Just imagine how much worse it would have been for sony with Concord in the EU if this law were reality. Flop a game, a live service game no less and then they would have to leave it in a playable state for like a couple hundred people that ever played it in the EU. I don’t know how this law would work in this case. Would they be mandated to give out the server code that people could run their own servers?
It’s really ambiguous how it would or how it would be revised work for games that are multiplayer only.
Would they be mandated to give out the server code that people could run their own servers?
Sort of. The Idea is that people should be able to run their own servers, but developers wouldn’t need to give out their code. All you need is the server binary. After all server software is just that software, just like the client and they don’t need to give out the source code for that for you to run the game. Alternatively they could patch the game so it’s peer-to-peer. (and yes in this case that would be unreasonable as the game is not successful enough to even break even)
The initiative is so ambiguous (to the extend that it is - I’d argue that it’s a lot clearer than many people claim) because it’s not actually legal text. It’s not supposed to be. All it should do is describe the problem and explain why the problem falls under EU jurisdiction. Everything else is supposed to be handled by EU lawmakers after the initiative has met it’s signature goal.
I think the idea is more that if this were in place companies like Sony would be more incentivized to make sure they release games worth buying and playing, because if they didn’t then they would have the financial burden of keeping them alive.
Side note: it doesn’t require constant support from the developers. Just update it so players can run local servers, then it would technically still be playable. Of course I’m not a game dev so I’m sure thats more complicated than I’m making it sound, so that’s again why they should focus on making games that are good to begin with.
I think in Sony’s case a reasonable alternative is to just refund, which is what they’re doing anyways. There’s no way a full refund would not be considered a true option, so I think the Concord side is a bit irrelevant to the primary issue of server owners shutting down servers for old games and keeping the money.
Literally how would this change anything? Nobody played the game because it’s bad. Everyone who bought it got a refund. Why would you want a law forcing them to give people a game they don’t want?
Off the top of my head not really, but I just woke up
But there’s this magic way to learn about stuff called “looking it up” you can try! I recommend the people the post is talking about, you’re obviously really poorly informed on the topic
This is so important to you that the government must be petitioned to act but you don’t have a single example? Did you purchase Concord? Have you ever purchased a game that no longer works? Why do you think you have the right to tell the devs what they should be doing if you didn’t buy their game?
This is so important to you that the government must be petitioned to act but you don’t have a single example?
Yup, that’s exactly what I said, nailed it!
Did you purchase Concord?
No, irrelevant anyway
Have you ever purchased a game that no longer works?
Yes. Multiple, even!
Why do you think you have the right to tell the devs what they should be doing if you didn’t buy their game?
Because nobody should have the ability to take a paid-for product and make it no longer work after the fact. That flat-out _shouldn’t be an options for anyone
You should really inform yourself on this topic, it’s super clear you’ve got no idea what youre on about
Yonder: The Cloud Catcher Chronicles … but with the caveats that a) it’s only PARTLY like stardew/portia/harvestmoon and b) For the life of me I can’t remember if the game had money or not.
The game is partly farm-life-sim, but the other part is “zelda-like” adventuring and getting rid of “dark smoke thing” that does bad things to the world.
It has a barter system, but you don’t need to use it if you don’t want to. Nearly everything you need in the game can be harvested or made.
Their other game, Grow: Song of the Evertree, is pretty fun too. It’s partly a city builder, partly exploring new worlds that you create. It’s been a while since I played it, so I remember some sort of currency, but I don’t really remember having to work that hard for it. Mostly, I just focused on creating worlds with crazy elements.
Grow: Song of the Evertree has lots of crafting materials, but no money. I haven’t played it much, but it mostly seems to be about gathering daily to grow the Evertree, then using the resources to expand the town.
Doesn’t change the fact that the few fans it had can’t play it ever again, game is still killed because it had no support for community servers, just matchmaking.
I for sure would prefer to host my own The Crew and not getting a refund.
I feel it’s rather fair to give them a pass on this one. Games with a player base and longer than a passing fart of time in the market? Sure. This was a failed product. They issued refunds. This is a situation where pushing your luck just backs someone into a corner.
We can hope they’ll flip the assets and remodel into another title.
Yeah, they did handle it correctly. All things considered. Even in an utopian future where the stopkillinggames.com campaign is successful. Personally I would still prefer to keep all games alive.
Honestly, I’m a bit skeptical of StopKillingGames. It feels like a good thing, but it also comes off as naive. Like the whole “just distribute the server” requirement is impossible with the way modern games are developed, and may be cost-prohibitive to implement for most developers well into the future. Besides, some games really are less like a painting and more like a musical; performance art necessarily has to end at some point, so it’s all about the experience and the memories. Nobody complains when the actors take a bow, because that’s the expectation.
“Just distribute the server” isn’t a requirement. It has never been a requirement. Who said that’s a requirement?
It’s just a possible solution. And to me it seems to be the easiest since that is the exact way it used to be done.
What exactly publishers will have to do depends entirely on if the campaign is successful and how the resulting laws are written. And may be as simple as an expiration date on all future game sales.
The Witness is a good puzzle game where they give you the same kind of puzzle, but different areas have their own rules. They don’t tell you how the rules work, but they’re fairly intuitive and the ramp up in each area is good. Eventually you have to recall rules from previous puzzles. There are extra puzzles that go beyond the mold as well, but those are well hidden.
And the Netherlands are 6th! But the hardest part will be reaching that Million threshold… We still have a lot of time, but the pace has certainly slowed down the last few weeks compared to the skyrocketing in the early days. I think we will need to have more awareness spread around the campaign, perhaps try to reach mainstream media in some ways…
I you love puzzle games you need to try Can of Wormholes, over 100 handcrafted puzzle stages where every puzzle introduces a new idea or interaction, very underrated game.
Played through hifi rush recently. I can’t think of a game that’s done anything like it, I cannot recommend it enough. Was truely one of the best games I’ve ever played
Or kill it completely. The only reason I’ve held off signing this is that the wording is so vague that it could work in favor of gaming companies. I’d rather not see that.
It’s not supposed to be a finished law at this point. The main take from the initiative is that digital games have a massive issue with anti-consumer practices, and that consumers demand something to be done about it.
Companies can completely erase the idea of ownership. If everything is subscription-based, they can simply stop the subscription and have no further obligations.
Or Europe just gets completely locked out of functionality, as already happens in some European countries.
Of course good things can come from this, but I’ve read here several times that this just isn’t a good proposition and might just lead to the anti-consumer practices disappearing in a negative way too.
EU is way too large of a market to “lock out.” Didn’t happen with Apple, for example.
For subscription hell, we’re deeper into it than is healthy, but I don’t expect it to take over because of this. Steam, which is the biggest, most profitable platform out there doesn’t even offer a subscription and shouldn’t be hurt by this. For competitors, trying to suddenly force everyone into a subscription would lose a lot of business.
Edit: Anyway, doing nothing about it is a guaranteed bad outcome.
The first games that popped into my head were Forager and Outpath, though these arent so much community building type games. They are more just something cute to relax to. They have farming and resource collecting and honestly play more like an active idler game than anything. Another game ive sunk tons of time into that kinda meets your requirements is Banished. Its just a medieval city builder game but it is deceptively hard to get a good balanced town going which can be pretty rewarding in itself. Theres no money per se but you do have to manage resources. Theres bartering in the game but you use your resources like crops and stone and stuff.
It’s also great without mods. During my first playthrough, a tornado destroyed most of the village, including the school with every child in it. Up until that point, nobody had died. All livestock, all crops, every single house was gone. The only thing that saved the survivors just before the next winter was some fruit I had stored in the dock for future trade. I managed to get them through the following winter and they all lived to die from old age, but the village never recovered from losing the entire next generation. I was only able to stabilize the population; growth ended up being impossible after this disaster.
I love games that are able to organically create stories like this one.
bin.pol.social
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