this post was submitted on 05 Aug 2024
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They all should still be preserved. The code can be stored without needing servers to be kept open, for example
Code is already stored, it's just not public.
What? I write some code and then delete it and I'm in trouble because I didn't preserve it?? I really don't understand this concept at all
You sold someone some code that you then rendered inoperable by actions beyond their control; that's what you'd get in trouble for. Delete your own code all you like.
That's a different statement than you made before. I am also against disabling something someone paid for. But what did you mean by
I have to store code? Can't I delete my own code?
If you sell someone a game that relies on a server you own, and did not advertise clearly that you were selling a service, not a good (something you own), and then break that product for the customer without any possibility of them repairing their good, and you delete the code that could've fixed it, you'd be sorta commiting fraud.
If you abandon a product that was sold as a good, and it became inoperable due to forces unrelated to you, you'd be in the clear.
Right, so an MMO charging a monthly fee shouldn't need to make their game available to everyone if they stop charging people the fee and shut it down? Because that's what I think too.
Yes, legally an mmo sold as a service would not be targeted.
But the FAQ on the stop killing games site specifically says this applies to MMOs. That's why I disagree. Specifically for the part about MMOs.
A few things. People use MMOs as an example of a thing that cannot be run by users, and the FAQ calls out that this is demonstrably false. Second, there's the idea of a good and a service, and games have been happy to blur this line over the past decade and change. When you pay a monthly subscription fee, there's no question that you're paying for a service; your service ends when that month is up. The problem comes from selling you things as though they're goods but then revoking access to them at some unknown time in the future as though it were a service or lease that you had no idea when it would expire. So this campaign also demands that if you're selling microtransactions like a cosmetic mount in an MMO, you need to be able to use that mount after the servers are no longer supported, and as we've already proven, it is definitely actually possible for ordinary people to run MMO servers, even if they're hosting them for a few hundred or a few thousand people rather than hundreds of thousands or millions.
The question on the FAQ is asking if it's possible, which it is. But in his big video on this topic, he says that subscription based MMOs really don't count (even if he'd like it to).
I agree with that. That's what I meant in my original comment that applying this to all games is ridiculous. Subscription based MMOs are a game but this initiative shouldn't apply to them.
In the ideal world they could release the code open source, there's no money lose on that.
That is not what is being discussed and was never being discussed. You're sounding like you're being pedantic to try to pick a fight
I'm being specific because this is being intended as a law everyone must follow. "All games need to be available forever" is very vague. How will this vague law be applied in practice? People brought up the idea of eternal code preservation. Alright. How does that work?
I'm not picking a fight. I want supporters to explain in vivid detail their expectations because it's clear not even all the supporters agree on how it would be implemented. Some said it doesn't apply to MMOs. Some said it does. It needs to be one or the other. That's not being pedantic, it's being realistic.
What the petition says is what it's asking for. What we want may be different. What European parliament drafts, if we're so lucky, will be what's actually the law. The concerns in the petition are quite clearly about how this applies to EU consumer protections, and many of us are interested in that plus the bonus that this will grant to preservation by proxy.
Any company that isn't completely incompetent has some revision control solution like GitHub. It saves the original and all the changes throughout the life of the code. It's designed specifically to allow developers to update or even delete code while still maintaining records
An indie dev recently lost the source code to their early access game and had to remove it from Steam. If this law was in place, what punishment would they face for their incompetence? It would be rare for a massive company to not have source control, but it probably isn't uncommon for small first time devs. So now you have a well intentioned law putting regulations in place that hurt small devs and raise the barrier to entry.
Removing the game from sale is not disabling the game for existing owners. These are two very different problems.
A game's code can be submitted to a repository on release to the public to be stored for the sake of preservation. The repository can always be made access on a case by case basis, thus preventing the loss of code and culture while also protecting the IP holder's rights
And every single game dev would be required to do this for the thousands of games released every year? Who would host this massive repository? Who would determine access on a case by case basis? It's a nice suggestion but mandating this as a law everyone has to follow? Why? I thought this was about consumer protection
Iunno, the Library of Congress in the states seems capable of holding every movie, book, journal, etc.
I think a way could be found for games in the EU if even the US can manage this for other media
Is that repository required by law? Is every author and director required to follow it or be punished? What if an author only publishes it on their website and then takes the website down and it never makes it to the archive are they in trouble? It's a nice thing, but mandating it as law is ridiculous.