Here's their entire publication they put out. Fucking lobbyist scum
https://www.videogameseurope.eu/wp-...ation-of-Support-to-Online-Games-04072025.pdf (attaching it for good measure)
"Online video games evolve over time after their initial release, providing consumers with regular new content, experiences, patches, and updates. This is highly valued by players"
I cannot count on my fingers the amount of times I've seen people bitch and moan about an update, just any update. Any Overwatch update, for example.
"Video games companies put significant investment into creating and developing the best interactive entertainment and experience for their passionate player bases
Such as the times where Ross played TrackMania and saw the graphical fidelity decrease by updates?
As rightsholders and economic entities, video games companies must remain free to decide when an online game is no longer commercially viable and to end continued server support for that game.
It is not clear what the initiators of the stop killing games petition seek to achieve as a legal change. It appears to be a combination of a requirement to provide online services for as long as
a consumer wants them, regardless of price paid, and/or a requirement to provide a very specific form of end-of-life plan where the game is altered to enable private servers to operate. We do not believe these are proportionate demands.
They, quite literally, take Mald's completely insane and untruthful "perspective" as fact. Nowhere does it state that the law gets to choose this, you decide that, but we get something in return to run it ourselves, this is blatant gaslighting.
"We do not believe these are proportionate demands", just, lmao.
It is far from a trivial modification or a simple addition to the game development phase. It would ignore material reputational, safety, and security concerns.
This is just absolutely benign reasoning, none of the concerns would fall on you, it would lie on the community. A simple fucking binary would do the trick, something INDIE DEVELOPERS CAN DO ON THEIR OWN. If some fuckwit in Sweden who codes in Java-hieroglyphics can do it, so can the gigantic studio's.
what they acquire is a personal license to access and play the copy of the game they have purchased
There's something so beautiful about this specific way of phrasing. "They acquire ... a personal license -- of the game they have purchased" -- So, which is it? A license or a purchase? They can't even tell!
Going by their points point by point:
1. This wouldn't fall on you, this would be the community's task.
2. This would only be on you if you somehow, some miraculous way, made the server binary, which you should have been disconnected from because you shut down your servers, made it phone-home. Otherwise, this would fall on the community's task.
3. Which is why it's not retroactive and you need to plan ahead, you guys hire DEVELOPERS, how about they DEVELOP a way?
4. "Negative impact -- on consumer choice" -- just lmao. "Many of the costs -- would have to be incurred towards the end of the commercial life of a game" Fucking no? You planned ahead, you made it so that when you finally do decide to fuck off you release your shitty binary, you paid for developers to do so BEFOREHAND.
5. This wouldn't fall on you, this would be on the community.
6. "muh copyright" -- YOU get to decide to release something without copyrighted materials in it or with. YOU get to decide that, maybe, (ex.) releasing all the skins in Fortnite wouldn't be a NECESSITY so won't include them. YOU can give us the most barebones, piece of shit server software and you'll comply with the law.
7. What the fuck?
8. We have software licenses and you fucking know what those are, don't act retarded.
9. Appeal to tradition.
10. Appeal to tradition.
The last two paragraphs are such gigantic middlefingers towards anyone's intelligence I don't even feel the need to critique it. Seriously, you're going to lecture ME about game preservation after reading all of this beforehand?
