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!
Please consider signing the petition as this might be our real chance at stopping publishers from permanently killing online games✊
I can’t sign for Canada, but i can up vote this post to get more visibility, maybe.
Signed, here’s hoping it goes through!
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…
I imagine it being basically impossible for MMORPG games. How do you keep an MMORPG alive without removing the MMO part?
There are player-run servers for MMORPGs such as Ultima Online and EverQuest. If the developers released the server software the fans wouldn’t have to implement their own (which they did for those two games). If the company is no longer running their own servers they are no longer making money from subscriptions so they won’t lose money to competition from player-run servers.
fans wouldn’t have to implement their own (which they did for those two games)
Wow, TIL. People are amazing.
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.
I’m not comfortable with the idea of the government dictating what developers must do with their games. There are legitimate legal, financial, and artistic reasons they may not want to be forced to distribute in that way.
I think that it’s the responsibility of consumers to make sure they have the level of ownership over the games they like. I personally don’t really like to invest into live service games for this reason, but I do enjoy playing them on occasion and appreciate that they’re free to play and receive constant updates. Forcing the Deves to open source their code at the end of the game’s life cycle would jeopardize their vision and our ability to play games like them.
