European Citizens' Initiative regarding video game preservation

[glass ore]

I don't know if I'm allowed to post this, I apologize if not.
I'd like to encourage people to sign this European Citizens' Initiative calling for publishers to protect video game preservation and force them to provide ways to keep playing video games even after their official support ends.
Please sign if you're an EU citizen, and share with other people so it can reach the signature threshold! 🙂

https://citizens-initiative.europa.eu/initiatives/details/2024/000007_en

[clear thicket]

This is a great initiative, and it would be a big milestone for the industry if approved. I personally encourage too for any EU citizen to sign 👍.
I'll leave this video for better details.
https://youtu.be/mkMe9MxxZiI

[clear thicket]

Thanks for sharing 👍

[glass ore]

No problem, felt like it was important

[fallen mulch]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ioqSvLqB46Y

[clear thicket]

It's funny than you mention that, because
Louis Rossmann made a response to that
https://youtu.be/TF4zH8bJDI8?si=7ZYwfK0kKCXfOMaD

[clear thicket]

Huh, i didn't expect Code Monkey to make a video dedicated to this topic
https://youtu.be/I_XhfY5qSbg?si=YfkdObs_V94n5o87

[fallen mulch]

Yeah it's a very interesting topic. Didn't send thor's response as a "take that!" but I do overall agree with him. The only point I'd make is that there are a suprising and growing amount of primarily single player games that require online services. Ross using The Crew as an example was a poor choice.

[supple acorn]

My understanding is that The Crew was used due to timing and scale, as you can't necessarily use old examples as a basis of your complaint. SKG is trying to approach this in many countries through many legal means.

Apparently The Crew also had a singleplayer component to it.

[fallen mulch]

At the end of the day it is an open world vehicle game, so yeah they could def just take the singleplayer (even if it was only ~15% of intended content) and keep that going. However I like Thor's point about car licensing contracts, which must be expensive especially when only ~5 people are playing the game daily

Unless The Crew greyboxed every car lol and just said "here"

[clear thicket]

I think that the example was a correct one, because as Danny said, not only is a recent example, it's a game made by Ubisoft, which is one of the infamous companies which are willing to leave their old games inaccessible and/or unplayable.
I do understand some of the concerns raised, mainly the vagueness of some of the points regarding to what degree a developer can be responsible for keeping a game available and, related to the former, licensing concernings, but that shouldn't invalidate the campaign as a whole.

[supple acorn]

This is not intended to affect old games with existing licensing deals. Licensing deals would likely change moving forward if this became a requirement.

[fallen mulch]

Mmmm didn't think about this

[fallen mulch]

Yeah tbf my biggest gripe with Thor's vid was how he diminished the campaign verrry hardcore. It starts a good convo and the terms of the campaign will be far different from and legislation passed. However, Ross saying "it'll be easy to pass so lets pass it" was concerning

And I do wonder how thor working at blizzard may have biased him, even a little bit

btw thor made another video since he got so much backlash

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3jMKeg9S-s

[clear thicket]

I personally don't buy his argument in that video when...
A: Community servers have existed for years, sometimes working even better than official ones and with better security (*cof cof * COD games cof cof).
And B: That implies that safety can only exist in official servers, when we've seen many examples where that's not the case (funnily enough, his own TF2 example already debunks his argument when you see the details of the whole bot situation that infected the game).

[supple acorn]

My impression of the argument is that original developers will be attacked to force those developers to release server binaries so that the attackers can then use them to monetize the game for profit.

Which seems like a wild plan, considering that everyone will have access to those binaries. You would most likely want to attack games that are successful enough for all of this be worthwhile, just to then compete with every other community server.

And the company needs to die in the process so they are unable to exercise any potential protections...

[clear thicket]

Yeah, that scenario that he presented felt way too extreme, and i think it was only a worst case scenario.
I know there are people who are going to take advantage of that situation to pull out that shit, but that's something that's out of the campaign's control and also it needs to be called out if that happens

Also, an update: Ross just made a video clarifying as best as possible any question about the initiative (possibly as a response to the skepticism):
https://youtu.be/sEVBiN5SKuA

[drifting zealot]

I absolutely love Accursed Farms, I've been following his game preservation series for years. I knew when I saw this EU petition that he was going to cover it

[proven plank]

Long story short, If you're paying for a game(or anything) and there is no explicit end date mentioned at time of purchase, You should get to keep the game(or that thing) forever.

For "online server based games" two main options I see:

1. Developers need to either have the games be made playable on the consumers own private servers
2. The games can charge a subscription or have a explicit committed duration of access of the game at purchase.

Which will either allow consumers to either 1 use the product they purchased forever just like you would if you bought a hammer, or 2 give players a confirmed end date so if you pay you not longer gain access after a certain date which puts the decision on the consumer if they want to make that purchase.

Downsides are 1 might incur some extra development costs into the planning of the development of such a game to make sure private servers work when the game dies(however that might be, eg. developing the servers with a "toggle" to enable that behaviour when the time comes).
With 2 you could say the problem is it might make consumers less likely to buy your service if you have to subscribe or there is a definite date when you no longer have access to the game. But that is not really a problem for consumers, if that is the kind of service you are providing you can charge for in that kind of manor and leave it into the consumers hands if they like what you are offering or not, if the consumers don't like your practices improve your offer for the consumer.

Pirate software, who is (I've not dug to deep) involved in the offbrand as a publishing venture, that's only game is a "online server based game", Does seem to have a bit of a conflict of interest.

[clear thicket]

Another video that talks about the topic that i wanted to share 😁
https://youtu.be/gRKTjTxUprw?si=mXc86h5jxyuP5Dym

[clear thicket]

More videos about the campaign 👍
https://youtu.be/Xl2sh9xnSkA?si=L6pVkv5BjUDGPxzP

[clear thicket]

Update June 2025: yeah, the campaign came to a depressing end....
https://youtu.be/HIfRLujXtUo

[clear thicket]

I honestly blame Thor for the misinformation spreading, that guy knew what he was doing, if it was just because he "misunderstood" the intentions of the campaign, he would've responded to Ross and ALL of the answers that he gave to make sure that campaign's goals were clear (and they were, but Thor never gave a shit)

The general audience's apathy (or lack of awareness of the campaign) , the lack of coverage from the media and the scope limited to the EU clearly didn't help (I understand why it had to be limited thought, but still)

If Thor is reading this, I just want to ask: How do you sleep at night, knowing that you've just made the video game industry worse?