Stop Destroying Videogames initiative: EU/UK

[Bikerdude]

If value the games you buy, you should sign one of these petitions - 

SIGN THE EU CITIZENS INITIATIVE: - https://eci.ec.europa.eu/045/public/#/screen/home
SIGN THE UK PETITION: - https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/702074/

EU petition is @ 826K- needs to hit 1'000'000
UK petition is @ 97K - needs to hit 100,000

A video from Gamers Nexus on the subject - 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9ahH6HrtTc

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EU: This initiative calls to require publishers that sell or license videogames to consumers in the European Union (or related features and assets sold for videogames they operate) to leave said videogames in a functional (playable) state. Specifically, the initiative seeks to prevent the remote disabling of videogames by the publishers, before providing reasonable means to continue functioning of said videogames without the involvement from the side of the publisher.

UK: The government should update consumer law to prohibit publishers from disabling video games (and related game assets / features) they have already sold without recourse for customers to retain or repair them. We seek this as a statutory consumer right.

Edited July 2 by Bikerdude
MORE INFO

[Bikerdude]

Well its going good guns, both petitions are close to hitting their goals -

- EU petition is @ 875k - needs to hit 1'000'000

- UK petition is @ 109k - Has smashed right threw the 100k mark.!

Edited July 2 by Bikerdude

[chakkman]

This reminds me of Chronicles or Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena...

One of my favorite games ever, unfunctional, because of the copy protection. 

That said, I do get though, that software is a phase-out model. At some point, publishers or developers simply can't guarantee anymore that the stuff will run on current software or hardware. And, it's also not easy to provide the games as is, with a license which allows modifcation of any kind.

I can't count how many times I read "Please Open Source your software!". Well, it's not that easy, with potentially loads of licensed code or assets.

Edited July 3 by chakkman

[thebigh]

Looks like the EU petition has hit its mark too

[jaxa]

15 hours ago, chakkman said:

That said, I do get though, that software is a phase-out model. At some point, publishers or developers simply can't guarantee anymore that the stuff will run on current software or hardware. And, it's also not easy to provide the games as is, with a license which allows modifcation of any kind.

I can't count how many times I read "Please Open Source your software!". Well, it's not that easy, with potentially loads of licensed code or assets.

SKG isn't (necessarily) asking for source code, or ongoing infinite support. Just an end-of-life plan that could credibly allow people to play what they already have a copy of. It's also not retroactive, so games would be built differently to accommodate new laws only after a certain date years in the future.

If you need to rent out a 256-core Graviton server on AWS to be able to make a multiplayer game/mode work for a decent amount of players, that is better than "dead forever".

Actual details of the implementation aren't spelled out in the initiative, that will be hashed out by lawmakers and stakeholders.

11 hours ago, thebigh said:

Looks like the EU petition has hit its mark too

Both petitions need extra signatures to ensure that they have hit the mark after fakes/bots/'Mericans are weeded out. With the momentum and remaining time, +50% might be possible so it looks good.

Edited July 4 by jaxa

[chakkman]

1 hour ago, jaxa said:

SKG isn't (necessarily) asking for source code, or ongoing infinite support. Just an end-of-life plan that could credibly allow people to play what they already have a copy of. It's also not retroactive, so games would be built differently to accommodate new laws only after a certain date years in the future.

Do you think that is realistic though? 

As I mentioned, it just needs a new OS sometimes to make software stop to work.

[jaxa]

3 hours ago, chakkman said:

Do you think that is realistic though? 

As I mentioned, it just needs a new OS sometimes to make software stop to work.

If it works at all, it's a win. You can use old, unsupported OSes. Or virtual machines on Linux, or whatever.

Obviously, having source available could make things a lot easier, but it's going to depend on how companies choose to comply, and they are expected to be given leeway and multiple paths to compliance so that they don't bitterly oppose legislation or pull out of the EU market entirely. Maybe some developers/publishers will simply hand out a binary that allows you to run a server for the game, and if it only works on a narrow range of hardware (e.g. ARM Neoverse cores found in Ampere workstations or AWS Graviton servers) and a single operating system (or is bundled with an OS), that's compliance.

If there are security issues, you run it at your own risk, and should only play with people you know and trust.

[chakkman]

A lot of questions, and a lot ifs and buts. And, that illustrates the problems with this thing.

I doubt that anyone would want to use Windows 7 or Linux to make stuff work. Everybody wants stuff to work with the lates OS on their computers. Which just wouldn't work, when the games were never designed to run on it.

And, again, it also denies the fact that software has a shelf-life, like everything. You can't magically keep things working.

The best thing you can hope for is some modders modifying the game to work with modern hardware, and, that happens a lot, fortunately.

Edited July 4 by chakkman

[datiswous]

10 hours ago, chakkman said:

I doubt that anyone would want to use Windows 7 or Linux to make stuff work. Everybody wants stuff to work with the lates OS on their computers.

Linux is the latest and newest os. But what you're writing about is not the point of this initiative anyway.

[chakkman]

I wouldn't switch to Linux just to be able to play single games. Apart from that, most games don't work natively on Linux anyway.

[_Atti_]

While all the quality of life improvement on game preservation that this would imply is nice, i think the key takeaway is the part that says:
"prevent the remote disabling of videogames by the publishers "

So as not to actively disrupt usability - Which should not be a technical problem, the worst it implies is that one should revert to at least being able to run the game in the launch status on systems it was meant to be run on.
For disc software that is literally to not allow for 'disabling remotely'.
for online bought, it is conserving for access -or allowing users to conserve for access- a working launch or/and a designated patched/stable version.

For example i do want to retain the option to be able to play an original version of a game after its been remastered.

[chakkman]

What does that mean, "remote disabling of videogames by the publisher"? I don't know this practive, and I surely own or owned up to 1.000 different games.

On the other hand, a game rendered unbootable by a copy protection which no longer works on current OSs has happened to me several times.

Edited July 5 by chakkman

[thebigh]

4 hours ago, chakkman said:

I wouldn't switch to Linux just to be able to play single games. Apart from that, most games don't work natively on Linux anyway.

 

More and more games these days do work natively on Linux, and for those that don't you'll find things like Wine and Lutris can get them going with low-to-moderate tinkering. Old Dos games obviously just need Dosbox. The list of games that cannot be made to run on Linux is getting pretty small these days. 

[chakkman]

Made to run, maybe, but, I meant run natively. If you make them run, there's always a software layer inbetween, which hinders performance. IF you get them to run at all.

I didn't have much luck with that, back when I ran Linux, but, maybe things improved a little since then. 

[_Atti_]

11 hours ago, chakkman said:

What does that mean, "remote disabling of videogames by the publisher"? I don't know this practive, and I surely own or owned up to 1.000 different games.

 

I think you are right, i also never heard of any paid games (offline) that have been actively disabled yet, but it does not seem implausible to me. 

I bought the first version of the Quest VR headset.
When it started out, still as Oculus, it was stated that no facebook account will be necessary.
After a few years i had to create an account with facebook nonetheless, but then it was still separated as an oculus subaccount. 
Then after a few more years eventually i got the message that now i have to merge this account to be a regular Meta account or i will loose my library of completely offline and functioning games.

They shipped the headset with a fully working gallery software that was able to display 360 spherical stereo images. 
The gallery program simply crashes on startup since in about 2 years down the line. Reviews left on the product page reported the same. Decrepit.

They also shipped it with a small introductory game called Bogo. 
It was removed from the library in 2023 and well.. remotely disabled.
These were 'free' - so what can you do - not even this proposition would defend against that i guess.

I ask though if it were so hard to offer a chance to keep the library of completely offline games and opt-out of further updates? or maybe try an update and revert, keep a snapshot on an external storage.

We can still do these on a Pc, but i fear without regulation it will last as long as the sanity of the next guys heading the industry.

*Update* Just found out that Bogo was brought back to availability some time after its shutdown.

Edited July 5 by _Atti_

[Filizitas]

https://www.videogameseurope.eu/news/statement-on-stop-killing-games/

They think we dont know what we are talking about and they want to educate us. Like children.

[thebigh]

55 minutes ago, Filizitas said:

https://www.videogameseurope.eu/news/statement-on-stop-killing-games/

They think we dont know what we are talking about and they want to educate us. Like children.

Yes, aggressively missing the point.

[jaxa]

9 hours ago, Filizitas said:

https://www.videogameseurope.eu/news/statement-on-stop-killing-games/

They think we dont know what we are talking about and they want to educate us. Like children.

Quote

Private servers are not always a viable alternative option for players as the protections we put in place to secure players’ data, remove illegal content, and combat unsafe community content would not exist and would leave rights holders liable.

We don't care about your "liability". Slap a big fat disclaimer on it with the final update.

Quote

In addition, many titles are designed from the ground-up to be online-only; in effect, these proposals would curtail developer choice by making these video games prohibitively expensive to create.

Your online-only game runs on hardware, and is likely designed to be portable to prevent vendor lock-in (to AWS for example). You can provide what's needed for some random person to run it on their 96-core Threadripper or Ampere workstation.

[revelator]

truth be told a lot of game sources with third party propriarity code has allready solutions to work around those. bink and derivates > ffmpeg, 3ds > lib3ds, tons of cad format libraries and physics libraries some with even better support than what was there at the time. so its not like the community cant handle only being given parts of a code base. for some stuff we have atleast workable solutions for other stuff we have something even better hehe. but over the years the modding community somewhat died because of a new breed of modders who wanted to use the code a lot of us worked our asses of to replace broken engine parts to make money and newer share they're own work. so a lot of us either retired or hid away in obscure parts of the internet.

[OrbWeaver]

On 7/4/2025 at 10:25 AM, jaxa said:

Actual details of the implementation aren't spelled out in the initiative, that will be hashed out by lawmakers and stakeholders.

And we know exactly how well it works out when tech-illiterate lawmakers start dictating the functions of technology they don't understand. "We don't care about this physics shit! We passed a law that requires you to provide faster-than-light travel and you nerds better figure out how to make it happen!"

I don't even understand what these petitioners are asking for. Do they want a law that compels providers of online games to keep the servers running forever (even if the company goes bust)? Provide a refund if the servers have to be switched off (even if the company has already gone bust, and has no money to pay for it)? Implement an offline mode for games like WoW where it makes no sense? Or just never provide online games in the first place?

No matter what they're asking for, I'm pretty sure what they're actually going to get (if the law is passed) is games publishers simply not selling into the EU/UK market at all. Just like the web sites which are now blocking UK visitors because the dumb fucks who passed the "Online Safety Act" mistakenly believed they had the power to regulate the entire internet.

[revelator]

its a slippery slope indeed, the best solution ? maybe let those who actually know what the f... they do take the descisions. but im not holding my breath on that part. big money talks and it talks loudly and with no regard for consequenses. as we have seen with the direction some parts of the world are going.

[Skaruts]

I'm not sure what people are asking is feasible for companies to provide.

For example, when it comes to DRM servers getting shut down, how are companies supposed to turn of DRM then? Those things are made to be really hard to remove, change or turn off, and many are made by 3rd party companies. People are asking companies to deactivate a thing they didn't make themselves, and which one of its core functions is specifically to resist deactivation as much as possible. And in some cases the DRM is intertwined with the game's systems, such that removing it will break the game.

When it comes to online games, if the game only supports official servers, is it easy to add support for private servers in the end, and without introducing more bugs and regressions? I personally don't know, but my assumptions is that if it was easy, then people would often create unofficial patches to bypass official servers.

My prediction is that these things will not go away until consumers stop buying games that include them. So maybe that means never, because a lot of people don't really care about it. There's always the possibility that we must come to terms with the fact that some games have a finite shelf life, like so many other things, and those of us that don't like it can simply consume other games (it's what I do).

OR the problem may go away if someone makes a business out of providing end of life support for those games. Something like what GOG does, which is something companies are often happy to engage with, because they may still gain some more money from it while being relieved of all the related costs. 

I don't think governments will ever be able to mandate anything substantial. And that is if they ever do anything at all. The EU doesn't seem willing, and I heard something about companies moving against SKG now (and maybe understandably).

 

Edited July 8 by Skaruts

[LDAsh]

This is one of the biggest misunderstandings, I think.  Such games that choose spacetime-warping DRM or online services they wish to neglect on a whim, can still exist - they simply must provide some 'truth in advertising' by clearly informing customers of a minimum support window.  If a product only to support for 6 months, they certainly can, but not sure if customers will be as motivated to join in that experiment, that's all.

This whole movement is to stop treating players like labrats and preserve ALL games for ANY reason.  It is NOT about stopping any development, definitely not legally, whatsoever.  Go ahead and still produce the cigarettes, just make them honest about it.

Edited July 8 by LDAsh

[Skaruts]

What good would it do to know that a game will die in 2 years? That wouldn't fix the problem that the people that will still want to play it at that point, can't. 

Is a non-solution what the initiative is really asking for?

And how is a company supposed to predict how long they'll support a game anyway? Games can flop and have to be shut down within a year or less. Regulations have to accommodate to cases like these, and you can rest assured companies will find ways to use this to their advantage.

Edited July 8 by Skaruts

[OnlyTaffingCowardsHide]

I don't get why this is such an issue, what games are actually non functional/haven't been patched by 3rd parties to work without the disc? 
And no, I'm not talking about piracy, which isn't the same thing in any sense.

Edited July 8 by OnlyTaffingCowardsHide