skotobaza

> my impression is that game companies often create games and sell them (i.e. sell licenses), and the terms of those licenses include some degree of revocability and nonguarantees of continued function

Yes, that's the case. But the absence of guarantees is not very specific, which opens a door for publishers to just drop support on a whim. It's not an issue with titles that have no online components, since you can just keep playing them. But a lot of games nowadays do require online connection, even singleplayer ones. So a publisher shutting down the servers for such game will render the game unplayable in any way. This is the crux, and this is what SKG is trying to solve.

> the conduct SKG is lobbying against is permitted by the contracts which game sellers and customers have agreed to, presumably

Unfortunately, publishers can change the agreements. They can promise you 10 year support for a game, and then drop support for this game one year after release (see Anthem as an example; Concord is even more obvious). This should definitely not happen.

> I don't know how to interpret SKG other than to be outlawing the sale of such revocable/spontaneously self-destructing game services

You can still sell them and deny access to the game after shutting it down, you just need to be prepared for legal actions. So no, nobody wants to outlaw the production of such games (at least nobody from the initiative talks about it in such way).

> The infamous one seems to be The Crew

Yes, it's the most popular. But there are hundreds of games like that that are already dead and cannot be played. You might think it's a very small number compared to overall number of games that have been ever released, but it will increase. Also, Ubisoft themselves told us multiple times that they don't want gamers to own the games.

> This effectively forbids some kinds of contract

It's nothing new. For instance, you cannot make a game that formats your system drive when you die in-game. Nobody is stopping you from developing such game, but you will be open to legal actions, since it can be considered malware. Even if you warn the players beforehand - it's still a malware. So the argument "they agreed to this" is not very sound. Like with real world Russian roulette - it's not OK to shoot someone just because they agreed to it.

Also contracts should not contradict the laws. But to prove if such practice contradicts the existing laws is quite hard as we can currently see.

It's very hard to reverse engineer something you don't have access to, i.e. server code. Sure, some of it is fairly simple, so it can be done, but when a lot of game logic is happening on the server and you don't have the server binary, then it becomes a step up in difficulty.

> I genuinely, genuinely do not care if the game stops working in 12 years time

That's very grim... I'm on the completely different side, majority of games I've been playing recently are fairly old.

> Is that good public policy?

Yes, because you will not be limited in time to enjoy a single title. Like it's the case with other media - books, music, movies, etc. This is good because future people (who haven't even been born yet) will be able to enjoy the same slice of entertainment that we enjoy right now. Just like we can still enjoy games made 40 years ago.

But nobody is trying to block "certain kinds of agreements". You can still make whatever games you could make before. Nothing changes in that regard.

> I personally think this regulation does more harm then good for small businesses and players alike

Are we supposed to just accept that games will die because of the profits of some game dev studios?

> I saw how intentions were good, but execution was absolutely terrible, with so many holes that the ones who benefit the most are the big companies that can workaround these clauses

So we are supposed to not do anything...

> the cost of retrofitting games for all developers of games with any online component

As it has been said many times already, the initiative does not propose any "retrofitting" for existing games.

> the incredible entitlement from the customerbase

The ability to be able to play the game in the future is not entitlement, it's a normal thing. If you car stops working because the authentication servers are down, do you consider yourself entitled as well? I hope not. Why should games be different?

> That things you bought stop working is not unique to video games with online components. I can run very few games that I bought as a child, because I don't have a CD-ROM drive or a Windows 98 machine anymore

But modern titles stop working on modern systems, so it's not comparable. We can still play older games via different means. But with games that use online connection that's not the case when the servers get shut down.

The initiative is not about telling which games customers can and cannot buy, it's about customers getting to play a game they paid for without the fear of it becoming bricked after the publisher stops supporting it.

> SKG people are mostly immature and tend to overreact

How so? What's immature about the desire to keep games functional?

> SKG is specifically about deactivating the online/multiplayer component in games

No, this is false. SKG also includes singleplayer games which require constant online connection.

I personally think this is not a desirable solution for gamers. Some, if not most, publishers will put a label about "renting" (like they already do in the EULA) and won't change a thing.

Of course not. I'd rather the commission talked equally to both parties involved instead of preferring the one with the stronger lobbying.

He also attacked Ross and insulted him multiple times. He wasn't nice about it, in fact he was very aggressive. He also pretended to be someone who he wasn't. He also tried using his influence to stop the movement, which backfired spectacularly.

> Did I keep my machines from back then? The SNES, the i486 etc? What if the hardware has an defect 30 years after?

For this you have options: emulators, FPGAs, fixing the original hardware. So as long as you have your copy of the game, there is a way for you to play it.

But with modern games that is not the case anymore. Publisher can decide on a whim that they don't want to support their game and shut down the servers, which renders the whole game unplayable. It even happens with singleplayer games. This is not OK and should not be accepted as the norm.

But the commission did consult with the industry much more than with the initiative, they misrepresented the initiative and no balance was achieved...

> to grant government power it shouldn't be granted

What power? Power to save games from becoming unplayable on the whim?

> if it happens to be the only way to achieve what I want

Again, I'm not advocating for some specific architecture. There is more than one way to make a game hostable by players.

> But for many games, the logic _is_ in the remote service calls

Exactly, and this is the issue - you shut down the server and the game becomes bricked.

> they ran out of money during the development phase of the game because they were trying to comply with the regulation

I don't believe it. This is not the biggest spending point when making a videogame. If a developer uses this as an excuse, there was probably something else wrong with the development.

> How is that better?

Well, being able to play a game is better than not being able to play the game. I've played multiplayer games with high lag, you can get used to this. Especially if you want to play the game. Also, community can fix some stuff on their own, but only if they have something to work with.

> Every single suggestion you are making ignores the associated cost to the developers/publishers of the game

The developer is the one who should think about costs. You shouldn't force it on consumers.

> If you are fine with making game development an even riskier financial endeavour than it already is

Yes, I'm absolutely fine with it. We already have a lot of games to play, and if developers have to be very considerate before making something and the number of released games decreases because of this, so be it.

> You've not just edit'ed and added to your comment, you removed a point about supporting open sourcing the games as a solution.

I did not remove anything from my comment. Just added a statement since the alleged "goalpost moving" was referenced twice in the thread, so I had to reread my posts to check if it was really there. Hence my confusion.

> Many people (myself included) have absolutely no problem with that in principle

You can propose your own solution to the problem, not just criticize what other people say.

> just have every video game use the architecture that I have in my head

I'm not proposing any specific architecture.

I get what you mean - if the developer stops supporting the game then they might run out of money to make the changes. This can even happen spontaneously in some cases. But I'm still expecting at least some effort in preserving their product, their legacy. Some people might call it naive (and it probably is), but for me personally the baseline is that games should be playable at least in some way. Maybe the experience will not be the same, maybe there will a lot of lag, maybe something will break. But it is still better than not being able to play the game at all.

I don't think anyone is downplaying the effort of making a videogame that is both easy to host for the small developers and for the community. But unfortunately developers themselves often choose to pursue financial goals disregarding everything else. So it's understandable that gamers are not happy and demanding some solution. And that the industry is trying to push back.

The commission was talking with the game industry much more than with the initiative, which opened a clear way for the industry to misrepresent the initiative with phrases like "endless support" which nobody demands.

The question remains - how does any of this prevent small developers from releasing either the binary or the code in the modified form? Again, that has already been done with variety of games (not just popular ones as you assume), so it's not something extraordinary. The developers definitely have the resources to do so since they were getting money for the game, and the least they can do for their game and its community is to give it to them after they stop supporting it themselves.

> You’re calling for legislating software architecture

Not really, it will be the consequence of requiring the game to be given to the community after the EOL.

> the community are free to reverse engineer the service it relies on

While that is true, it is much harder than receiving the code with the most logic intact. We already do reverse engineer the binaries, including the server protocols, so we know how hard it is. And that's why we know that it's not the way to go.

Regarding the "friendslop" games - I don't see an issue, the companies that provide those game with online services will adapt to the new requirements to keep getting money from those game developers.

Regarding the optional multiplayer modes - the developers will probably not use some complex architecture for this, so giving it to the community will not be that hard. Also there are multiplayer games that do support community servers out of the box, so it's not an issue to make a game like this.

> Small developers disproportionally have to rely on online services

I'm not convinced that that's the case. If you're talking about cloud providers then the cost can become very high very quickly, so smaller developers have to carefully manage the budget. To my knowledge, cloud services are usually used for simple stuff like logs and analytics, and games don't really need that to play the game.

Also, don't forget that it's not just multiplayer games. Singleplayer games suffer from this as well.

That's just one of the options, albeit the most beneficial for gamers.

> "open source released with stubs" are also usually games that are decades old and cultural landmarks

Not necessarily.

Edit: the goalpost is "the games should remain playable after the publisher stop supporting it". It hasn't moved an inch. So I'm not sure what you are talking about...

> The groups hit hardest by this are going to be small-medium developers who are just trying to build a game

How so? Smaller developers don't usually build games that require huge online components that will be hard to release to the public. That's mostly AAA publishers that do so (at least I can't remember the opposite from the top of my head).

> games that have required a bunch of different standalone services just for core logic

But you don't have to design the backend this way. Especially if you know that you will have to share the binaries when the support for the game ends.

> This effectively bans any third party non redistributable libraries (of which there are many), using many open source licensed projects for the backend

Some games that have been open sourced by the developers solved this issue by replacing such library calls with stubs. I think this is an acceptable compromise.

>What if I rely on steam, or epic for P2P and they shutter the service?

If you still support the game, you can replace those services to keep the game running. If you don't support it (or decided that you don't want to keep supporting it because of the service shutdown), then you just release it with those service calls, and the community will replace them (if they want to of course).

Yes, absolutely! I personally want to be able to play games many years after they are released and after they have stopped receiving any support. Yet we see growing number of examples where this is not the case and you get locked out of a game permanently when its publisher decides it no longer wants to support it.