YoshiRulz
Any
Editor, Emulator Coder
Joined: 8/30/2020
Posts: 108
Location: Sydney, Australia
Do you care about game preservation? Enough to consider doing something about it? (Don't worry, you probably won't need to get out of your chair.) stopkillinggames.com One irate man has taken it upon himself to arrange several avenues for holding large game studios accountable for an increasingly common practice: reaching into your hard drive and clawing back the game you bought a licence for. If you own Ubisoft's The Crew (or rather, used to), you'll have the most impact, but for the rest of us we can maybe get a petition through to our respective governments. The Australian one just opened (closes May 20th), the EU one is still being processed so check back later, the UK one is open (closes October 16th), and the Canadian one is also still pending. Additional context: Link to video
I contribute to BizHawk as Linux/cross-platform lead, testing and automation lead, and UI designer. This year, I'm experimenting with streaming BizHawk development on Twitch. nope Links to find me elsewhere and to some of my side projects are on my personal site. I will respond on Discord faster than to PMs on this site.
Hey look buddy, I'm an engineer. That means I solve problems. Not problems like "What is software," because that would fall within the purview of your conundrums of philosophy. I solve practical problems. For instance, how am I gonna stop some high-wattage thread-ripping monster of a CPU dead in its tracks? The answer: use code. And if that don't work? Use more code.
Patashu
He/Him
Joined: 10/2/2005
Posts: 4045
I'm not the type of person to own The Crew or have friends who do, but I'm watching this eagle eyed to see if it works. Good luck!
My Chiptune music, made in Famitracker: http://soundcloud.com/patashu My twitch. I stream mostly shmups & rhythm games http://twitch.tv/patashu My youtube, again shmups and rhythm games and misc stuff: http://youtube.com/user/patashu
Post subject: Response from UK Government [country petitions]
Joined: 10/6/2023
Posts: 5
Link to video UK Petition. Go and sign it, if you're eligible: https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/659071/ Other things featured in this video are: Australian Petition (DEADLINE: May 20th) If you're a citizen or resident of Australia, go and sign it: https://www.aph.gov.au/e-petitions/petition/EN6080 Canadian petition has just opened. Go sign it if you're Canadian or live in Canada: https://www.ourcommons.ca/petitions/en/Petition/Details?Petition=e-4965 Brazil https://stopkillinggames.com
YoshiRulz
Any
Editor, Emulator Coder
Joined: 8/30/2020
Posts: 108
Location: Sydney, Australia
You beat me to it! Canadians: you have until September 5th to rally signatures. I'll add that IGN just ran a story covering the initiative. It seems Cory Doctorow was interviewed for it so maybe the EFF will get involved? And FWIW there was apparently a podcast last month by the former The Escapist writers which featured Ross.
I contribute to BizHawk as Linux/cross-platform lead, testing and automation lead, and UI designer. This year, I'm experimenting with streaming BizHawk development on Twitch. nope Links to find me elsewhere and to some of my side projects are on my personal site. I will respond on Discord faster than to PMs on this site.
Hey look buddy, I'm an engineer. That means I solve problems. Not problems like "What is software," because that would fall within the purview of your conundrums of philosophy. I solve practical problems. For instance, how am I gonna stop some high-wattage thread-ripping monster of a CPU dead in its tracks? The answer: use code. And if that don't work? Use more code.
Senior Moderator
Joined: 8/4/2005
Posts: 5777
Location: Away
Patashu wrote:
I'm not the type of person to own The Crew or have friends who do, but I'm watching this eagle eyed to see if it works. Good luck!
Same. This is immediately relevant to our interests as the entire TASing scene exists as the extension of the game preservation community going through the effort of collecting and dumping thousands of games back in the 90s and early 00s. We'd not be here without that effort, and we continue going hand in hand with the game preservation community and giving back by contributing our own input to game knowledge, emulation accuracy, and awareness of forgotten games. Hence any initiative successful at improving the state of game preservation and giving consumers more rights to their games is an implicit win for TASVideos.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
Post subject: Europeans can save gaming! [every EU citizen can sign this!]
Joined: 10/6/2023
Posts: 5
Link to video Europeans can save videogames from being destroyed! The European Citizens' Initiative has just launched and represents the biggest and most ambitious chance to create new law against publishers destroying games they have already sold to you. Get EU citizens to sign it! Before you do (as a European citizen), you have ONE CHANCE to do this right. It's not hard, but if you make a mistake, your signature is invalidated and you don't get another chance. We've made guides at stopkillinggames.com on how to do this, just in case. Guides on how to sign EU initiative: https://www.stopkillinggames.com/eci Link to sign EU initiative: https://citizens-initiative.europa.eu/initiatives/details/2024/000007_en# In order for this to work, we need one million (1,000,000) signatures across the EU... though really it's MORE than that because some are going to be invalidated because... who knows why. So really we need more like 1.2 or 1.3 million signatures. Oh, and it gets worse, because you need certain minimum thresholds per country for it to pass.
Noxxa
They/Them
Moderator, Expert player (4127)
Joined: 8/14/2009
Posts: 4090
Location: The Netherlands
WSDguy2014 wrote:
Link to video Europeans can save videogames from being destroyed! The European Citizens' Initiative has just launched and represents the biggest and most ambitious chance to create new law against publishers destroying games they have already sold to you. Get EU citizens to sign it! Before you do (as a European citizen), you have ONE CHANCE to do this right. It's not hard, but if you make a mistake, your signature is invalidated and you don't get another chance. We've made guides at stopkillinggames.com on how to do this, just in case. Guides on how to sign EU initiative: https://www.stopkillinggames.com/eci Link to sign EU initiative: https://citizens-initiative.europa.eu/initiatives/details/2024/000007_en# In order for this to work, we need one million (1,000,000) signatures across the EU... though really it's MORE than that because some are going to be invalidated because... who knows why. So really we need more like 1.2 or 1.3 million signatures. Oh, and it gets worse, because you need certain minimum thresholds per country for it to pass.
Signed! It's an uphill road, but hopefully this can get somewhere.
http://www.youtube.com/Noxxa <dwangoAC> This is a TAS (...). Not suitable for all audiences. May cause undesirable side-effects. May contain emulator abuse. Emulator may be abusive. This product contains glitches known to the state of California to cause egg defects. <Masterjun> I'm just a guy arranging bits in a sequence which could potentially amuse other people looking at these bits <adelikat> In Oregon Trail, I sacrificed my own family to save time. In Star trek, I killed helpless comrades in escape pods to save time. Here, I kill my allies to save time. I think I need help.
CoolHandMike
He/Him
Editor, Judge, Experienced player (897)
Joined: 3/9/2019
Posts: 705
Curiously I have been recommended lots of videos on youtube against this initiative. This is despite me liking this initiative. I originally thought the algorithm was just recommending anything regarding Stop Killing Games, but no, everything youtube is trying to make me click is against it for some reason. I did click through one to see the points against it, but they push back using false information. Like "games will die if it passes" which is blatantly false at all levels. It seems that the corporate shills are pushing against Stop Killing Games.
discord: CoolHandMike#0352
Editor, Player (69)
Joined: 6/22/2005
Posts: 1050
A nice effort, for sure, but I think it would be more likely to succeed if legal measures were taken against planned obsolescence of non-entertainment products. I haven't watched any of the videos, but here's a potential unintended consequence: Companies change things so that you no longer buy games. Instead, you pay w amount of money for x minutes of access to some type of game streaming service, all to be used within y time period from the time of payment. Insert a bunch of legal terms here about how the game company is not responsible for anything if natural or technological disasters prevent you from said access. TBH, I wouldn't be surprised if someone is already doing this.
Current Projects: TAS: Wizards & Warriors III.
YoshiRulz
Any
Editor, Emulator Coder
Joined: 8/30/2020
Posts: 108
Location: Sydney, Australia
Quick update: The European Citizens' Initiative has passed 20% of the required signatures already!
Dacicus wrote:
A nice effort, for sure, but I think it would be more likely to succeed if legal measures were taken against planned obsolescence of non-entertainment products. [...] [concern that all games will become subscriptions]
Right to repair is stronger in the EU. Regardless, this is not a law, it's a petition. Most people might prefer purchases to subscriptions, but it would still arguably be an improvement if all the big players went subscription-only but consumers were properly informed of games' end-of-life dates. We can only speculate as to how that would impact sales.
CoolHandMike wrote:
Curiously I have been recommended lots of videos on youtube against this initiative. [...] It seems that the corporate shills are pushing against Stop Killing Games.
That's concerning. I know that at least some of the counterarguments are genuine—for example, Ross has made a video response to PirateSoftware's Thor.
I contribute to BizHawk as Linux/cross-platform lead, testing and automation lead, and UI designer. This year, I'm experimenting with streaming BizHawk development on Twitch. nope Links to find me elsewhere and to some of my side projects are on my personal site. I will respond on Discord faster than to PMs on this site.
Hey look buddy, I'm an engineer. That means I solve problems. Not problems like "What is software," because that would fall within the purview of your conundrums of philosophy. I solve practical problems. For instance, how am I gonna stop some high-wattage thread-ripping monster of a CPU dead in its tracks? The answer: use code. And if that don't work? Use more code.
Patashu
He/Him
Joined: 10/2/2005
Posts: 4045
Link to video Ross has released a followup video. It's not specifically a response to Thor's video, but it clarifies his positions on things brought up by Thor.
My Chiptune music, made in Famitracker: http://soundcloud.com/patashu My twitch. I stream mostly shmups & rhythm games http://twitch.tv/patashu My youtube, again shmups and rhythm games and misc stuff: http://youtube.com/user/patashu
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Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11489
Location: Lake Char­gogg­a­gogg­man­chaugg­a­gogg­chau­bun­a­gung­a­maugg
I couldn't resist watching this. Prime addressed a lot of technicalities from a developer's perspective. And hearing it made me ask myself: "Is it possible for politicians to carefully design a potential law to account for all those important details... especially when even Ross says politicians don't care about video games and don't understand them?" Link to video
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.