‘Digital ownership must be respected’: UK parliament debates Stop Killing Games campaign, but government doesn’t budge | VGC
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Politicians debate recent examples of games being “destroyed”…

Handing online servers over to consumers could carry commercial or legal risks, she said, in addition to safety concerns due to the removal of official company moderation.

  • Hond@piefed.socialEnglish
    1441·
    20 hours ago

    Most of the responses of the ministers(?) covered in the article seem to be pretty solid.

    But then:

    Responding to the arguments, the government’s representative, minister for sport, tourism, civil society and youth, Stephanie Peacock MP, acknowledged consumer sentiment behind Stop Killing Games, but suggested there were no plans to amend UK law around the issue.

    “The Government recognises the strength of feeling behind the campaign that led to the debate,” she said. “The petition attracted nearly 190,000 signatures. Similar campaigns, including a European Citizens’ Initiative, reached over a million signatures. There has been significant interest across the world.”

    She continued: “At the same time, the Government also recognises the concerns from the video gaming industry about some of the campaign’s asks. Online video games are often dynamic, interactive services—not static products—and maintaining online services requires substantial investment over years or even decades.”

    Peacock claimed that because modern video games were complex to develop and maintain, implementing plans for games after support had ended could be “extremely challenging” for companies and risk creating “harmful unintended consequences” for players.

    Handing online servers over to consumers could carry commercial or legal risks, she said, in addition to safety concerns due to the removal of official company moderation.

    On the subject of ownership, Peacock claimed that video games being licensed to consumers, rather than sold, was not a new phenomenon, and that “in the 1980s, tearing the wrapping on a box to a games cartridge was the way that gamers agreed to licensing terms.”

    “Licensing video games is not, as some have suggested, a new and unfair business practice,” she claimed.

    Yeah, full on corpo spin. Fuck her.

    • Echo Dot@feddit.ukEnglish
      8·
      10 hours ago

      Wouldn’t it be amazing if we had marginally competent political representatives rather than the complete wastes of oxygen that we have right now.

    • dellish@lemmy.worldEnglish
      25·
      13 hours ago

      Handing online servers over to consumers…

      Correct me if I’m wrong, but is Stop Killing Games specifically against this? This sounds like some Pirate Software bullshit. My understanding is we want the tools to host our own servers if the parent company decides to take theirs offline.

      • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        30·
        13 hours ago

        SKG doesn’t specify how companies need to solve the problem, only that games need to continue to function after the company stops supporting them.

        For some games (e.g. Assassin’s Creed), that could be as simple as disabling the online aspect and having a graceful fallback. For others, that could mean letting people self-host it. Or they can provide documentation for the server API and let the community build their own server. Or they can move it to a P2P connection.

        Game companies have options. All SKG says is that if I’ve purchased something, I should be able to keep using it after support ends.

    • TWeaK@lemmy.todayEnglish
      722·
      18 hours ago

      On the subject of ownership, Peacock claimed that video games being licensed to consumers, rather than sold, was not a new phenomenon, and that “in the 1980s, tearing the wrapping on a box to a games cartridge was the way that gamers agreed to licensing terms.”

      This is absolute bullshit and not at all how it works, now or back in the 1980s. You can’t agree to terms without seeing them first, and even then such agreements aren’t necessarily legally binding. For someone who is supposed to write laws, she should be removed from office for showing such gross incompetence.

      • Uriel238 [all pronouns]@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
        26·
        16 hours ago

        I’m pretty sure (not absolutely) this has appeared in court and even click-wrap licenses, where one clicks to agree to a license with a higher word count than King Lear are not valid due to the end user high administrative burden (reading 20K+ words in the middle of a software install).

        There was a period in the 1980s where end users automatically were assumed to agree to licensing, but also licenses were extremely lenient and allowed unlimited use by the licensee without any data access rights by the providing company. 21st century licenses are much more complicated and encroach a lot more on end-user privacy.

      • FreedomAdvocateEnglish
        21·
        11 hours ago

        This is absolute bullshit and not at all how it works, now or back in the 1980s.

        Nah, it’s absolutely how it has worked since the 1980s. You’ve never owned the game, just the physical hardware it’s on and a license to use the game. Go read any manual or back of the box or actual cartridge or disc.

    • bluGill@fedia.io
      151·
      18 hours ago

      If you don’t want to give the sever away (including the ability to use it) then don’t shut it down or otherwise make the game unplayable.

      • FreedomAdvocateEnglish
        21·
        11 hours ago

        So if the developers of a game go bankrupt, or a single developer of an indie game dies, what do you suggest happens?

        • Pup Biru@aussie.zoneEnglish
          3·
          10 hours ago

          usually in bankruptcy the game gets sold in order to help pay debts… whoever buys the game assumes the responsibility of contributing to run the online services, or provide options for others to… in the case that nobody buys the game (im not entirely sure what happens to the IP in that case) but it’s relatively minimal effort to release server source code or documentation OR even just remove the online parts that’s usually just for DRM which is now pretty irrelevant because you’re shutting it down anyway so why would anyone care if someone pirates it?!

          • FreedomAdvocateEnglish
            21·
            10 hours ago

            None of that is “relatively minimal effort” other than releasing the source code, which is not something that should ever be mandated.

            • Pup Biru@aussie.zoneEnglish
              4·
              10 hours ago

              mandatory minimum warranties are also not relatively minimal effort and yet we have laws that require those… most consumer protection standards aren’t minimal effort: that doesn’t mean we don’t make laws to ensure consumers get what they are expecting when they hand over money

              why shouldn’t handing over source code to a game that’s being shut down (and apparently that nobody finds any value in since it wasn’t even bought in bankruptcy auction) be mandated as a last resort?

        • bluGill@fedia.io
          31·
          10 hours ago

          The code should go into escrow when the first game is sold. This is standard practice in industry - you don’t buy something without assurance that if the company goes under you have options.

          • FreedomAdvocateEnglish
            21·
            10 hours ago

            This is standard practice in industry - you don’t buy something without assurance that if the company goes under you have options.

            Which industries is this standard in? I can’t think of any. If Samsung went bankrupt who is replacing your S25 Ultra?

            • scintilla@crust.piefed.socialEnglish
              4·
              4 hours ago

              I think they mean in like B2B. Like if you buy of piece of software x thousand times with y years of support it’s standard practice to have a contract that covers what happens if the company goes under while you still have years of support.