- cross-posted to:
- anticorporate@lemmy.giftedmc.com
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.giftedmc.com/post/441893
Stop Killing Games Canadian Petition - Now Open For Signature
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/20896275
Stop Killing Games Canadian Petition - Now Open For Signature
Petition E-4965 is the one that is posted to stopkillinggames.com, Ross Scott (Accursed Farms)'s campaign to end the practice of bricking games people have purchased, whenever the publisher doesn’t want to support it anymore.
It is open for signing by Canadian Citizens and Permanent Residents, until September 5th 2024.
Please spread the word to your Canadian friends and family who take interest in games, and please add your name to it to support this campaign to help preserve games in some form in perpetuity.
Thank you!
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Pass legislation requiring publishers that sell or license video games or that sell related features and assets for said games to do the following once they end support for said games: leave their games in a functional state, and remove any mandatory connections to the publisher or affiliated parties necessary for said games to function;
How enforceable is this legislation in face of games that simply cannot function without multiplayer? The developers of a game similar to Among Us would be forced to update the game with bots to be compliant?
I signed the petition but can’t say I’m hopeful the Parliament will write good legislation on this…
The developers of a game similar to Among Us would be forced to update the game with bots to be compliant?
I’m not a programmer or IT specialist or anything but I think the ask would be more like,
when discontinuing multiplayer service they must roll out an update to allow gamers to specify private server addresses
They don’t need to program bots, they need to open the code enough for fans to keep the game functional. Like when I was a kid I could play multi player games with my friends by typing their phone number into the game. Our computers would connect through the phone lines and we could battle for the fate of Azeroth. I still remember the phone number of the friend I did that with.
they need to open the code enough for fans to keep the game functional
That makes sense. Another commenter pointed out that even for defunct MMORPGs people were able to spin up their own servers to keep the game alive. If companies are forced to provide something to help that, it’s already a win.
I’m not hopeful Canada would be able to pass legislation forcing companies to open source things, though. Maybe if this was the EU lol our track record of fighting tech companies hasn’t been pretty.
It would probably just result in games not being for sale in Canada.
Maybe a progressive tax, not a ban, eg if your game grosses say $1M sales in Canada you pay a higher tax rate if you don’t attest that you’ve set aside enough cash to do this when you sunset the game. Then if you said you’d do it but don’t, the CRA can come after you. Revenue from this tax could be earmarked for computer education or indie studio grants or something.
Open sourcing it is the solution but there is no enforcement possible
Studios can just shut down unless they are required to hand the source over to enter the market
Publish the source. Look at id and Quake/Quakeworld. The game is still alive and well after Romero released all source codes to let people iterate their own clients and servers.
You pose a good question. There are many ways that it can be implemented and of course it depends on the game. Have a solo/offline mode, replace online multiplayer with local multiplayer or direct connect (for games like Among Us), release a dedicated server (so groups of people can start their own.
At a minimum, it needs to be better than “Could not reach game server, please check your connection and try again.” The standard we could hold companies to would be through each province’s consumer rights agency, but would have the legislation properly behind their efforts.
I imagine it being basically impossible for MMORPG games. How do you keep an MMORPG alive without removing the MMO part?
Please consider signing the petition as this might be our real chance at stopping publishers from permanently killing online games✊
Signed it!
Thank you, OP. Only took a couple mins to fill it out and verify my email. Easiest civic work I’ve ever had the pleasure of doing.
It was very quick, aside from waiting a bit for the email to arrive.
Its just a video game. I will never sign anything like this and hope the government ignores this.
Ok. You do you.
Be ready when companies try to pull this off with “ah, this product you bought is now unsupported. Can’t do anything with it because it HAS to be connected to our servers over the internet. Teehee, thanks for your money!”. If they can get away with it in video games, they may eventually get away with it in other industries.
Slippery slope fallacy.
Car companies offering embedded upgrades as softlocked addons or subscriptions is also down that route. It’s where the money’s at so it will transcend industry boundaries. They will try to hide behind “digital” everything to try to escape legislation as long as possible.
Again, I can’t nor do I want to force you to sign this.