Stop Killing Games was doomed. Now It Can't Be Stopped
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Great, another activism campaign that will totally not have any unintended consequences.
I mean probably, but in its absence gaming is getting fucked by VC funded and publicly traded behemoths anyway. The only thing that has seemingly kept it from already descending into a much worse hellscape of locked down software, after-purchase terms changes and publisher interference has been a single private citizen controlling the largest private distributor being steadfast about remaining in open competition with them rather than joining the anti-consumerist coalition and locking down the market entirely.
So will it fuck something up? Probably. Will it make things worse than they would have been without it? I seriously doubt it.
Perfect is the enemy of good as they say. And this campaign is good enough, it'll probably do more good than harm and there's way worse things happening to get all doom and gloom about.
The main thrust to the campaign is to try to have governments (mainly EU) intervene so that always online/online only games like The Crew are legally forced to allow players to mod/patch the games to continue their lifecycle offline/on private servers when the developers inevitably close servers on live service games.
The Accursed Farms spokesperson Ross seems to be an American living in Poland.
He seems like a good guy, but also very goofy, naive and disorganized.
Ross also seems burned out. In a recent update stream, he talked a lot about just wanting this campaign to be over one way or another. And no longer being involved in this petition fails.
He kept finding out just how deep the rabbit hole goes.
Watching Louis Rossmann go off on Ross and his lack of responsibility was cathartic. Ross started this movement, he picked up the torch, now it is his responsibility to carry it.
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dibEZ9-Psss
Rossman finally had The Ross Man on a livestream, so we can all chill now and appreciate that Ross and Rossman are on the same page. u/throwawayaccount2037
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gd2_FvvqyR0
Well that's good to know. Thanks for the link.
Okay, but what is Louis Rossmann doing to stop killing games?
It's easy to come up with critical analysis on how people mess up attempting to do something right, but is Rossmann doing anything on his end to protect consumers or is it just "This guy is a loof and here's where he's messing up"?
Because, that's typical content creator drama that helps no one.
Maybe he should start a new campaign to kill his previous campaign.
The EU invented taxation of non physical goods, invented link taxes, and claims legal jurisdiction over the entire internet for their censorship laws. They're not going to do anything good here.
Doubt it could hurt. Worst thing I imagine would be the EU strictly defining classes of games - product vs service vs limited service - which might shoehorn game development rather than letting the publishers creatively find new market solutions. But I don't think the AAA gaming industry could get any worse though no matter what they do.
The most "monkeys paw" solution Ross envisioned happening is they merely require a disclaimer on boxes that says "this is a live service game that could go away at any time", which would take care of the consumer rights issue but doesn't solve the actual problem.
I don't understand how you can sell something that can "go away at any time", even under current laws.
The working theory is that everyone in politics is a moron, they rely on the industries telling them what to do, and the industry of course told them it's no big deal.
They're certainly morons, but I think the $$$ from industry have more of an impact than telling them what is going on.
Unfortunately the law was never really settled around this, and for some reason judges tend to treat games as some kind of special magic toys they don't care about, distinct from other well understood products. The UK's response to Ross was basically "this is already protected under consumer law" even though the details in their response letter showed that it isn't protected at all. In the US the courts have ruled that the EULA trumps everything, no matter what it says the company can do and whether or not the customer ever actually agreed to the terms.
THe UK's response was a load of disinfo from a bunch of shitbag garbageholes that everyone outside their jurisdiction should be sending rude emails to that government department pointing that out then ending with goatse as the sign off.
I think the other problem is that law is commonly formed based on long established precedents. And we're only 20-30 years into a time with digital technology and the Internet, where a lot of the conditions that used to be common place are thrown completely out the window.
Some take this as an opportunity to play fast and loose with how they can try to pass bullshit laws that only get through because of how much more "scary" and "dangerous" the Internet is seen as. Others are asleep at the helm and just can't be bothered to give a fuck either way.