Link to sign EU initiative: https://eci.ec.europa.eu/045/public/#/screen/home
Guides on how to sign EU initiative: https://www.stopkillinggames.com/eci
Ross is right, if you don’t propose an alternative and don’t actually try to do anything to bring that alternative to the public, why don’t you just fuck off?
I think the most realistic alternative is to just have an ‘earliest end-of-life date’ plainly visible at the time of purchase. Keeping these games online forever isn’t feasible, but shutting down something people paid for with the expectation of continuous service isn’t good either. Just make it clear how long the developers WILL support the game for, at the very minimum, and let people make their decision based on that. And mandate refunds for any live service game that doesn’t last as long as promised.
The “buy” button (or any similar verbiage) needs to go away (unless the provider intends for it to be available forever) and replaced with “rent for x years”.
“Stop Killing Games: Sign the petition or fuck off!”
At least you’re honest about not wanting a conversation and just wanting signatures.
Wtf are you talking about? He specifically says that he wants to have a conversation with people that will give constructive criticism, not someone that’s just complaining and not giving any solutions or alternatives to solve the problem.
Alternatives would be boycotts directed at the worst offenders and a law that ensures service games are clearly labeled so consumers can make an informed choice instead of banned outright. I’m going to get downvoted and told to fuck off because I’m wrong regardless of what I say unless it’s “I 100% support this”.
Boycotts are fickle things, sometimes gathering a following big enough to make a corporation cave, but many other times, not getting any steam at all.
And even if a boycott is successful against one company, it doesn’t mean they won’t try the same thing again, or try their usual ‘do something extreme, then walk it back to where you originally wanted it’ two-step, which is generally very effective at getting what they want. They know how to manipulate the public to their desires, they have whole divisions dedicated to that (though sometimes even they get caught unawares). If we went this route, the issue is that this tactic is done frequently enough that people would likely get boycott fatigue. “Ugh, another campaign? Another publisher screwing us? I just can’t anymore.”
At least against corporations, actual consumer protection law is a much more reliable long-term solution to an enemy that will try every tactic to avoid real, effective change in favor of the consumer.
First off, thanks for a response that isn’t filled with hate! It’s been rare when I’ve made posts about this topic. I appreciate it!
If we went this route, the issue is that this tactic is done frequently enough that people would likely get boycott fatigue. “Ugh, another campaign? Another publisher screwing us? I just can’t anymore.”
Are there really that many companies screwing over consumers? I’d appreciate if Stop Killing Games actually kept a running list of which companies and which games are anti-consumer. They’ve got The Crew but what other games? If it’s really just The Crew then the issue is with Ubisoft, not the gaming industry. A big list would make it clear this is an industry wide issue that needs to be addressed.
I’m also not sold on the idea that a ban is the only way to protect consumers. Cigarettes literally kill consumers, but total bans on them are rare. Instead, consumers are given a very clear message when buying cigarettes. It’s up to the consumer to decide if they’re alright with it. Are service games worse than cigarettes?
Now a practice doesn’t need to kill people before a law bans it. Recently there have been laws enacted so that if a company sells a subscription online they must allow for cancellation of that subscription online. Frequently, companies would require people to call a customer service line to cancel a subscription, but that could be a huge hassle to do! It’s clear that companies do this only to try and screw over customers and there’s no reason it should exist as a practice, so banning it makes sense. Are live service games the same? They definitely could be, but I also think there are legitimate reasons to sell games as a service. Instead of banning it completely, why not just ensure service games come with a clear label like cigarettes. A note that access to the game is not permanent and the company can revoke it in the future. If someone doesn’t like that, they don’t need to play it.
Ive seen two arguments against “why not just let consumers decide for themselves?” The idea that consumers don’t have a choice. All companies will eventually sell their games in this way and consumers won’t be able to avoid it even if they wanted to. I would agree if the gaming industry was a monopoly and gamers really didn’t have any choice, but that’s not the case at all. Gaming is probably one of the most competitive industries in the modern world thanks to how easy it is for anyone to make a game and sell it worldwide. Gamers have enough choice that I don’t see the “monopoly” argument as persuasive as it is in something like the right to repair movement.
The other argument seems to be “games are art and must be protected” but that leaves the realm of consumer protection and enters philosophy. There aren’t laws mandating the protection of other forms of art so I’m doubtful any government would enact such a law. Also, personally have to disagree. I’m in favour of the Buddhist idea of impermanence. Everything is temporary and trying to make a game exist forever is as silly as trying to live forever. Focus on enjoying your life, as temporary as it is, instead of being down that it is temporary. I think games can be enjoyed in the same way. Of course, if a company is purposefully making it temporary to try and make a few extra bucks, that’s shitty and should be called out, but we’ve gone back to consumer protection instead of philosophy.
There’s a few listed here:
https://delistedgames.com/extinct-list/
But the problem is usually much larger where a game requires you to login to play even the single player component but is unable to do so with entire services going down, such as gamespy or others, more on that here:
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DefunctOnlineVideoGames
The list grows ever larger and even some online game news publications have their own lists, small example below:
https://kotaku.com/dead-games-2023-delisted-servers-offline-1850083031
There’s quite a few others, but I do agree with the point that there should be an aggregate for all of these, that could be presented as a universal list that hopefully stops growing in the coming years.
There’s also the problem of “going digital”. Previously you’d have at least the physical disks/mediums of the game in your possession but with the ever growing digital only culture, the moment a game gets delisted and you can no longer download it, that is it. Cult classic or not.
P.S - Nintendo seems to have liked your Buddhist idea of impermanence and has done that to Super Mario 35, existed for a total of 6 months. Personally, I would’ve liked to at least try it seeing how it hasn’t been all that long ago.
Thanks for the lists! Delistedgames seems to focus more on games that aren’t sold anymore rather than shutdown. For example, they list Grand Theft Auto IV as a delisted game because they only sell Grand Theft Auto IV: Complete Edition now.
Weird that TVTropes seems to have a better list of games that not only aren’t sold anymore but don’t work even if you bought them. It’s an interesting list. I feel bad for all the people who played Family Guy Online for the 8 months it existed in 2012!
The Kotaku list is nice too but they do note that some of the games are still playable single player. It’s only the online multiplayer that’s not going to work since the servers are shutting down. I’m not sure how I feel about that one. Is it still killing a game if single player modes still work?
This is about starting a conversation, so hopefully we can have a conversation. I don’t disagree with consumer protection nor do I want to protect billion dollar corporations. I just don’t think that signing petitions to create new laws isn’t the best way to go about this. Law changes come with all kinds of side effects. Anti-abortion laws have caused lots of issues that even pro-life supporters aren’t happy with. I think it’s much better to directly bring concerns to the companies that are causing the issue. I really do think it’s only a handful of corporations pulling these anti-consumer shenanigans and I think they should be called out directly.
He makes it clear that this wouldn’t affect most games, since most games aren’t sold as a service, and even those that are often do have a way to continue to run after the service ends. So this initiative is quite literally aimed at a specific style of game that he doesn’t like and fears will become more common. He’s afraid selling games as a service is too profitable and companies will start selling all games in this way even if there’s no need. To the question about “why not boycott companies selling games this way?” he explains boycotts don’t work. But when Bud Light ran a pro LGBT ad, so many bigots switched beer that Bud Light had to apologize and fire their executives. It fell from #1 beer to #3 and the parent company is now switching their flagship beer from Bud Light to Michelob. Boycotts work. The fact that gamers can’t stop themselves from buying a single game shows they don’t actually care. It’s way easier to sign a petition then it is to not play the newest Ubisoft release. If 1,000,000 people didn’t buy the newest Ubisoft game, they would change course. Helldivers said everyone would need a PSN account to play the game on PC and it got so much backlash that the company changed course in a few days. Companies absolutely listen to their customers.
This is my issue with the direction this is heading. The question is “I am a developer with an online-only game. What will happen if this initiative passes?”. The response is “Shut down your game and never make another online-only game ever again”. He spends a lot of time talking about how games are works of art that need to be preserved for the sake of humanity and the good of consumers, and then he tells devs to shutdown their game and never make another one. This isn’t preservation of games anymore than an anti-abortion law is preservation of life. Anti-abortion supporters don’t actually care about life, they care about restricting choice because they don’t think the choice is ethical. It’s like saying any company that sells a movie must ensure the purchaser can watch that movie forever and when told that would make it difficult, if not impossible, for movie theatres and streaming services to run, respond by saying “Oh well! Who cares about theatres and streaming services? Those shouldn’t exist anyways! They’re unethical and anti-consumer!” Nobody supports a company selling you a licence to watch a movie on a specific date and time…unless it’s a movie theatre. Sometimes, what sounds anti-consumer, isn’t actually anti-consumer, and a broad law could take away something that people actually like as collateral damage.
Creating a law to change how companies operate brings up a lot of issues and questions. This video explaining all the issues and questions is 40 minutes long and often says there’s no clear answers to the questions and concerns since no actual law exists yet. I honestly think that the better way of handling this is an awareness campaign (like is currently happening, keep the conversation going!) and boycott against the worst offenders, not a petition to create a new law. Even if this did get 1,000,000 signatures, I don’t think that any government would pass a law that consumers actually like. No government is keen on messing with multi-billion dollar a year industries. I do think that if 1,000,000 people told Ubisoft or EA or any company to do a specific thing with a specific game or they won’t buy it, they would make the change.
I think it’s much better to directly bring concerns to the companies that are causing the issue
We have. Unsurprisingly, they’ve made it abundantly clear that they don’t care.
