Ross Scott's 'Stop Killing Games' Campaign

[WhiteShark]

Ross Scott of Ross's Game Dungeon fame has started a global campaign to stop publishers from pulling the plug on online-only games, and YOU can help him!



https://stopkillinggames.com

Glad to see he's finally moving forward with this. I know he's been talking about this subject for a while now. Godspeed, Ross!

[rusty_shackleford]

stop publishers from pulling the plug on online-only games

Seems like it would be easier to get regulations that require developers to ensure their games remain playable, that is, release server software for online-only games in the case that the service is no longer provided by the developer.

[WhiteShark]

stop publishers from pulling the plug on online-only games

Seems like it would be easier to get regulations that require developers to ensure their games remain playable, that is, release server software for online-only games in the case that the service is no longer provided by the developer.

I think he has advocated that before, yes. I believe it's his preferred solution since you obviously cannot expect a company to keep maintaining the central server forever, no matter how cheap it may be.

[WhiteShark]

@rusty_shackleford

Q: Aren't you asking companies to support games forever? Isn't that unrealistic?

A: No, we are not asking that at all. We are in favor of publishers ending support for a game whenever they choose. What we are asking for is that they implement an end-of-life plan to modify or patch the game so that it can run on customer systems with no further support from the company being necessary. We agree it is unrealistic to expect companies to support games indefinitely and do not advocate for that in any way. Additionally, there are already real-world examples of publishers ending support for online-only games in a responsible way, such as:

'Gran Turismo Sport' published by Sony
'Knockout City' published by Electronic Arts
'Mega Man X DiVE' published by Capcom
'Scrolls / Caller's Bane' published by Mojang AB
'Duelyst' published by Bandai Namco Entertainment
etc.

[rusty_shackleford]

@rusty_shackleford

Q: Aren't you asking companies to support games forever? Isn't that unrealistic?

A: No, we are not asking that at all. We are in favor of publishers ending support for a game whenever they choose. What we are asking for is that they implement an end-of-life plan to modify or patch the game so that it can run on customer systems with no further support from the company being necessary. We agree it is unrealistic to expect companies to support games indefinitely and do not advocate for that in any way. Additionally, there are already real-world examples of publishers ending support for online-only games in a responsible way, such as:

'Gran Turismo Sport' published by Sony
'Knockout City' published by Electronic Arts
'Mega Man X DiVE' published by Capcom
'Scrolls / Caller's Bane' published by Mojang AB
'Duelyst' published by Bandai Namco Entertainment
etc.

If you wanted to send him an email of another example, Ryzom
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryzom#Sou ... y_released

The developer released the source code for the server freely after commercial failure. It's now maintained by fans AFAIK.

[Tweed]

@rusty_shackleford

Q: Aren't you asking companies to support games forever? Isn't that unrealistic?

A: No, we are not asking that at all. We are in favor of publishers ending support for a game whenever they choose. What we are asking for is that they implement an end-of-life plan to modify or patch the game so that it can run on customer systems with no further support from the company being necessary. We agree it is unrealistic to expect companies to support games indefinitely and do not advocate for that in any way. Additionally, there are already real-world examples of publishers ending support for online-only games in a responsible way, such as:

'Gran Turismo Sport' published by Sony
'Knockout City' published by Electronic Arts
'Mega Man X DiVE' published by Capcom
'Scrolls / Caller's Bane' published by Mojang AB
'Duelyst' published by Bandai Namco Entertainment
etc.

If you wanted to send him an email of another example, Ryzom
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryzom#Sou ... y_released

The developer released the source code for the server freely after commercial failure. It's now maintained by fans AFAIK.

Always wondered what happened to Ryzom, remember messing with the beta, but my computer could barely handle it.

[rusty_shackleford]

Always wondered what happened to Ryzom, remember messing with the beta, but my computer could barely handle it.

I played it a bit back and it's jank as fuck but kinda fun. Has a lot of systems few in any other games have. e.g., herd animals that roam around depending on seasons, creating your own abilities, and so forth.

[rusty_shackleford]

The problem with this video is Ross is uninformed and probably should have consulted with an attorney first.
You are not buying games, only a few games have ever actually been sold to consumers. You're licensing the game.

The heart of the issue is that companies which license digital goods purposely conflate this with buying a product. A proper regulation would be something like the surgeon general's warning on cigarettes informing the customer that they are not purchasing this product, but a license of the product that they have no rights to redistribute or sell and can only play it as long as the owner of the IP allows them to do so — which can be revoked at any time.
People constantly harp on upon "muh physical media" when you never owned that anymore than you owner a game in your steam library. You owned a hunk of plastic.

That is, the issue is that you simply aren't being granted a perpetual license to play the game as one would expect when BUYING a product.

---

You can see this with his analogy of someone torching paintings and "destroy your games". This is not the same! It's if the owner of a painting decided he wanted to destroy the painting and therefore ending any licenses he provided to people that allowed them to view the painting as was his right. You agreed to that when you bought access to view the painting.
Anyone who says this is just "technicalities" simply doesn't get it — you have never owned these products, it's not a technicality.
"Any other industry, a company destroying what they sold you would be illegal" — Again, this goes right back to him not understanding that he does not own the game. Licenses are terminated under the provisions provided all the time.

[Acrux]

He acknowledges this in the video, and said he has been working with attorneys, from what I recall. His strategy is to go worldwide and hopefully have something helpful happen in a country with adequate consumer protection laws. He's written off the US as anything effective.

[Oyster Sauce]

Can't see anything more effective that just pressuring companies to provide basic end of life support like he's doing. It's a completely reasonable demand and only has to happen in one or two notable cases before it becomes an expectation

[J1M]

The only way this will happen is if it was required to place the code in trust for each release. Asking a company with no money to do something will fail because the CEO will never be personally liable for not doing it.

[Shillitron]

The problem with this video is Ross is uninformed and probably should have consulted with an attorney first.

I think the true goal of this video is to drive market pressure from CONSOOMERS to force a change that legally isn't gonna fly.

Because your right:

You are not buying games, only a few games have ever actually been sold to consumers. You're licensing the game.

Just because that's currently how it works today doesn't mean it should be accepted.
This is literally "You will own nothing" faggotry.

But of course we are talking about CONSUUUUMERS here.. who buy whatever {latest_thing} is like lemurs running off a cliff. Gaming as an industry is slop. So I wouldn't ever hold the illusion of anything changing through consumer activism.

[rusty_shackleford]

The problem with this video is Ross is uninformed and probably should have consulted with an attorney first.

I think the true goal of this video is to drive market pressure from CONSOOMERS to force a change that legally isn't gonna fly.

Because your right:

You are not buying games, only a few games have ever actually been sold to consumers. You're licensing the game.

Just because that's currently how it works today doesn't mean it should be accepted.
This is literally "You will own nothing" faggotry.

But of course we are talking about CONSUUUUMERS here.. who buy whatever {latest_thing} is like lemurs running off a cliff. Gaming as an industry is slop. So I wouldn't ever hold the illusion of anything changing through consumer activism.

I'm just a realist. I can't think of any instances of a similar effort amounting to anything(in terms of legal or regulatory action) that didn't involve unfair business practices to begin with.
The closest is probably the western response to lootboxes where the line was drawn, and developers have been very careful of not overstepping this line since the star wars battlefront 2 fiasco. But it's still not that clearcut e.g., most MMOs have lootboxes.

[TKVNC]

I'm just a realist. I can't think of any instances of a similar effort amounting to anything(in terms of legal or regulatory action) that didn't involve unfair business practices to begin with.
The closest is probably the western response to lootboxes where the line was drawn, and developers have been very careful of not overstepping this line since the star wars battlefront 2 fiasco. But it's still not that clearcut e.g., most MMOs have lootboxes.

The solution is not working in the framework that exists currently, it's in changing the entire framework.

Just as the European Union, and England has legislation to challenge corporate control, such as the Sale of Goods, Consumer Rights, and Unfair Contract Terms acts, the American Government should be pressured into doing the same - it is wholly inappropriate that a product can be sold, but only as a 'lease' when it's a full and final sale, and not a lease in all but it's naming. This system is the result of a lack of comprehensive law, not because it can't be done.

Remember, governments can do anything in their own territory. It just requires the political will to achieve this.

However, Gamers are not the sort of people that are likely to get political.

[rusty_shackleford]

I'm just a realist. I can't think of any instances of a similar effort amounting to anything(in terms of legal or regulatory action) that didn't involve unfair business practices to begin with.
The closest is probably the western response to lootboxes where the line was drawn, and developers have been very careful of not overstepping this line since the star wars battlefront 2 fiasco. But it's still not that clearcut e.g., most MMOs have lootboxes.

The solution is not working in the framework that exists currently, it's in changing the entire framework.

Just as the European Union, and England has legislation to challenge corporate control, such as the Sale of Goods, Consumer Rights, and Unfair Contract Terms acts, the American Government should be pressured into doing the same - it is wholly inappropriate that a product can be sold, but only as a 'lease' when it's a full and final sale, and not a lease in all but it's naming. This system is the result of a lack of comprehensive law, not because it can't be done.

Remember, governments can do anything in their own territory. It just requires the political will to achieve this.

However, Gamers are not the sort of people that are likely to get political.

'Fixing' the issue would essentially require upending the entire copyright system which is the basis of countless international treaties.

[TKVNC]

'Fixing' the issue would essentially require upending the entire copyright system which is the basis of countless international treaties.

I fail to the see the issue.

[rusty_shackleford]

'Fixing' the issue would essentially require upending the entire copyright system which is the basis of countless international treaties.

I fail to the see the issue.

Again, I'm a realist.

[TKVNC]

Again, I'm a realist.

It's fair, I mean significant legislative change like this doesn't happen without heavyweight political movement.

That said - you wouldn't need to upend copyright law to enable something like this. Selling a whole product, and not a lease of a product, or a product that must be automatically updated doesn't particularly infringe on copyright law.

[rusty_shackleford]

Again, I'm a realist.

It's fair, I mean significant legislative change like this doesn't happen without heavyweight political movement.

That said - you wouldn't need to upend copyright law to enable something like this. Selling a whole product, and not a lease of a product, or a product that must be automatically updated doesn't particularly infringe on copyright law.

If they sold the 'whole product', only one person would ever have to buy one then copy it and legally share it with everyone else for free.

[TKVNC]

If they sold the 'whole product', only one person would ever have to buy one then copy it and legally share it with everyone else for free.

Not entirely true. In the same way that when games were still made on discs, you could not legally copy and distribute it, but your own personaly copy was fine, since you now owned that item - the same is technically true for digital games, that is downloaded ones. In the same way you can effectively log on to a different computer and download your copy to play it there - but without actively going behind the normal system, you can't play both at the same time.

In essence, the copyright holder would still own all the rights to legally copy and distribute new versions (and this doesn't necessarily mean as in transference, as in the above example), except just as with a disc, they can't legally come to your house and demand you hand it over - a legal mechanism could be created that requires them (once having sold an asset) to provide a mechanism to access it in perpetuity. So, suppose it is pulled from Steam, they would be obliged to offer a download to those who can prove ownership (in this case using a CD Key) of the product as it last existed. They need not offer any further support than this.

Naturally, this is the crux of what he is asking for, and it would not need to infringe of copyright to enable it, as it makes no comment on unauthorised duplication, or distribution of an asset.

[rusty_shackleford]

Not entirely true. In the same way that when games were still made on discs, you could not legally copy and distribute it, but your own personaly copy was fine, since you now owned that item

You did not own it, you were licensing it. You owned a hunk of plastic that was used to transmit the data you were licensing. I already addressed that here:

People constantly harp on upon "muh physical media" when you never owned that anymore than you owner a game in your steam library. You owned a hunk of plastic.

No ownership was ever conferred.

except just as with a disc, they can't legally come to your house and demand you hand it over

Except they have, they've already done this to me.
I have probably a dozen games sitting in my closet that have SecuROM, all of them are completely unplayable out of the box now because they relied on kernel functions that are no longer available on any windows OS made in the past 18 years, and certainly none of the ones that are actually supported.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SecuROM

[TKVNC]

except just as with a disc, they can't legally come to your house and demand you hand it over

Except they have, they've already done this to me.

To be fair - they didn't take your Discs off you, they just updated their software to make them unusable.

As for ownership, having all the assets on a physical Disc, is more or less ownership. In all but direct definition.

[J1M]

Just admit you didn't think your comment through. It's less work than trying to redefine all of the words you used.

[Xenich]

stop publishers from pulling the plug on online-only games

Seems like it would be easier to get regulations that require developers to ensure their games remain playable, that is, release server software for online-only games in the case that the service is no longer provided by the developer.

Easy solution to that. Put in a law that says if the game company no longer offers the service, the game becomes open source licensed.

[rusty_shackleford]

stop publishers from pulling the plug on online-only games

Seems like it would be easier to get regulations that require developers to ensure their games remain playable, that is, release server software for online-only games in the case that the service is no longer provided by the developer.

Easy solution to that. Put in a law that says if the game company no longer offers the service, the game becomes open source licensed.

Most games legally cannot be released open-source due to various obligations & reliance upon third-party technologies. It's why it took years after release for id to release the GPL source of their games that would be missing functionality due to having to strip various middlewares out.

[Xenich]

Seems like it would be easier to get regulations that require developers to ensure their games remain playable, that is, release server software for online-only games in the case that the service is no longer provided by the developer.

Easy solution to that. Put in a law that says if the game company no longer offers the service, the game becomes open source licensed.

Most games legally cannot be released open-source due to various obligations & reliance upon third-party technologies. It's why it took years after release for id to release the GPL source of their games that would be missing functionality due to having to strip various middlewares out.

Hmm... well, that would keep it from going "open source" I guess. What about stripping away DMCA type claims to private servers which just use the client, but create their own servers? Might be easier to tell the company "well, you no longer have a service, you can't tell other people not to use your client and their own server". Would that be easier? (yeah, like the government is going to support the consumer, but it is a thought).

[rusty_shackleford]

Easy solution to that. Put in a law that says if the game company no longer offers the service, the game becomes open source licensed.

Most games legally cannot be released open-source due to various obligations & reliance upon third-party technologies. It's why it took years after release for id to release the GPL source of their games that would be missing functionality due to having to strip various middlewares out.

Hmm... well, that would keep it from going "open source" I guess. What about stripping away DMCA type claims to private servers which just use the client, but create their own servers? Might be easier to tell the company "well, you no longer have a service, you can't tell other people not to use your client and their own server". Would that be easier? (yeah, like the government is going to support the consumer, but it is a thought).

The issue is games often no longer provide the server or allow private hosting capabilities. I touched on this here:

Seems like it would be easier to get regulations that require developers to ensure their games remain playable, that is, release server software for online-only games in the case that the service is no longer provided by the developer.

I could see this as an entirely viable strategy to take from a consumer rights/regulation POV.

[Xenich]

Most games legally cannot be released open-source due to various obligations & reliance upon third-party technologies. It's why it took years after release for id to release the GPL source of their games that would be missing functionality due to having to strip various middlewares out.

Hmm... well, that would keep it from going "open source" I guess. What about stripping away DMCA type claims to private servers which just use the client, but create their own servers? Might be easier to tell the company "well, you no longer have a service, you can't tell other people not to use your client and their own server". Would that be easier? (yeah, like the government is going to support the consumer, but it is a thought).

The issue is games often no longer provide the server or allow private hosting capabilities. I touched on this here:

Seems like it would be easier to get regulations that require developers to ensure their games remain playable, that is, release server software for online-only games in the case that the service is no longer provided by the developer.

I could see this as an entirely viable strategy to take from a consumer rights/regulation POV.

Well, that would be preferable. I remember telling Brad McQuaid that Pantheon should have been marketed as a server/client software to avoid problems like Vanguard pretty much being ghosted. Thing is, corporate types hate giving up anything. They would rather drop everything into a dark hole that they own, so they don't miss the chance of making money on it in the future. With the popularity of sites like GoG, being able to sell old software for essentially no development time, a lot of the IPs have been bought up by banks where they just sit on them waiting for something to happen where they can cash in.

Lets be honest though, government being as corrupt as it is, do you think the public is going to be able to get them to put in laws that force things like this? It is much more likely the companies get subsidized through a tax scheme to keep the game running indefinitely.

[rusty_shackleford]

Hmm... well, that would keep it from going "open source" I guess. What about stripping away DMCA type claims to private servers which just use the client, but create their own servers? Might be easier to tell the company "well, you no longer have a service, you can't tell other people not to use your client and their own server". Would that be easier? (yeah, like the government is going to support the consumer, but it is a thought).

The issue is games often no longer provide the server or allow private hosting capabilities. I touched on this here:

Seems like it would be easier to get regulations that require developers to ensure their games remain playable, that is, release server software for online-only games in the case that the service is no longer provided by the developer.

I could see this as an entirely viable strategy to take from a consumer rights/regulation POV.

Well, that would be preferable. I remember telling Brad McQuaid that Pantheon should have been marketed as a server/client software to avoid problems like Vanguard pretty much being ghosted. Thing is, corporate types hate giving up anything. They would rather drop everything into a dark hole that they own, so they don't miss the chance of making money on it in the future. With the popularity of sites like GoG, being able to sell old software for essentially no development time, a lot of the IPs have been bought up by banks where they just sit on them waiting for something to happen where they can cash in.

Lets be honest though, government being as corrupt as it is, do you think the public is going to be able to get them to put in laws that force things like this? It is much more likely the companies get subsidized through a tax scheme to keep the game running indefinitely.

I think it's much more feasible than any other alternative suggested. It's a solution for the problem of being unable to access the service you licensed, does not require undue burden from the developers, does not requiring disclosing source code(server could be released as a binary, but server is much less likely to have any proprietary middleware), or transferring any IP rights, etc.,
In fact, it's probably the only workable solution for this problem.

[Xenich]

The issue is games often no longer provide the server or allow private hosting capabilities. I touched on this here:


I could see this as an entirely viable strategy to take from a consumer rights/regulation POV.

Well, that would be preferable. I remember telling Brad McQuaid that Pantheon should have been marketed as a server/client software to avoid problems like Vanguard pretty much being ghosted. Thing is, corporate types hate giving up anything. They would rather drop everything into a dark hole that they own, so they don't miss the chance of making money on it in the future. With the popularity of sites like GoG, being able to sell old software for essentially no development time, a lot of the IPs have been bought up by banks where they just sit on them waiting for something to happen where they can cash in.

Lets be honest though, government being as corrupt as it is, do you think the public is going to be able to get them to put in laws that force things like this? It is much more likely the companies get subsidized through a tax scheme to keep the game running indefinitely.

I think it's much more feasible than any other alternative suggested. It's a solution for the problem of being unable to access the service you licensed, does not require undue burden from the developers, does not requiring disclosing source code(server could be released as a binary, but server is much less likely to have any proprietary middleware), or transferring any IP rights, etc.,
In fact, it's probably the only workable solution for this problem.

Maybe, can't say I wouldn't like to see such, but I would be surprised to see it happen.