Yarr citizens of the high seas! The Stop Killing Games movement is still ongoing and we’ve recently had a second wind. It’s within reach!
We’re all lovers of media in here, and games currently have no safeguard that guarantees that they won’t be locked down long after being released and abandoned. If crackers help us, they can still be played long into the future, but many times there isn’t such a possibility, specially in multiplayer games.
This initiative seeks to change that by mainly:
- Disallowing planned obsolesce in paid video games. (Ex: By disallowing phone-home based DRM after the game reaches end of life. Like in Ubisoft’s The Crew)
- Ensuring that paid multiplayer games can still be reasonably played long into the future. (Ex: By releasing relevant server hosting software)
If you didn’t sign yet, there is only one month left. Tell your friends too.
Do you live in the EU?
- You can sign it here: https://eci.ec.europa.eu/045/public/#/screen/home
Do you live in the UK?
- You can also sign a different one here: https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/702074/
Do you live elsewhere or would like to know more?
Disclaimer: Reminder post, sort of relevant since piracy movements have much to benefit from this initiative.
Have a fine day!
100k left
Remember everyone, 1 million is a MINIMUM goal. Keep signing afterwards if/when we reach the milestone, as some signatures can be declared invalid due to errors like wrong spelling, so we need every single person we can get in the EU to sign this!
Shared the link. Hope you guys get the numbers you need 🙏🏽
An important reminder that if this can be enacted into law, there is a chance it would not only apply to games but also at some point maybe to all software that does not require a server to operate most basic functions (ie. looking at you adobe)
Sign it, and get your friends and family to sign it because the proposal is pretty common sense: if you buy something, you should own it.
Another reminder that if enacted, in practice this is not only for Europeans.
If games have to be reasonably playable in Europe then they will be reasonably playable everywhere.
This benefits all consumers one way or another.
More importantly though, for everything, like the comment I’m replying to mentions: If you buy something you should own it.
Personally hoping this opens the door to discussing planned obsolescence in the digital realm as a whole, from games to software. It’s corporate wild west over here.
You don’t need any ID to sign it, so you can sign it on their behalf if they give you verbal permission.
Sign it, and get your friends and family to sign it because the proposal is pretty common sense: if you buy something, you should own it.
ESPECIALLY when it’s advertised as ownership and not a rental service.
This is mainly why I signed it. I honestly don’t care about new games, and the whole narrative around the campaign is frankly infantile, but it should at the very least be a start towards fighting such practices in general.
You’re infantile
UK petition has less than 5k to go!
WTF! How did it hit target already? Hope there wasn’t any bot farming involved…
Otherwise, pleasantly surprised!
Don’t think it’s bot farming. There’s a lot of muscle being thrown around and it’s trending.
Glad to be proven wrong on this. I’m not very confident at the EU will act (the UK already said in February they are not going to) BUT hopefully this can at least get some grass roots momentum going and they can turn this petition initiative into something sustainable for the long-term
Well the UK said they have no plans but now they have to actually debate it in Parliament. So it’s better than nothing - at least the proposal gets a chance to be heard.
EU has done some legislation on microtransactions, the most recent one being mandatory real-life currency price tags instead of the in-game currency ones.
It could be seen as a gambling issue rather than digital ownership, but it at least means they pay attention to video games.
Predatory corporate practices that are pissing off parents as they harm children are a lot easier than “video games are art and should be preserved,” unfortunately
But we got a lot of consumer protection going on and a right to repair movement. For instance phone batteries will have to be easily replaceable again starting in 26 or 27, can’t remember. None of that has anything to do with protecting the children and it still all passed. Video games are already recognized as art btw. All we need now is consumer protection for digital products, it’s extremely lacking in that department.
Let’s say you’re company x budgeting y millions to make a game, after this passes, you may want to account for the fact that the EU may legislate the issue in the years it takes you to develop your game. Might as well work on compliance in advance.
Yeah, wishful thinking, I know.
That only works if the EU signals that they are taking this into serious consideration, which I don’t really think they will, but I want to be very clear that I don’t think the effort is therefore fruitless. I just hope people understand that this petition doesn’t even count as a start lol. We have to build off of this or it just fizzles out.
At this point the petition works best as an organizing force if you ask me. Gets people informed and hopefully involved
I will be so pissed if this gets 1 million signatures and they just hand-wave it away, which is entirely possible, but it’s still worth signing this anyway.
That is by far and away the most likely outcome but still, people should sign it and follow the initiative as it moves forward with other plans
Do I have to be a citizen of the EU or just live there? I’m going to be moving to Sweden soon but won’t be a citizen for a long while still
Citizens only I’m afraid. You can still help though by spreading this around, if any of your friends are EU citizens they can help.
Let’s gooooooooo!!!
hell yes a petition will show them for sure
It’s a European Citizens’ Initiative. If it gets enough signatures, the European Commission has to discuss it and make a decision what to do about it.
I signed.
But I’m 100% sure that the decision will be “no”.
But anyway it’s good to make more people aware of the issue.
How is that petition even valid? For example, as a non-EU citizen, what’s to stop me from just selecting Finland and entering bogus info? Does that mean as a US citizen I get to decide EU laws?
Additionally, from the “initiative seeks to…” part, none of that is listed on their website as goals. They don’t list any goals which is kind of problematic if you have an EU petition. Its a petition to do what specifically (show me a goal)?
EDIT: I just read through the Past Actions & Results of their site. Of the completed Actions, all of the them have failed. I then realized this petition doesn’t require EU to pass anything, only that a committee look at it. I feel like this is a really well intentioned activity that ultimately will fail due to poor execution. Even if the petition succeeds, no action has to be taken by EU member nations and historically hasn’t.
what’s to stop me from just selecting Finland and entering bogus info?
The petition needs to be signed with the eID of a EU country, a EU passport or a EU identification card in most countries.
Unless you have one of those, you can’t sign the petition with bogus info.
Not sure how countries that don’t have those handle it.
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Signatures will be verified at the end of the petition period.
Do you know how? Its pretty easy to just randomly generate addresses using something like this (https://www.bestrandoms.com/random-address-in-fi). I can just VPN to Finland and enter Itätuulenkuja 92, 02100 Espoo, Finland. Its just a construction yard, but is the petition recipient going to actually check that?
Don’t know the exact mechanism, but EU countries have national ID database, so unless you’re committing actual identity theft your signature will be invalidated.
There’s no realistic way to spoof the eID I needed to vote. It is bound to you, you generally can’t get one without in-person identification, and once you have it it only works with an authenticator app.
I have signed the petition but wasn’t ever asked for an ID.
So in countries like mine (FR) how are they gonna check my signature?
Idk, did they ask for your id number?
Does that mean as a US citizen I get to decide EU laws?
No, not how petitions work in the EU. Nominally it means they can force the EU parliament to bring underway legislation concering the topic, albeit there isn’t really a control mechanism for this. But say they do it anyways lest they lose even more credibility, considering games despite having existed for at least 50 years at this point are foreign objects to basically everyone that is the leftovers in the EU Parliament Ubisoft or whatever is gonna send two lobbyists and it ends up at at some sort of EU law that says “under reasonable circumstances video games should have to be playable after the copyright holder abandons service except if it costs them any money”
Nominally it means they can force the EU parliament to bring underway legislation concering the topic
If that’s true, why have all the other Actions failed? This is like the 10th(?) time they’ve tried and the furthest they’ve gotten is the EU saying that it is up to member nations to address.
And going further with that, all you need is 1 million signatures to change EU law? There are 449 million people in the EU. That would mean that 0.22% of your population gets to dictate what laws are made for the other 448 million people. Coming from a country that is quickly becoming authoritarian and non-democratic, that seems fairly non-democratic.
If that’s true, why have all the other Actions failed?
Cause it’s nominal and “bring underway legislation” is a catch all term. Petitions to democratic parliaments are bullshit, why would any of them care about - as you point out - a single issue thaat 0,22% of the population signed up for?
They might have to have it as a point of order for the next meeting, in which they all decide “nah, no legislation needed, shit’s fine” and be done with it. That’s how most petitions go, anyways. You cannot force a law into existence by petitions.
Exactly like you said. I think this whole thing is really good intentioned, but its just not feasible. I think if people don’t want companies to do this sort of thing, they should just stop buying crap from those companies. Maybe not quite accurate, but its like crack-addicts complaining about the quality of their crack to their dealers. The dealer knows they aren’t going to stop buying crack, so why would they change anything.
