Nothing brings the internet together like hating a sexist self centered egotistical narcissist.
Seriously pirate has been an asshole for like 20 years. He’s been banned from furry communities, kicked out of second life communities, rejected from eve communities.
Now people are realizing how much of a scum bag he is in the streamer community.
The only upside his asshole self centeredness has draw crazy attention to the partition.
Who? I seriously have no idea who you’re talking about.
I honestly think that the main reason this has kicked off is that up until about a week ago it wasn’t really advertised. I didn’t even know that it started the petition up again, I knew the original one failed because parliament closed and for some reason that meant the petition had to end.
PirateSoftware (Thor) is a streamer and a game developer who is a narcissistic asshole. He’s been very against the SKG petition since I think the start since if it passed he would be forced to keep supporting his games once they fail (it’s happened before) and made a video trying to torpedo the petition some months ago by spreading disinformation that’s easily disproven with a halfway decent level of reading comprehension. Recently the guy who runs the SKG petition announced that Piratesoftware was successful, which caused a lot of big streamers and Youtubers to catch on and call PirateSofware out while endorsing SKG, including MoistCritikal. Since then the number of signings have skyrocketed.
B) procuring software is a two-way street … the producer assigns terms by which access is obtained, and you agree to those terms in exchange for that access. If the software is SaaS then if the producer chooses to shut down the service then you are SOL. If the software is provided with a long list of terms via Steam, then you are basically buying SaaS with local caching and execution. Maybe don’t reward producers by agreeing to one-sided deals like SaaS?
This kind of headache is what prompted Richard Stallman to come up with the idea for the GNU license. Maybe you think that is too radical… but maybe imposing your ideas of what licensing terms should look like on (only?) game developers is radical also.
For the same reason I think software developers have the right to choose to release under copyleft, I think they have the right to release under SaaS or copyright. I don’t think it is fair to take those rights from them. (I may choose to avoid SaaS or other proprietary models where possible, but I am not pure about it… I just do so recognizing that proprietary tools are a band-aid and could become unusable when any upgrade or TOS changes.)
As one example, keep in mind that some governments may choose to punish a software developer for making “offensive” (by whatever their standards are) content, and rather than fighting a losing battle in one jurisdiction so you in some other jurisdiction can keep using that controversial software the developer may just choose to cut their losses and turn it off for everyone. If you force them to release it anyway then said punitive government may continue to hold the developer responsible for the existence of that software.
There are rights and responsibilities associated with a proprietary model… and IMO you (and your permissive government) should not be overriding those rights for your own short-sighted benefit.
There are rights and responsibilities associated with a proprietary model… and IMO you (and your permissive government) should not be overriding those rights for your own short-sighted benefit.
Kind of sounds like you misunderstood the initiative to be honest. This only affects games which have been abandoned by the developer, the proprietary model stays perfectly intact as long as you actually keep selling your games.
also, no modern game companies with any relevance use a FOSS license.
so the way i see it, gamers have two options:
stop playing videogames or
only play supertuxkart and dwarf fortress
neither of these would happen at a scale large enough to force game studios into making their games FOSS.
the only way i can see of making this happen is by either:
a series of very popular, targeted boycotts at studios, or
making governments regulate the industry.
and with the second option, history has shown that only small changes have a chance of passing. effectively abolishing copyright law for software is not something the EU will ever do, no matter how many signatures a petition gets.
I don’t think they need to make their games FOSS to do right by the consumer. If you have an online game and no longer want to support the server part, it would be super cool to share that code, but at the very least companies shouldn’t be trying to shut down community servers. The same goes for the game itself, the source code would be very cool, but not going after people who still want to play the game they’ve chosen to no longer support seems reasonable.
If a company is ending support their ability to enforce copyright should also end, outside of people that are trying to profit off trying to resell the game as their own (which probably doesn’t happen all that much).
Dwarf Fortress is not free open source software! It's a great game and runs natively on Linux. You can download it at no cost. But it's not open source.
The argument here is that they don’t need to open source or switch over to an FOSS license.
They just need to not actively prohibit people from doing custom servers and they need to release their own server files wheb their support period ends.
If that ends with violating a license agreement they have with another company that is exclusively a that company problem because as shown in the past, law supercedes agreement and contracts.
It will basically put branding companies at a either they don’t agree to let their stuff be used in games and not get the money for it, or they decide that it really doesn’t matter all that much if a community project can use their stuff. Simple choice
They can still release their bespoke parts without any of the third party licensed stuff. Even without instructions on what needs to be gotten and put back in. It’d allow the smarter guys in the community have a headstart to figuring it out anyway. Most licensed software can be replaced, look at the recent decomps like the Lego island one.
To address your first point. Yes it applies to other software, this initiative applies to games because the “buyer purchases a license to allow the seller to remove your purchase at some indefinite time later” practices have been most prevalent in gaming.
Extending the scope too far will bring in more opponents than allies and muddy the discussion. Getting a decisive answer here will inform laws on how other industries should be regulated in separate but parallel legislative processes.
Do they still need to get the minimum in at least 7 countries? Anyone happen to know? Ive only been loosely following and i don’t want to stress the website more than it is suffering lol.
No, that requirement has already been met. The final requirement (which has just been met now) is to reach a total of 1 million signatures. Basically, all requirements are now satisfied
In a way, focussing on the countries was always ultimately pointless (aside from encouraging votes througj country rivalries). It’s almost impossible to not have required countries after the million votes milestone. You’d have to male something very specific like “make dutch the only language in the EU” in order to not make that cut.
Exactly. I have something like 10-20 “complete” games because they either give 100% completion for rolling credits or I really enjoyed the game and ended up completing the achievements anyway. Of the rest, I’ve probably rolled credits on 80% of my “played” games, because sometimes I just lose interest before I reach the end, while still enjoying my time w/ it.
Games should be fun, and if they stop being fun, move on.
At the current rate (which may or may not hold and may or may not be legitimate) the initiative should beat “One of Us”, the biggest one yet with 1.9M signatures (pro-life, ultimately did nothing).
That's definitely a stretch goal. But at least if we can start by stopping them from killing something innocuous like games it shows that we still maybe have some power over them.
Almost, but not quite. A portion of those signatures will turn out to be invalid, so we have to keep going past 1 million if this thing is going to fly. Aiming for 1.4 million might be wise.
The problem isn’t mobile games, and it’s not console games, and it’s not PC games. It’s the profit motive and corporations and enshittification. And there’s plenty of that going on in games for mobile, console, and PC. (And, for that matter, TTRPGs. And it’s not like the 300 different collectors editions of Monopoly released every year aren’t enshittification at play.)
Addictive gotcha mechanics are shitty when they’re tied to microtransactions. Even when not tied to microtransactions, I think they can still be shitty depending on the specific circumstances, and it’s definitely wise to responsibly manage your (and/or your children’s) engagement to not cause other problems in your(/their) life. But is addictiveness in a video game inherently a bad thing? I don’t think so. All games cause dopamine squirts whether it’s Pong or a slot machine. That’s kinda the point of games. There are plenty of Open Source games out there that cause big addictive dopamine squirts. (Mindustry, anyone?) And such games aren’t made to milk whales. They’re made because someone wanted to create and play such a game.
Don’t be talking too much smack about shovelware! Low-quality games create their own vibes. Some are accidental masterpieces. Both of my favorite two YouTube gaming content creators do a lot of their content on really low-quality games. This series got me to buy Radiation Island and I had a great time playing it. And here is a great video on all the shitty official games based on the movie Avatar.
“Gaming is as much about socializing as playing” is an awesome outlook to have on gaming! Addictiveness in games can be… concerning. But sometimes particular games are the key by which your kid can be involved in peer group. I’m not saying that automatically trumps any downsides and you should let your kid spend $∞ on Fortnight skins or whatever. But I think probably in most cases a balancing act is superior to a hard “yes” or “no”.
I should probably specify that I’m admittedly an old fart who doesn’t know shit about mobile gaming. (The only mobile games I play are Open Source ones on F-Droid.) And the only modern console I have is a Switch, and I don’t have any plans to get one soon. I’ve played a lot of Breath of the Wild, though. And a fair amount of Tears of the Kingdom.
Some final thoughts:
Open Source gaming is awesome.
The way they’re doing anti-cheat on PC is fucked-up.
But so is the way they lock down consoles and phones.
Hack your games. Hack your consoles. (If you don’t hack it, you don’t own it.) Get your kids interested in hacking stuff.
…responsibly, of course.
Play games with your kids! (And not just the ones you want to play.)
Roughly in order of how much I enjoy them from most to least. (Not that the later ones are bad. Just that they’re more low-key.)
Mindustry is amazing, but as I mentioned above, really really addictive. (The commercial game it’s most often compared to is Factorio.)
Then there’s Shattered Pixel Dungeon. Amazing dungeon crawler.
Endless Sky is a great space mercantile sim.
Luanti is a Minecraft clone.
Unciv is a turn-based civilization development game.
And if you’re wanting to do emulation, there’s Lemuroid. Also, EasyRPG, an engine for playing RPG Maker games like Yume Nikki. Oh, FreeDoom is a great implementation of Doom for Android.
Those are the ones that’ll keep your attention for a good long time. There are tons of much simpler games that are still fun like Frozen Bubble and Hyper Rogue. And plenty of games that I haven’t really gotten into very much but that people really seem to like Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup.
Man. There are a lot now that I’m listing them out. Lol.
I would just like to mention that it is called “gacha” not “gotcha.”
“Gacha” is short for the Japanese term gachapon, which means “capsule toy.” You remember gumball machines? You put a quarter in and twist the handle and a gumball comes out. Gachapon is like that, but with a small plastic ball with a random toy inside. Those are less common than the gumball machines, but there were also some that had sticker/temporary tattoo sheets and those hard candies that looks like fruits(mostly bananas).
Gachapon is a bit different from gambling. Gambling comes with the inherent understanding that you have a chance to lose. With gachapon, you always get exactly what you are paying for: a random capsule toy. You just don’t get to pick which one you get. With gachapon, you always “win,” there is no chance that your money is spent and you get nothing in return. This is why games with gacha mechanics makes duplicates of characters or items useful. Whatever you get is still useful to you, even if you don’t get what you wanted.
I think you already understand the negative aspects of gachapon, but I just wanted to add that little bit of information.
With gachapon, you always "win," there is no chance that your money is spent and you get nothing in return.
Although you're technically getting something, typically the common items are nearly worthless, and may as well be nothing. You only "win" when you actually get the ultra rare 5* SSR Jackpot waifu.
Sometimes, but most of the time duplicates let you level up a character beyond their basic level (Limit Break, most commonly called), or give you materials to pick a new character (sometimes called Pity System, but that is a little different), or materials to forge new weapons.
I have played many gacha games, and I have only ever spent money on NieR Reincarnation because I wanted Square Enix to see that I like Yoko Taros games and want more of them. I am not a whale, dolphin, or a minnow. I am a “barnacle” F2P player, and I have never had a problem with the games I play. They’re not really designed to be constantly played all the time like a “regular” game would be, instead being level or session style games. I don’t compare my game progress with other players, and I play to have fun and pass time. I get exactly what I want from them for whenever I play them.
Absolutely what everyone else says. Keep signing. There’s a good chance this petition could reach the most signatures ever for a EU Citizens Initiative. I believe the current record is 1.7mil.
I swear this is not me doomering (I very much support this campaign and even signed it myself half a year ago), but I strongly suspect that at least a good chunk of those are fake. The issue is very hot in “terminally online” circles and those are the kind of people who don’t really think things through before acting.
I hope the number will keep on growing until the “legit” votes make up for the fake ones.
bin.pol.social
Aktywne