what this requires from developers: possibly documenting protocols in an open way when they choose to shut down games so that people can re-implement FOSS servers

“playable” is open to interpretation, and does not include trademarks, copyright, etc… nobody is asking for to allow assets to be traded (ie piracy), or open sourcing any code

but if you have purchased a game, and the servers for that game go away, someone else should be able to re-implement a method for allowing those games to continue being played

… also if DRM servers go away, you should disable the DRM somehow: you don’t get to just say that the DRM and therefor the game isn’t available any more

all of this is not at all knee-jerk, and very realistic

PirateSoftware was a blizzard dev, is a current dev, and is just basically lobbying against change. I don’t believe he’s being genuine in his arguments and is misrepresenting the cause or hasn’t understood it. It was possible to make games that didn’t stop working once a server shut down and it still is.

Being given a server binary isn’t a licensing issue unless you make it one. And because publishers and studios sign shitty contracts, doesn’t make it right, nor the only way to do business. If he wants to do business that way, do that shit in the US, but if something meaningful happens in the EU, then don’t sell your games there. Simple as…

Anti Commercial-AI license

The guy who started it and other people helping push it have also responded and talked about how Thor doesn’t entirely get it/missed the point.

Here’s Ross’s entire response pasted because it got buried on the video.

“I’m afraid you’re misunderstanding several parts of our initiative. We want as many games as possible to be left in some playable state upon shutdown, not just specifically targeted ones. The Crew was justa convenient example to take action on, it represents hundreds of games that have already been destroyed in a similar manner and hundreds more"at risk” of being destroyed. We’re not looking at the advertising being the primary bad practice, but the preventable destruction of videogames themselves.

This isn’t about killing live service games (quite the opposite!), it’s primarily about mandating future live service games have an end of life plan from the design phase onward. For existing games, that gets much more complicated, I plan to have a video on that later. So live service games could continue operating in the future same as now, except when they shutdown, they would be handled similarly to Knockout City, Gran Turismo Sport, Scrolls, Ryzom, Astonia, etc. as opposed to leaving the customer with absolutely nothing.

A key component is how the game is sold and conveyed to the player. Goods are generally sold as one time purchases and you can keep them indefinitely. Services are generally sold with a clearly stated expiration date. Most “Live service” games do neither of these. They are often sold as a one-time purchase with no statement whatsoever about the duration, so customers can’t make an informed decision, it’s gambling how long the game lasts. Other industries would face legal charges for operating this way. This could likely be running afoul of EU law even without the ECI, that’s being tested.

The EU has laws on EULAS that ban unfair or one-sided terms. MANY existing game EULAS likely violate those. Plus, you can put anything in a EULA. The idea here is to take removal of individual ownership of a game off the table entirely.

We’re not making a distinction between preservation of multiplayer and single player and neither does the law. We fail to find reasons why a 4v4 arena game like Nosgoth should be destroyed permanently when it shuts down other than it being deliberately designed that way with no recourse for the customer.

As for the reasons why think this initiative could pass, that’s my cynicism bleeding though. think what we’re doing is pushing a good cause that would benefit millions of people through an imperfect system where petty factors of politicians could be a large part of what determines its success or not. Democracy can be a messy process and was acknowledging that. I’m not championing these flawed factors, but rather saying think our odds are decent.

Finally, while your earlier comments towards me were far from civil, don’t wish you any ill will, nor do encourage anyone to harass you. I and others still absolutely disagree with you on the necessity of saving games, but I wanted to be clear causing you trouble is not something I nor the campaign seeks at all. Personally, I think you made your stance clear, you’re not going to change your mind, so people should stop bothering you about it."

I usually agree with Thor but on this one I probably couldn’t disagree more. Based on what he says I’d say his mindset is completely opposite to what his initiative wants to do. He essentially said he doesn’t see any value in (live service) games after they’ve reached their end of service and from that perspective I can understand how this movement is pointless or even potentially damaging. But that assumes that the (live service) game loses value after the company stops supporting it and I just don’t think that’s the case.

A lot of games continue live despite the company ending official support for them. If anyone remembers there’s a gem called Wildstar that was shut down in 2018. Despite the game being shut down and even trademark has expiring people are still running the game on private servers. People are putting in sweat and tears to make sure a game is preserved. Imagine how much easier it would be if Carbine or NcSoft had released proper tools for it. Even Vanilla WoW exists because private server did it first and Blizzard wanted to get some of that money.

And another point that Thor made how it’s not about preservation because you can’t preserve a moment in time. I think that’s a completely disingenuous argument because it feeds into FOMO. If you join WoW today you will never experience “the golden age of WoW”. Maybe another game you might be interested in is having a golden age right now, better buy into the hype. You can’t argue against preservation like this because it’s literally impossible to preserve a moment in time except in your memory so you have be at that exact place at that exact time to really experience that thing, that is FOMO at it’s purest form. That argument against preservation is an argument in favor of FOMO.

Thors points come for a belief that live service games don’t need to be preserved after official support has ended, and he views this initiative through that lens. Of course he will have issues with the initiative because he’s opposing the idea at a fundamental level. It’s like asking a racist how to be more tolerant with other races, the answer obviously is that you shouldn’t want to tolerate other races. And just like you would ignore a racist I think you should ignore what Thor has to say on this matter because anything he says is against the idea of preservation.

I’m a vegetarian. If I asked everyone to sign an initiative called “stop killing animals” that sought to make it illegal to sell animal products wouldn’t that make me a dick for trying to dictate what companies can sell and what people can consume? You think it’s morally wrong to shut down an online game. I think it’s morally wrong to eat an animal.

There’s nothing wrong with voicing your opinion, but trying to push through a law that conforms to your moral view of the world is weird. It’s exactly the same mentality of people who want it to be the law that the ten commandments are in every classroom.

I’m fine with having more consumer protection and making it clear if a company is selling ownership or temporary access. Right now it’s often not clear and that is definitely an issue. But completely making the sale of temporary access illegal is just strange. If you dont agree to temporary access, then don’t buy it. There are many games that are being sold DRM free, you own them completely, and they’ll work forever. Nobody is forcing anyone to buy something they don’t agree with.