European game publisher group responds to Stop Killing Games, claims 'These proposals would curtail developer choice"
European game publisher group responds to Stop Killing Games, claims the proposal 'would curtail developer choice'
Yes, it will restrict developer... well, really, mostly publisher choice, in 99% of the scenarios this will actually affect, if you go by amount of money involved.
Specifically their choice to Thanos snap all of your MTX purchased items out of existence, their choice to EoL a game without having some kind of at least mostly functional final patch and/or release of a stripped down dedi server binary.
Yep.
They're right.
It would restrict those choices.
Like how we have lemon laws that restrict the choice of a car dealer/mfg to sell you a catastrophically broken piece of crap.
In addition, many titles are designed from the ground-up to be online-only; in effect, these proposals would curtail developer choice by making these video games prohibitively expensive to create.
Why even bother asking industry outlets about this? Clearly they will just keep on trying to paint the picture that they're people with rights and desires and not just replaceable entities serving at the behest of consumers, i.e. actual people.
Unfortunately, even if the Stop Killing Games movement eventually succeeds in creating some sort of policy changes, they will only apply in the EU (and potentially the UK, as well), so publishers and developers may still be able to permanently shut down games in other parts of the world.
Oh, I wouldn't worry about that. The whole world automatically benefits from regional legislation affecting global actors like international publishers. Just like the whole world benefitted from Europe enforcing GDPR compliance: Every reddit and Facebook user, not just Europeans, being able to download a data dump of their site activities isn't something that came about randomly.
Oh, I wouldn't worry about that. The whole world automatically benefits from regional legislation affecting global actors like international publishers. Just like the whole world benefitted from Europe enforcing GDPR compliance: Every reddit and Facebook user, not just Europeans, being able to download a data dump of their site activities isn't something that came about randomly.
I also think they're making a bad point. Like, if you want to spend money to shit down your games except Europe, then do so, if you want. We ain't gonna stop you, just seems stupid to invest money into this thing that isn't going to get a high return either way.
100%! Every single developer I've ever met has been adamant about wanting to watch their work, hours of their life, be killed off on a financial basis! They told me so personally!
Edit: speaking seriously now, I don't get what their fucking problem is... Nobody's asking them to keep the servers running indefinitely. I mean, the far, far smarter choice would be to implement LAN play. Hell, not even that, give us the source code and we'll do it on our own! The community has been aces at keeping old multiplayer games alive and kicking, just look at Battlefield 2142, custom WoW servers, custom, like... whatever servers. There are so, so many people willing to keep these games alive without any help from the publisher or anyone else.
And they especially don't want end users to be informed about the game's life expectancy before they pay for it!
Well, that would spoil the fun, wouldn't it! I mean, that soul-whittling existential anxiety I get whenever I pick up an online-only game is 90% of the reason why I play them in the first place!
Nobody's asking them to keep the servers running indefinitely.
Also, why not just release a docker image of your server plus a docker-compose/kubernetes deployment definition? You're usually using cloud hosting and automated deployment anyways, so you probably already have one laying around anyways...
Yeah, the choice to fuck over customers would be heavily curtailed, think of the lost profits!!
"We understand that it can be disappointing for players but, when it does happen, the industry ensures that players are given fair notice of the prospective changes in compliance with local consumer protection laws."
LOL
Its cool, guys. They are gonna tell us in advance "fuck you, suckers!" instead of just pulling the rug out from under you.
Yes, and now we want to change those laws. It should be easy to follow those too.
Developer choice? What? What bullshit. People have the right to own their games and play games that are old.
Had to go look for something important before i replied.
The choices of developers or the corporations that enslave developers? It's not the same.
This post only requires one response, to wit:
"GOOD."
Industry lobby group opposes consumer protection movement. In other news: water is wet.
Makes, not is.
Individual water molecules make another molecule wet