discontinue (each country gets responsible by their own productions). Users can download and even host private servers for said games, so long as they have no commercial use (as the company should be able to hold all commercial value of their IPs). This would result in the preservation of modern culture (as I do see games as a art form) with little to no side effects in the costs for the private sector. In fact, this solution would benefit the consumer first as companies would be forced to innovate with new and interesting games because if they don't we would simply go back to our old games that would be openly available for everyone.

[@gumerzambrano]

I only buy like 3 games a year. The problem is that people keep buying games no matter what

[@Skeletons_Riding_Ostriches]

The problem is publishers are destroying games that people bought and literally own. That's straight up fraud.

[@VincentPaulS]

I tried to install Adobe Acrobat X yesterday from a cd I bought years ago, it told me the serial number was invalid, it’s literally printed on the cd… these companies need to get sued into the ground, this is blatant theft.

[@scubasteve3032]

The amount of game that are adding Mary Sues is staggering. They are making men out to be idiots, evil or just plain emasculating them. The sad part is that, when I bring this up to younger players, they rabidly defend these games as if nothing were wrong. I mean, these guys really need to lay off soy product, seriously.

[@karayi7239]

It's not a video game issue, it's a natural capitalistic evolution, every step is consistent with the path of more and more profit. Capitalism is inherently anti-consumer.

[@juansotelo3996]

If the general public does not care about DEI and consume products like nothing, why would they stand up for this? I feel people just want to buy and stop thinking, just look how apple and their fanboys, who will make them stop spending in obviusly inferior products and services?

[@TheTwinkelminkelson]

They probably won't, but if enough people sign the petition then it won't really matter what the majority thinks, because the majority will be neutral on the issue.

[@dividedstatesofamerica2520]

These mind lacking NPC consumers deserve everything that's coming to them.

[@verack1616]

I mean, apple is getting a lot of well deserved sh*t lately, so i still have hope on putting some kind of stop of this dystopian nightmare

[@Rincewind04]

I'm glad you discussed this topic, this bugs me quite a while now. I refuse to buy anything digitally what I can own as a hard copy. On that note, if for whatever reason they decide to ban your account (which can happen with anyone, not just cheaters), you loose access to all what you bought before on that account.

[@breeminator]

Yes, and they won't tell people any specifics about why they got banned, so they can't challenge it. It's definitely one of the issues that legislation needs to address. Imagine if a car dealer could take back the car they sold you, saying "we have evidence you broke a traffic law, but won't share any specific details".

[@dgfgable]

If there were real anti-monopoly committees in the gaming industry, they would have long ago issued laws forcing companies that at the moment they are closing servers for particular online game they also must make the code for this game servers open so that anyone who bought this game also could run their own server.

[@lennysmileyface]

They would have to make it so that people would be allowed to code their own servers instead of releasing the code itself.

[@thanos43infinity]

Even in the current 1984 scenario now our very own games are becoming not even our own games anymore.

[@preppen78]

They do lose a lot of sales due to the knowledge that they might delete the service at any point. I can't be alone with this mindset, could be in a minority though...

[@dominiccantwell]

Just started the video so I don't know if you address this but the numbers on digital vs physical are off. In the numbers digital sales cover all digital sales (dlc, movies etc.) whereas physical is just games. It's more than likely that physical game sales have a larger percentage than what's shown in those articles.

[@DolphinRichTuna]

There is no accountability for anything anymore. Consumer advocacy is dead.