Handing online servers over to consumers could carry commercial or legal risks, she said, in addition to safety concerns due to the removal of official company moderation.
Most of the responses of the ministers(?) covered in the article seem to be pretty solid.
But then:
Responding to the arguments, the government’s representative, minister for sport, tourism, civil society and youth, Stephanie Peacock MP, acknowledged consumer sentiment behind Stop Killing Games, but suggested there were no plans to amend UK law around the issue.
“The Government recognises the strength of feeling behind the campaign that led to the debate,” she said. “The petition attracted nearly 190,000 signatures. Similar campaigns, including a European Citizens’ Initiative, reached over a million signatures. There has been significant interest across the world.”
She continued: “At the same time, the Government also recognises the concerns from the video gaming industry about some of the campaign’s asks. Online video games are often dynamic, interactive services—not static products—and maintaining online services requires substantial investment over years or even decades.”
Peacock claimed that because modern video games were complex to develop and maintain, implementing plans for games after support had ended could be “extremely challenging” for companies and risk creating “harmful unintended consequences” for players.
Handing online servers over to consumers could carry commercial or legal risks, she said, in addition to safety concerns due to the removal of official company moderation.
On the subject of ownership, Peacock claimed that video games being licensed to consumers, rather than sold, was not a new phenomenon, and that “in the 1980s, tearing the wrapping on a box to a games cartridge was the way that gamers agreed to licensing terms.”
“Licensing video games is not, as some have suggested, a new and unfair business practice,” she claimed.
Yeah, full on corpo spin. Fuck her.
Some of the quotes are good, yes.
And I agree the more because entertainment involving social interactions is as important as political spaces. It’s not aristocrats complaining about bad cake when people don’t have bread. Most of my social interactions were, actually, concentrated around
The bullshit about it being hard to design anything without a kill switch is irritating. A kill switch is the additional expense and complication. Something without a kill switch might not be readily available to run after the company shuts down its servers, but nobody needs that really. Simplifying things, there are plenty of people among players capable of deploying infrastructure.
In any case, when the only thing you need is documented operation and ability to set the service domain name and\or addresses, where the former the company needs itself and the latter is trivial, it’s all farting steam.
TBH this is just how petitions in the UK work: enough people sign it, it goes to parliament, they say a bunch of stuff about it that often sounds reasonable enough, then they do nothing about it. It’s just a way to give the public the illusion that they’re being listened to without having to actually do anything. It was the same with the digital ID petition, which I still signed but with 100% expectation that it wouldn’t actually achieve anything.
If you don’t want to give the sever away (including the ability to use it) then don’t shut it down or otherwise make the game unplayable.
So if the developers of a game go bankrupt, or a single developer of an indie game dies, what do you suggest happens?
usually in bankruptcy the game gets sold in order to help pay debts… whoever buys the game assumes the responsibility of contributing to run the online services, or provide options for others to… in the case that nobody buys the game (im not entirely sure what happens to the IP in that case) but it’s relatively minimal effort to release server source code or documentation OR even just remove the online parts that’s usually just for DRM which is now pretty irrelevant because you’re shutting it down anyway so why would anyone care if someone pirates it?!
None of that is “relatively minimal effort” other than releasing the source code, which is not something that should ever be mandated.
mandatory minimum warranties are also not relatively minimal effort and yet we have laws that require those… most consumer protection standards aren’t minimal effort: that doesn’t mean we don’t make laws to ensure consumers get what they are expecting when they hand over money
why shouldn’t handing over source code to a game that’s being shut down (and apparently that nobody finds any value in since it wasn’t even bought in bankruptcy auction) be mandated as a last resort?
Because then you’d have big companies going around actively trying to bankrupt other smaller companies to get their source code released, so they could then use it for themselves.
It’s nothing like product warranties either.
The code should go into escrow when the first game is sold. This is standard practice in industry - you don’t buy something without assurance that if the company goes under you have options.
This is standard practice in industry - you don’t buy something without assurance that if the company goes under you have options.
Which industries is this standard in? I can’t think of any. If Samsung went bankrupt who is replacing your S25 Ultra?
I think they mean in like B2B. Like if you buy of piece of software x thousand times with y years of support it’s standard practice to have a contract that covers what happens if the company goes under while you still have years of support.
Maybe, but that’s not at all relevant here.
Consumer devices are not industry. they almost never get that treatment.
But the assurance you spoke about is consumer assurance? So you’re saying that your suggestion wouldn’t even apply to video games while suggesting it for video games?
There is no reason consumers cannot demand this even though they haven’t. There is no reason the law cannot demand it even though it hasn’t.
The important part is that the idea exists and is common enough in OTHER situations. When you ask for it there will be people who know what this means and there is a whole industry of “we escrow your code for you” that can handle the details. If you make a new law you have plenty of examples to look at and so are much less likely to accidentally create some unintended consequence that is worse than the current situation.
Or release API documentation for the server and help the community create a replacement. Companies have options here.
in addition to safety concerns due to the removal of official company moderation.
Piss off. This just means they won’t be able to rely on companies to control what people get to say.
They mentioned the early days when it comes to licensing games to us.
But dont mention that in the early days of multiplayer games it was us moderating our own online communities, not the company selling the game.
More proof that the current “Labour” government is in the pockets of rich companies and not on the side of consumers.
I’ll take them over the worse evil but that’s not a situation I’m happy with.
Fucking neoliberal arseholes.
“Digital ownership must be respected.”
Yeah, that’s what this entire thing is about.Such a brain-dead stance on the matter. Nobody is asking for your garbage DRM servers, we literally want the opposite of that.
Losing a monopoly on specific game servers certainly can have a commercial risk. Are you entitled to that at all, let alone when you stop hosting them?
Legal risk of what? Others will have that responsibility, unless you’ve done something you don’t want others to see?
Safety - Yes someone might have less moderation than you - that’s up to the users to decide if it’s okay. We still have the right to change our car’s break pad - the thing that stops a large mass moving fast from hitting children.
Digital ownership? Games producers want to own players’ fingers now? I guess that’s slightly better than cutting their ears off.
If you as a consumer want to own software FLOSS is the only option.
You know, I have purchased around 200 games. I have no idea how many of those can be mine because they’re linked to a store, maintained (usually) by a corporation hellbent on optimised profits, subject to mandatory updates so I have no choice but to play the way they want me to, and I don’t have the space to store them all. I don’t feel like any of them are really owned by me (and I know this is true but I reject that notion), not until they’re transferred to an offline machine.
They’re not owned by you. You own a license to use them. Some stores, like GOG, give you a less restrictive license, but it’s still a license.
and the law is able to make license conditions illegal/unenforceable (like non-compete clauses in employment contracts)
Sure, but has the law made licenses for software illegal/unenforceable? No.
literally what STG is about
Cool, and no laws have been changed, and it’s debatable if any should.
this entire thread is about the STG petition, and thus about the theoretical possibility of how laws could change
Cool, not what the other person and I were talking about before you jumped in.
I’m unconvinced anyone will really legislate this, and if it is, it’ll just lead to that country being scratched off the list of where the game is officially supported.
Realistically, we need to stop buying online only games where the servers will eventually go offline, and support those that release open servers.
I stopped buying that stuff ten years ago. Indie games are always better these days
I’m unconvinced anyone will really legislate this,
The Eurpean Union sort of has it’s head on when it comes to addressing consumer rights, if they legislate this, then the entirety of europe will likely benefit (even those outside the european union like the UK, examples of this have happened before if im correct, see windows 10 1 year extension for eu).
and if it is, it’ll just lead to that country being scratched off the list of where the game is officially supported.
No it won’t. Maybe if it’s a country with no internet and doesn’t have a population interested in gaming, but any major country like UK, Germany, etc enforcing this would force the hands of game publishers bevause these markets are just too big.
No publisher is going to pull out of the UK for example.
Realistically, we need to stop buying online only games where the servers will eventually go offline, and support those that release open servers.
I agree. Unfortunately most people are unaware or have no backbone so they keep on buying the next “big” game, nevertheless I agree, we need to stop supporting anti-consumer behavior instead of defending it.
If I gotta pay IL sales tax on a digital game I better fucking own it!
Commercial risks are something businesses have to consider themselves, it’s not government’s job.
Legal risks are exactly their problem to solve.
Company is a body of people, and its moderation can’t be more or less safe, in principle, than moderation by some other body of people with responsibility for that.
Excuses.
I think everybody agrees that “digital ownership must be respected”. But if you check, you don’t own the games. You own licences. You may keep the licence after servers shut down. It is total BS, but we allowed it.
I have to agree that killing online only games makes sense because they can’t be forced to run the server forever, not they can be forced to release the source code. But offline / solo / bots should keep working.
This has already been addressed by SKG. Nobody is demanding the source code. Developers have multiple ways to solve this and SKG deliberately leaves that part open so developers could choose whatever works best for them.
Whoever told you developers would have to release the source code is lying and is against the initiative.
Here are a few options, this isn’t exhaustive:
- release source code
- release server binaries, like Minecraft and others do
- release server API docs and help the community build their own
- disable the online bits
- move the online bits to P2P to not need a server
- embed the server in the client to allow people to host
There are lots of options here.
Seems to be a misunderstanding. We are in agreement. I mentioned it because it seems that was something that was debated. Not because I’m against the initiative
She continued: “At the same time, the Government also recognises the concerns from the video gaming industry about some of the campaign’s asks. Online video games are often dynamic, interactive services—not static products—and maintaining online services requires substantial investment over years or even decades.”
I have to agree that killing online only games makes sense because they can’t be forced to run the server forever, not they can be forced to release the source code. But offline / solo / bots should keep working.
We are not in agreement. It doesn’t make sense even for online games.
The politicians statement is not what SKG is about. SKG is not trying to preserve every version of a game. It would be cool if that was also on the table, but that’s not the purpose of the initiative. SKG is concerned with keeping the game playable AFTER the publisher/developer has decided it’s not longer worth maintaining. At that point the online video game is no longer a dynamic service because it’s no longer updated nor maintained. And that means it absolutely could be viewed as a static product. The point she is making is completely irrelevant to the initiative and shouldn’t even be a point of discussion.
