Stop Killing Games (EU edition) - Moldman vs. Publishers

[lamppost]

What non-libertarians don't understand is libertarianism
Either way, this might be interesting for those who are genuinely curious about philosophical content and an intellectually honest conversation exchange of ideas, as opposed to mere shit-flinging

Like, by that I mean, it's not some debate bro bullshit, it's really more like a highly interesting conversation between two people who have thought about shit

Read a few comments to get a gist of how this went, seems most thought it was an interesting, respectful conversation. This peak lolbertarian made me laugh though...

Just want to point out that he argued that without IP the game creator won’t be able to make money, but also implied that financial incentive corrupts the artistic pursuit of game development. But by that logic, making game development unprofitable would improve the quality of games put out because the only creators left would be the ones who want to make fun games regardless of profitability

 

[2ndBest]

https://youtu.be/j-6uX--o3xQ

Thread theme

 

[Farmholio]

They're scared, and they think by lying they can turn gamers against SKG.

They don't want their players to keep playing their old games by releasing the necessary software for running them, because these old games would become their very own competitors.

They release a bad sequel? People are no longer forced to migrate to the new title because the old one became unplayable. No more easy profits.

If SKG succeeds, it will force them to make better games, or people will just mod the shit out of old ones while they go bankrupt. A win-win either way!

I'm also hoping this will open up an avenue way down the road for more generalized legislation addressing the problem of software being deliberately designed with a killswitch just to turn everything into a "subscription" even when it really ought not to be. There has to be some kind of a line you can cross where it's obviously bullshit and right now that line does not exist, especially in the US. We need some kind of a rule that at least gauges the difference between an actual subscription from an ongoing practical service (you need to pay monthly because it's realistically the only way the business can function), versus abusing DRM to arbitrarily disable shit unless you pay a continual tax for absolutely nothing. The two big practices that need to be regulated in this vein are:

• Milking consumers by forcing them to pay recurrently for the 99% of the product they use by turning off the 1% that's just there to act as a leash, e.g. always online DRM for a single player game or other kind of software application.
• Forcing consumers to pay to migrate to a new version even if it's not really an upgrade (or possibly inferior to the old version), simply because you disable the old version they already paid for, by e.g. using always online DRM and such. This is basically what Ubisoft is trying to do with their The Crew series. You're encouraged to buy the sequel because you literally cannot play the original.

In most cases, the consumer could simply be given 100% of the product and pay one time, keeping 100% of the product on their end indefinitely. Then the developer must actually make a superior or innovative product later on to continue to receive business from said consumer, who would naturally prefer to use the existing product until they have a demand for something new or better. Right now the publisher can just pull a chain across a river to access their product and make as much money as they want once they capture enough market share to bully out competition, and this is what they all do more and more as time goes on with nothing stopping them. We already have farm equipment and automobiles that contain self-disabling killswitches functionally tied to your billing account. These provide no benefit to the consumer, they are just used by large companies to abuse their market share to force consumers to pay more without actually needing to provide a superior service.

Selling software as a straight up good that you keep forever would be a healthier situation for the free competitive market for most software products, including games.

And I feel compelled to repeat the mantra, nobody cares that Fortnite can't be made offline or whatever. This is about making it so Fortnite 2 won't suffer the same fate in the future. They don't have to release the source code. There just has to be some kind of rule to keep it from being outright abuse of the consumer. No rules at all and vote with your wallet doesn't work for everything.

 

[XL xQgg?QcQCaTYDMjqoDnYpG]

Read a few comments to get a gist of how this went, seems most thought it was an interesting, respectful conversation. This peak lolbertarian made me laugh though...

What's actually funny is that nobody in the exchange (neither Ross, nor that lolbertarian (?), nor you) seems to have asked the one question that matters
Do artists need state-backed intellectual monopoly rights to make money?

Spoiler

No.
You don't need copyright to sell a game, just like you don't need a printing license to write a book
Copyright is not a property right, it is a restriction on what other people can do with their copies of something they bought

Also, assuming the lolbertarian (?) in question correctly described Ross's position, that position is indeed contradictory
If profit motive corrupts art, but removing profit motive ruins art, then there is just a back-and-forth between purity spiral and rent-seeking
The lolbertarian (?) you quoted tries (clumsily) to highlight that, but gets tripped up by not clearly rejecting Ross's false premise that IP is the only path to profitability

still though, if you're mocking libertarians without knowing the difference between property and privilege, you might wanna step back and interrupt your laughter

 

[DefinitelyNotMe]

It's nice to see Ross talk a bit of trash about Maldy

 

[lamppost]

What's actually funny is that nobody in the exchange (neither Ross, nor that lolbertarian (?), nor you) seems to have asked the one question that matters
Do artists need state-backed intellectual monopoly rights to make money?

Spoiler

No.
You don't need copyright to sell a game, just like you don't need a printing license to write a book
Copyright is not a property right, it is a restriction on what other people can do with their copies of something they bought

Also, assuming the lolbertarian (?) in question correctly described Ross's position, that position is indeed contradictory
If profit motive corrupts art, but removing profit motive ruins art, then there is just a back-and-forth between purity spiral and rent-seeking
The lolbertarian (?) you quoted tries (clumsily) to highlight that, but gets tripped up by not clearly rejecting Ross's false premise that IP is the only path to profitability

still though, if you're mocking libertarians without knowing the difference between property and privilege, you might wanna step back and interrupt your laughter

Ross (and everyone else here) understands property vs privilege, Stop Killing Games has spoken about it many times.

I haven't watched the video, but I doubt Ross is saying profit is directly correlated to the quality of a game. I would guess he's talking about things such as publishers creating games to be cash cows rather than creating games that are entertaining to play and respect the consumer. Look at how sports games have shifted from couch co-op games to pack opening games as an example.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

Do artists need state-backed intellectual monopoly rights to make money?

Spoiler

No.
You don't need copyright to sell a game, just like you don't need a printing license to write a book
Copyright is not a property right, it is a restriction on what other people can do with their copies of something they bought

That's absolutely retarded. If you don't have protection of IP then everyone could replicate your work and claim it was their own.

 

[The Tall Man]

Libertarianism is a mental illness.
You get what you want by using power. Violence is a form of power.
If artists and big companies use IP to get the government to exert violence on their behalf, screeching about the NAP and wanting to live in Ancapistan is nothing but an autistic temper tantrum.
The only way to get something is through force; this is how reality works. Even convincing autists of the NAP is a form of force, just a weak and ineffective one. Being weak is disgusting, and preaching weakness is even more disgusting.
The NAP is disgusting. Being openly proud that you would not strike first only makes you weak.
"Guys, if only the people in Gaza followed the NAP, the Palestinian Holocaust wouldn’t happen."

This idea that power and violence are inherently bad is divorced from reality and incredibly stupid. If I use extreme violence to get exactly what I want, then using it was nothing but good for me. If I have the power to change something the way I want, that is only good for me. Anyone who thinks something bad happens at the end of the story to the person who used force and violence to get what they wanted confuses Hollywood movies with reality.

 

[XL xQgg?QcQCaTYDMjqoDnYpG]

Ross (and everyone else here) understands property vs privilege, Stop Killing Games has spoken about it many times.

I haven't watched the video, but I doubt Ross is saying profit is directly correlated to the quality of a game. I would guess he's talking about things such as publishers creating games to be cash cows rather than creating games that are entertaining to play and respect the consumer. Look at how sports games have shifted from couch co-op games to pack opening games as an example.

I get where you're coming from, and if Ross were merely critiquing cash grab design, then that would land cleanly, but that is not what he argues in the debate or elsewhere
He repeatedly defends copyright enforcement (even if it blocks game preservation), he treats publisher control over code and binaries as if it were a legitimate ownership right, not a legal privilege that only exists because it's granted and maintained by the state. That is a category error
So when you say

Ross (and everyone else here) understands property vs privilege

I have no choice but to ask - In what sense? How do you understand it?
He talks about consumer rights, sure, but when it comes to copyright, he defaults to the same moral logic that underpins intellectual property law. That's not opposition to privilege, that's compliance with it
Regarding profit, Ross doesn't just critique predatory monetization, he frames financial motivation itself as something that corrupts art... while relying on copyright law to make creative work profitable. That's incoherence
Like, if someone like you wants to mock libertarianism, try doing it against someone who actually represents the position accurately
Taking potshots at a vague approximation of a libertarian isn't a flex. In the debate itself, Ross goes up against LiquidZulu who is quite good

---

That's absolutely retarded. If you don't have protection of IP then everyone could replicate your work and claim it was their own.

That's not how authorship works. You don't need a copyright monopoly to prove you made something. Or do we live in a situation where you need a patent to prove you built a house?
The question isn't whether someone can lie about who made something, that is something that even happens with IP law
The question is whether someone has the right to dictate how others use their own copies (or to sic the state at them for sharing, improving, or selling it)

If your defense of IP boils down to "what if someone lies", you're not even defending a property right, you're defending a censorship regime
Ask yourself: If someone plagiarized your work, would that justify blocking everyone else from sharing it freely? Or are you just so used to state violence that you think it is the same thing as authorship?

---

Libertarianism is a mental illness.
You get what you want by using power. Violence is a form of power.
If artists and big companies use IP to get the government to exert violence on their behalf, screeching about the NAP and wanting to live in Ancapistan is nothing but an autistic temper tantrum.
The only way to get something is through force; this is how reality works. Even convincing autists of the NAP is a form of force, just a weak and ineffective one. Being weak is disgusting, and preaching weakness is even more disgusting.
The NAP is disgusting. Being openly proud that you would not strike first only makes you weak.
"Guys, if only the people in Gaza followed the NAP, the Palestinian Holocaust wouldn’t happen."

This idea that power and violence are inherently bad is divorced from reality and incredibly stupid. If I use extreme violence to get exactly what I want, then using it was nothing but good for me. If I have the power to change something the way I want, that is only good for me. Anyone who thinks something bad happens at the end of the story to the person who used force and violence to get what they wanted confuses Hollywood movies with reality.

"Power gets results" is not a moral theory, it's more like a weather report
If your entire worldview is "might makes right", then nothing you say even pretends to be true, it's just a preemptive excuse to hurt people

You call persuasion "force" but at the time you posted it, you were here and writing. Why don't you go and hit people in the face so they agree with you, if that is how reality works? Or is posting on KF your preferred method of domination?
The NAP (non-aggression principle) is not a weakness, it's a boundary. It's a line that says "I'm going to match any force you bring, but I won't be the one to start it."
If you think that abstaining from starting fights is cowardly, that is the most nigger stance I've seen this month.
Regarding Gaza (why even bring this up in a SKG discussion??) nobody said that following the NAP protects you from state. The whole point is that states violate the NAP, and that is what makes states wrong.

 

[Farmholio]

I somewhat agree with you but also think the discussion might be starting to get a bit far afield. Regardless of how right or wrong Ross is about IP as a principle in a debate with a libertarian, it really doesn't have too much to do with SKG which is a more specific agenda about legislating a business practice in software that's hostile to consumers. Personally I am (broadly speaking) anti-copyright but I also don't want the thread derailed so I'm cagey about jumping into an anti-copyright debate in this specific thread. Suffice to say it's a bit out of control right now and if nothing else needs some reigning in.

 

[XL xQgg?QcQCaTYDMjqoDnYpG]

I somewhat agree with you but also think the discussion might be starting to get a bit far afield. Regardless of how right or wrong Ross is about IP as a principle in a debate with a libertarian, it really doesn't have too much to do with SKG which is a more specific agenda about legislating a business practice in software that's hostile to consumers. Personally I am (broadly speaking) anti-copyright but I also don't want the thread derailed so I'm cagey about jumping into an anti-copyright debate in this specific thread. Suffice to say it's a bit out of control right now and if nothing else needs some reigning in.

Completely fair
I only chimed in because I knew of the debate video I posted earlier (it is certainly on-topic!) and because, right before that, I saw open mockery of libertarianism in the thread. And, like, if someone wants to take shots, they should at least try to pick a target in the right weight class
But I agree with you, the SKG focus in this thread is more specific and worth not derailing

For what it's worth, I think LiquidZulu's strongest point in the debate/discussion/conversation video I linked earlier wasn't even about IP in general, it was that SKG's very method (getting the EU to start a conversation on mandating game preservation) is an attempt to fix an anti-consumer landscape that only exists because of prior government interference
Copyright, DMCA, forced obsolescence, artificial license constraints, all of these things aren't some "free market" outcomes, they're the architecture of the cage that we've been put in

 

[Farmholio]

For what it's worth, I think LiquidZulu's strongest point in the debate/discussion/conversation video I linked earlier wasn't even about IP in general, it was that SKG's very method (getting the EU to start a conversation on mandating game preservation) is an attempt to fix an anti-consumer landscape that only exists because of prior government interference
Copyright, DMCA, forced obsolescence, artificial license constraints, all of these things aren't some "free market" outcomes, they're the architecture of the cage that we've been put in

Well I agree with that.
I still think it's pragmatic to pursue the SKG initiative in the EU to its extent for the time being, for lack of any other immediate practical solutions. But yes, we do but edify this legalist golem that shouldn't have been created to begin with and will hopefully after a lot of struggle in time be demolished. But until then.

 

[StacticShock]

It did just hit 1,400,000 signatures, and it keeps going!!

hopefully people will keep spreading the message to continue signing the petition, moldman will probably mention that some may be bogus but it's to be expected of him.

 

[SCV]

Ross is live right now with ""ActMan" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnRXpP0guXo

They saw the counter reach 1.4

View attachment 7668809

Congrats to the eurobros. Hopefully this results in something worthwhile.

 

[XL xQgg?QcQCaTYDMjqoDnYpG]

Well I agree with that.
I still think it's pragmatic to pursue the SKG initiative in the EU to its extent for the time being, for lack of any other immediate practical solutions. But yes, we do but edify this legalist golem that shouldn't have been created to begin with and will hopefully after a lot of struggle in time be demolished. But until then.

I don't find fault in SKG for trying to basically stop the bleeding, so I'm not going to sperg out and call you a filthy statist
What's important to me is recognizing the difference between doing something in an attempt to stop the bleeding and forgetting who is holding the knife
At least from my perspective there is a gigantic red flag in SKG because it treats the state like a neutral referee instead of the creator of the problem
Even when the goal is good (ex ante! you don't know what the situation will be like after the fact) channeling that goal through the same machine that created the cage... will just reinforce that machinery

 

[Poisonbreath]

I assumed it'd slow down enough that it'd take longer to hit 1.4m. Nice to be proven wrong on that, almost makes one think it could even hit 1.5m which would be something I thought would be impossible a couple days ago. It's a long ways off but I'm hoping for the best.