Ross Scott's stopkillinggames.com campaign

[Beany]

In case you weren't aware, modern games are Very Online, even when they don't need to be. The Crew is a good example, where there's no way to play it without an internet connection to Ubisofts servers, even for single player - and on 31st March they perma-killed the server side, so the game is now unplayable.

"But I didn't play The Crew so I don't care"

The Crew was a tentpole release that sold twelve million copies so if companies think they can get away with it for a game that big, they will.

But it's been ten years! That's ages!
If they think they can get away with shutting the games down sooner to save costs, they will.

But they wouldn't shut down a game that's still being actively played!
If they think they can get away with shutting down games to push you to the next game in the franchise, where you have to give them another £60, they will and if you think they won't you haven't been paying attention to the way the media industry in general is going.

For example, Amazon are currently getting legally checked over via a class action lawsuit for removing from their service films and music that you paid hard cash for, for example, because "oopsy licensing was too hard, fuck you and the media you pressed 'buy', not 'rent' on".

They tried to get that dismissed, and the judge told them to get fucked - that's going forward.



Anyway, that's a minor industry-adjacent sidetrack - if your interest is piqued, behold, a video:



If you can't be arsed watching it, the website covers most of the details and what you can do if you're interested in actually having reasonable chance of consumer rights being enforced in reasonable ways.

https://www.stopkillinggames.com/

[Mito Man]

Can’t sign the petition yet as it’s under review.
Remember when Sim City pulled this online only DRM shit, with woefully inadequate servers. Pretty much killed off the whole franchise that.

[Beany]

Can’t sign the petition yet as it’s under review.

Yeah, the petitions thing (globally) has been a pain in the arse as various territories basically are incapable of setting a date for when they'll be live. I think the Australian one - which only gets a month to live - they can't even give him a month timescale of when it'll be live...

[Matty]

Their arguement has always been that you never really "own" a game or movie if you read the T&C's

And it's fairly rare shutting down servers impacting games - in most cases they usually patch out the online requirement. Ubisoft and EA are notorious for being cunts with this though, so fuck them.

This is modern gaming though; always online, microtransactions and live-service...because publishers call the shots and they want their $$$. People like Larian (BG3) and CDPR (Witcher/CyberPunk) are very much in the minority.

[Simon]

Remember, if buying isn't owning, then piracy isn't theft.

[scotta]

Remember, if buying isn't owning, then piracy isn't theft.

That’s pretty much dead in the online gaming world now though. No subs no connection.

[RobYob]

Slick site for a good cause, once the Aus petition is up I'll sign it.

Really needs to be a simple broadbrush solution "if software requires any online authentication, that code must be made freely available at end of life"

[Beany]

Slick site for a good cause, once the Aus petition is up I'll sign it.

Really needs to be a simple broadbrush solution "if software requires any online authentication, that code must be made freely available at end of life"

Yup, just open source the server auth side, and make it a local client.

It's not hard. Unless, you know, your server side code is dogshit.

[RobYob]

Slick site for a good cause, once the Aus petition is up I'll sign it.

Really needs to be a simple broadbrush solution "if software requires any online authentication, that code must be made freely available at end of life"

Yup, just open source the server auth side, and make it a local client.

It's not hard. Unless, you know, your server side code is dogshit.

Was it Supreme Commander that got massive kudos for releasing their server code?

The Elite Dangerous Devs have promised to release their code once the game is no longer supported.

[Beany]

They get kudos cos it's uncommon.

It should be standard industry practise, really.

[Jobbo]

Remember, if buying isn't owning, then piracy isn't theft.

Retro-gaming is going to become a snapshot of a time period (1980s-2010s?) rather than a growing thing I guess.

[drcarlos]

Have to admit I'd wondered what would happen to Amazon if I canceled my prime but I'd 'bought' a film or some other content. I would assume as long as the login/account still existed you should still have access.
I've put a bit of money for battlepasses into star trek fleet command (only subscribe level money but still an investment over 4 years now) and I'd wondered where they'd stand if they wanted to close it down, not likely currently as the dev got bought last year as they are raking it in from this game.

[Ascender]

I've had movies I've bought disappear from Apple and Prime for "reasons" which I guess are all licensing related. Its a complete mess of rights issues which can be country-specific meaning there's stuff disappearing, some things move to streaming and some things aren't available to buy legally now on any streaming service or on physical media.

I guess for those favourite movies it's either a case of buying a physical copy when you can or downloading a pirated version if there's no other option.

Its often really annoying when something does disappear and its a tv show or movie you know you've already bought in the past on DVD, blu-ray etc but have long since lost or binned it.

[Beany]

I've said it before and I'll say it again; the likes of Amazon and Netflix only survive as long as they are marginally more convenient than piracy.

If they stop being a slightly better solution, then people will stop paying for it and just pirate it instead.

[Beany]

An update - the UK petition is now live and takes two minutes to fill out.

If you own The Crew (you know, unless it was removed from your account recently, which may be a play to prevent evidence of proof of purchase/ownership...) then there's a detailed set of steps for contacting the Directorate General for Consumer Affairs, Competition and Fraud Prevention in France (where Ubisoft are located).

https://www.stopkillinggames.com/countr ... ed_kingdom