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The “Require videogame publishers to keep games they have sold in a working state” petition just got a response. (sopuli.xyz)

submitted 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

52 comments fedilink hide all child comments

The recent stopkillinggames campaign has been my first exposure to UK petitions.

Link to petition: https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/659071
Link to campaign: stopkillinggames.com
Link to the campaigner’s video

Update: Link to the campaigner’s video on the response

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Because a game is not a chair, nor is it a DVD.

It's still a product though. Besides I believe DVDs can contain software data as well as video data. Many of the older game discs were probably DVDs of some kind.

Any piece of software requires periodic maintenance to keep it functional as operating systems, drivers etc. run away from it in compatibility. Demanding that any game developer spends money in perpetuity to keep a game “playable” is completely absurd which anyone understands if they just think about it for a second.

I thought this too at first, but you could easily keep an outdated device offline to avoid the need to update it and keep it secure. Besides, compatibility layers exist (WINE, Proton, etc).

What do you suggest should be done for example if World of Warcraft is permanently shut down, should Blizzard be forced to release the entire source code? Should they be forced to spend man hours to release something publicly that was never meant to be released? Should they be forced to document it?

I don't know much about that game, but I think the guy said that that game was subscription rather than purchase, so I reckon that specific game probably made it sufficiently clear that you weren't buying it. For other games where providing users their own way to host a server is infeasible; they should do the same. ... or whatever they feasibly can do to keep them playable.

When you buy a game that requires a connection to play, you’re not even buying a game, you’re buying a service.

Then they should make that clear.

If you don’t want to agree to the terms that probably already outline this pretty clearly, don’t buy the game.

I do strongly agree with that. Sadly though, many people just don't know what they're getting into. By the time they do, they're already hooked on the series. It wouldn't be as bad if the terms were clearer.

Edit: Also, many people get into games as children.

As nice as it would be to force companies to open source their code when they stop selling it, it will never happen because there are too many implications that are completely untenable, one of which is trademarks.

Releasing closed source server binaries, or even just not being allowed to go after people who make their own server when no official one is available would be a step forward though.