It’s amazing what a difference a little bit of time can make: Two years after kicking off what looked to be a long-shot campaign to push back on the practice of shutting down server-dependent videogames once they’re no longer profitable, Stop Killing Games founder Ross Scott and organizer Moritz Katzner appeared in front of the European Parliament to present their case—and it seemed to go very well.
Digital Fairness Act: https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/better-regulation/have-your-say/initiatives/14622-Digital-Fairness-Act/F33096034_en
Yes.
If they don’t like it, they can keep supporting their older stuff. Or better yet, rethink their decision to impose a “live service” business model now that they’d actually be held accountable for it, and consider going back to giving users the means to run their own servers.
(Also, by the way, “security by obscurity” is bullshit. If disclosing their server-side code leads to exploits, that just means they’re fucking incompetent. I have no sympathy at all.)
Set the launch arguments of any Unreal game to “-log” and get back to me on how many lines of log types LogEOS* it spits out before the main menu loads. That usually interfaces SteamOSS, so if there are a low amount of EOS logs they will show up as LogSteamOSS. That is the best hint I can give.
It sounds like you’re trying to “hint” at the idea that a bunch of games are using Epic Online Services and/or the Online Subsystem Steam API associated with it, but beyond that I don’t understand what point you’re trying to make.
If you’re trying to obliquely cite that as some kind of counterexample where it’s reasonable for a game’s source code to remain secret just because part of it is that library, then no, it fucking isn’t. I can’t tell whether EOS has the source code available along with the rest of the Unreal engine or not, but if not, it ought to be and IDGAF about any excuses Epic might have for not making it so.
If you are so hell bent on being right or knowing the answer. You could sign all of the Steam, Epic, and SDK NDAs to get access to all of the documentation.
LOL, what? You’re the one trying to make a point here, not me. Spit it out. I’m not gonna do your fucking work for you!
Nobody can be forced to keep supporting their older stuff forever, assuming it is even possible.
There are solutions to keep a server online or to give ways to run a local server (a docker image comes to mind), but you cannot think a company will keep a server active after years to just make few dozens happy with all the implications.
I agree on the spirit of the initiative, but I cannot really see how it can carried out: my fear is that some types of game will not be sold anymore in EU: no legally sold copies, no legal obligation to keep the server online forever. And in this case we all lose something.
Disclosing server-side code can leads to exploits, true, but I would not call them incompetent: they are not foolproof or omniscent.
No shit, Sherlock. That’s why the tenable and preferred option is for them to give it up once they’re done profiting so that the public can do it themselves instead.
LOL, nothing but FUD. Game publishers made plenty of profit before they came up with this “live service” bullshit, and they’ll continue to make plenty of profit even after we stop allowing them to screw over everyone too.
In case you weren’t aware of it, the only reason we grant copyright to creative works in the first place is to encourage more works to be created and eventually enrich the Public Domain. If the works never reach it (because the publisher is using technological means to destroy it before copyright expires) then they have broken that social contract and don’t deserve to be protected by it in the first place.
These live service game publishers are trying to eat their cake and have it too, and they simply aren’t entitled to that. The fact that they’ve been getting away with this theft from the Public Domain is unjust and must stop.