I asume most here on TL community loves video games in some way or another. Well, if you are from the EU you can help a campaign that, in its own words:
"Stop Killing Games" is a consumer movement started to challenge the legality of publishers destroying video games they have sold to customers. An increasing number of video games are sold effectively as goods - with no stated expiration date - but designed to be completely unplayable as soon as support from the publisher ends. This practice is a form of planned obsolescence and is not only detrimental to customers, but makes preservation effectively impossible. Furthermore, the legality of this practice is largely untested in many countries.
If you are a EU citizen, you can help the campaign, Right now it needs around 333.202 signatures more, but the Deadline is already 31 july. After that it is too late.
Ross Scott from Accursed farms who started the campaign (yes, the same guy who made Freemans Mind and Civil Protection) has made several video explaining it way better than me.
Is there other TL users who has been following this campaign? Obiviously i am all for it, but maybe other disagree with my position, which is fine (not that i would understand it).
I've heard of that one. I also heard of that one streamer guy that basically stopped the whole movement while having absolutely no idea what it was about and not understanding it. But he apparently had lots of followers. Sort of the Trump of gaming lol
On June 30 2025 21:34 Harris1st wrote: I've heard of that one. I also heard of that one streamer guy that basically stopped the whole movement while having absolutely no idea what it was about and not understanding it. But he apparently had lots of followers. Sort of the Trump of gaming lol
Yeah, PirateSoftware. Never head of him until a week ago. Not my type.
But ironically the drama that happened has help the campaign get alot of exposure.
What matters is that people who can sign it sees it and hopefully do it. Its super easy.
At a glance, two forks come to mind if this came to pass :
One, if publishers in europe have a ban on games-as-a-service being allowed to close, I see that resulting in damage to EU-based game publishers and/or simple workarounds that don't positively impact the consumer, I.E. multiplayer online games having shitty, tacked on 'offline modes', or an exodus of EU publishers to other shores.
Two, if the ban is of SALES of games-as-a-service in EU, then EU just sees fewer games. Certainly not a net loss, because big companies aren't going to be willing to just not sell to all of europe, but smaller companies may not be as able to accomodate new restrictions.
Basically, at a glance I don't know if I'd support this because I'm extremely pessimistic that it'd actually be a net positive for consumers. If I were in the EU, I'd read more and better educate myself.
I haven't really dug into to have a proper say, but it definitely feels like a thing where people have good intentions and eventually end up driving a self-righteous truck through a pretty complex issue that would actually require careful thought.
One thing that confuses me a bit is that there's a lot of subtext people are discussing, but meanwhile the petition itself seems very barebones. Are the EU lawmakers going to sit down and watch the Youtube discussions & read reddit threads to figure out what was the actual intention of the petition?
I guess one of my main worries is that added regulation forces games into boxes that comply with the rules with certain patterns and for example make it even harder to roll out your own tech and solutions because you risk running some nasty surprises later on.
If this just stops some triple A single player game from having a expiration date, then it's all good in my books. However, the games and game devs are a diverse bunch and I feel someone somewhere is going to end up getting caught in the crossfire.
Maybe just add a minimum amount of time a game must under all circumstances be playable? Forever is a really long time and supporting a game as a dev that is 20 years old and has 3 active players is never a net positive. But they could open their code for say user owner dedicated servers or something along those lines? Dunno how that technical could work.
I for one still love playing Heroes of the Storm, a game that is 11 years old and that Blizzard officially abandoned 3 years ago. It is still fully playable, there is even bug support. I would be hella mad and sad if that weren't the case
On July 01 2025 15:55 Harris1st wrote: Maybe just add a minimum amount of time a game must under all circumstances be playable? Forever is a really long time and supporting a game as a dev that is 20 years old and has 3 active players is never a net positive. But they could open their code for say user owner dedicated servers or something along those lines? Dunno how that technical could work.
What issue exactly?
This is not about "support", it's about keeping it possible to run the games, no one is making the publisher do it.
As an example: Blizzard shuts down Classic-WoW ---> "Private" Servers are now allowed.
On July 01 2025 15:55 Harris1st wrote: Maybe just add a minimum amount of time a game must under all circumstances be playable? Forever is a really long time and supporting a game as a dev that is 20 years old and has 3 active players is never a net positive. But they could open their code for say user owner dedicated servers or something along those lines? Dunno how that technical could work.
What issue exactly?
This is not about "support", it's about keeping it possible to run the games, no one is making the publisher do it.
As an example: Blizzard shuts down Classic-WoW ---> "Private" Servers are now allowed.
I don't understand you. What is it exactly you want to argue about? I meant support as in "run servers" and then explained how than can be shifted to the users which is basically what you said.
In general: People tend to make this petition sound like it's about way more than it actually is and therefore worry about things that don't even apply but are mildly connected (like games as a service and so on).
On July 01 2025 14:00 Bacillus wrote:Are the EU lawmakers going to sit down and watch the Youtube discussions & read reddit threads to figure out what was the actual intention of the petition?
I don't know how they'd gather information but they would be legally required to do their due diligence and debate the topic. At the very least it becomes a recognized topic of discussion with added awareness and scrutiny - even if no major change is immediately made, awareness and discussion is usually a big step.
On July 01 2025 14:00 Bacillus wrote:Are the EU lawmakers going to sit down and watch the Youtube discussions & read reddit threads to figure out what was the actual intention of the petition?
I don't know how they'd gather information but they would be legally required to do their due diligence and debate the topic. At the very least it becomes a recognized topic of discussion with added awareness and scrutiny - even if no major change is immediately made, awareness and discussion is usually a big step.
Yeah, I think that's probably the good bit.
I took some time to go through the actual official petition and it seems probably alright to me. I think it gets much more muddy once you listen to campaigner's ideas about the practical solutions. My first instinct would be to go with more explicit declaration of parts that are independent of the publisher/developer. Maybe there's a good reason to not go there, but it would be much less restrictive than some ideas that I hear being thrown around.
We do it for car parts which are physical items. You can buy parts for old cars because once the manufacturer closes down their production line 3rd party producers are allowed to sell parts. It works well.
Could easily have the same thing here. You stop supporting your online game other actors can now service it, either paid or for free.
On July 07 2025 16:11 Harris1st wrote: 1,2 million of 1 million required. I don't expect something in the next 5 years though. EU law is incredible slow.
It will achieve one thing short term. Curbing worse behavior from the largest companies. Since they know this is now on the radar of legislation and if they want it killed they need to run a solid campaign against it.
I think one way they could semi kill it would be by using books and movies as examples. With VERY long protections afforded to the creators. Sure, all of the above is fine. Just wait for the copyright to expire.
On July 07 2025 16:11 Harris1st wrote: 1,2 million of 1 million required. I don't expect something in the next 5 years though. EU law is incredible slow.
It will achieve one thing short term. Curbing worse behavior from the largest companies. Since they know this is now on the radar of legislation and if they want it killed they need to run a solid campaign against it.
I think one way they could semi kill it would be by using books and movies as examples. With VERY long protections afforded to the creators. Sure, all of the above is fine. Just wait for the copyright to expire.
Wdym? Books and movies?
It also could go incredible wrong as in we are not buying games anymore, we are officially leasing games. Duration 8-10 years. After that you either make a new lease or you can't play. Though will probably get an even bigger outcry from the community
On July 07 2025 16:11 Harris1st wrote: 1,2 million of 1 million required. I don't expect something in the next 5 years though. EU law is incredible slow.
It will achieve one thing short term. Curbing worse behavior from the largest companies. Since they know this is now on the radar of legislation and if they want it killed they need to run a solid campaign against it.
I think one way they could semi kill it would be by using books and movies as examples. With VERY long protections afforded to the creators. Sure, all of the above is fine. Just wait for the copyright to expire.
Wdym? Books and movies?
It also could go incredible wrong as in we are not buying games anymore, we are officially leasing games. Duration 8-10 years. After that you either make a new lease or you can't play. Though will probably get an even bigger outcry from the community
after January 1, 1978, copyright protection lasts for the life of the author plus an additional 70 years. For an anonymous work, a pseudonymous work, or a work made for hire, the copyright endures for a term of 95 years from the year of its first publication or a term of 120 years from the year of its creation, whichever expires first.
I agree that them changing from buying to leasing is the most likely outcome. That at least makes GOG have an advantage where they can keep the same wording while nobody else can.
On July 07 2025 16:11 Harris1st wrote: 1,2 million of 1 million required. I don't expect something in the next 5 years though. EU law is incredible slow.
It will achieve one thing short term. Curbing worse behavior from the largest companies. Since they know this is now on the radar of legislation and if they want it killed they need to run a solid campaign against it.
I think one way they could semi kill it would be by using books and movies as examples. With VERY long protections afforded to the creators. Sure, all of the above is fine. Just wait for the copyright to expire.
Wdym? Books and movies?
It also could go incredible wrong as in we are not buying games anymore, we are officially leasing games. Duration 8-10 years. After that you either make a new lease or you can't play. Though will probably get an even bigger outcry from the community
Some companies might try and do that, and risk losing one of the biggest markets in the world.
This is like people saying that Apple will stop selling iPhones in EU if they are forced to change the charger to USB-C, something that a lot of people said EU won't be able to do and look at me now, having to bring one cable only everywhere.
Companies are not stupid, maybe US companies like EA or Ubisoft and some Japan/Korea based ones like Nintendo or Krafton might try to zag in this way but companies like CD Projekt Red and others who understand that gamers as an audience appreciates a honest company willing to work with them won't and we'll keep buying their games.
Did PirateSoftware really hurt this movement or like, is everyone looking for an excuse to hate the guy? I think he's an ass but I cant imagine 1 streamer being responsibility to chill an entire petition.
He at least did have plenty of followers, but otherwise I think it's just content creators tuning into drama that feeds their viewership. A lot of videos mocking Pirate Software currently rack up hundreds of thousands of views a day and show up on everyone's feed. It also gives a nice scapegoat if the initiative still somehow fails.
It's also much easier to hate on the guy than create actual content on the subject itself because - like a lot of things in life - it does get pretty tricky and somewhat divisive once you get past the obvious corporate triple A cases and start looking at the actual details.
Edit: Just to be clear, not a big fan of Piratesoftware either. I'm just not a big fan of the current way of Internet handling things in general either.
On July 11 2025 15:12 lestye wrote: Yeah I hope the EU can curb this behavior.
Did PirateSoftware really hurt this movement or like, is everyone looking for an excuse to hate the guy? I think he's an ass but I cant imagine 1 streamer being responsibility to chill an entire petition.
Iirc he hurt it in the beginning, now after all this blew up he was probably a net positive with all the extra attention.
He's also just so uniquely hateable for so many reasons, basically everyone can find a reason to shit on him.
Shoutouts to PirateSoftware for doubling the signatures for this petition.
I hope there will be a new EU law to reflect the requests of the petition. It's so dumb that games become unavailable when servers are turned off. Especially for offline single player games.
On July 26 2025 07:00 ScoutWBF wrote: Shoutouts to PirateSoftware for doubling the signatures for this petition.
I hope there will be a new EU law to reflect the requests of the petition. It's so dumb that games become unavailable when servers are turned off. Especially for offline single player games.
Is bolded a thing that actually happens often? I can't think of examples of a game with offline singleplayer and online multiplayer that killed access to both when servers shut down. I can think of single player games that are not playable on modern hardware, but that specific scenario doesn't ring any bells, and games not being playable anymore is a separate issue.
Cool, thanks! Seems like "not that often" is ultimately the answer. Also cool to see titles like Duelyst, an online multiplayer game, lose the support of its original dev studio, but that dev studio gave out the source code and in some capacity allowed the release of Duelyst 2.
It's worth stating that always online DRM is stupid (for titles with singleplayer content) and shouldn't be a thing. I hope Stop Killing Games helps murder that as a thing.
Video games seem to have found many ways to make their products as predatory as possible for no other reason than extract as much as possible. It's just like the movie industry, but quite a bit worse because the engagement of the users is so engrossing that they can't help themselves. I'd like to think that these people make a conscious choice to spend their money, but that may be an extremely good faith assumption.
EPT
