Link to sign EU initiative: https://eci.ec.europa.eu/045/public/#/screen/home
Guides on how to sign EU initiative: https://www.stopkillinggames.com/eci
If you’re not sure what StopKillingGames is about, the creator of the campaign, Ross Scott (of Freeman’s Mind fame) made this short video to give the rundown.
I’m in the US and can’t help, but that video is fuckin brilliant. I want to have a beer with that guy
And the Netherlands just became the 6th.
For Concord
Just imagine how much worse it would have been for sony with Concord in the EU if this law were reality. Flop a game, a live service game no less and then they would have to leave it in a playable state for like a couple hundred people that ever played it in the EU. I don’t know how this law would work in this case. Would they be mandated to give out the server code that people could run their own servers?
It’s really ambiguous how it would or how it would be revised work for games that are multiplayer only.
Would they be mandated to give out the server code that people could run their own servers?
Sort of. The Idea is that people should be able to run their own servers, but developers wouldn’t need to give out their code. All you need is the server binary. After all server software is just that software, just like the client and they don’t need to give out the source code for that for you to run the game. Alternatively they could patch the game so it’s peer-to-peer. (and yes in this case that would be unreasonable as the game is not successful enough to even break even)
The initiative is so ambiguous (to the extend that it is - I’d argue that it’s a lot clearer than many people claim) because it’s not actually legal text. It’s not supposed to be. All it should do is describe the problem and explain why the problem falls under EU jurisdiction. Everything else is supposed to be handled by EU lawmakers after the initiative has met it’s signature goal.
I think the idea is more that if this were in place companies like Sony would be more incentivized to make sure they release games worth buying and playing, because if they didn’t then they would have the financial burden of keeping them alive.
Side note: it doesn’t require constant support from the developers. Just update it so players can run local servers, then it would technically still be playable. Of course I’m not a game dev so I’m sure thats more complicated than I’m making it sound, so that’s again why they should focus on making games that are good to begin with.
I think in Sony’s case a reasonable alternative is to just refund, which is what they’re doing anyways. There’s no way a full refund would not be considered a true option, so I think the Concord side is a bit irrelevant to the primary issue of server owners shutting down servers for old games and keeping the money.
Literally how would this change anything? Nobody played the game because it’s bad. Everyone who bought it got a refund. Why would you want a law forcing them to give people a game they don’t want?
Can you give an example? Every time I ask for examples I get a list of games like Concord. A bunch of failed launches nobody has heard of.
And the Netherlands are 6th! But the hardest part will be reaching that Million threshold… We still have a lot of time, but the pace has certainly slowed down the last few weeks compared to the skyrocketing in the early days. I think we will need to have more awareness spread around the campaign, perhaps try to reach mainstream media in some ways…
I did know about the uk proposal. Didn’t knew about the EU one. I will sign it today 🫡
