(Text below written by @treasure@feddit.org. Hope you don’t mind me yoinking it for here!)
The European Citizens’ Initiative ‘Stop Destroying Videogames’ is nearing its deadline on July 31st and is still missing quite a lot of signatures. To be precise, at the time of writing this post, only 560.000 of the required 1.000.000 signatures have been reached.
Another requirement has already been fulfilled: The minimum signature threshold has been reached in 10 countries, 7 were required.
If this is the first time of you hearing about this initiative, here’s a short TL;DR for you (more detailed information can be found here):
- Publishers that sell or license videogames should have to leave their videogames in a functional (playable) state.
- This means: Remote disabling of video games (such as live service titles) without providing means of keeping the game functional without the involvement of the publisher should be illegal.
- This does NOT mean that publishers should support their games forever, but rather that they provide tools (such as server binaries) to enable others to keep the game playable.
The initiative is slowly picking up speed again recently after its creator published a video explaining some of the background and why he doesn’t want to continue after the initiative is over. The video has been well-received by the community and some big influencers have reported on the topic.
If you are an EU citizen and have not signed yet, THIS IS THE TIME! The month until the deadline is met will pass quickly. Use two minutes of your time to influence something that may improve your life forever!
CLICK HERE TO SIGN. (or click here for a guide on how to sign in your language)
Also, if you are a UK citizen, you can sign a UK specific legal petition that also carries legal weight (forces parliament to investigate the issue). You can sign that here: https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/702074/
I don’t know if there’s any other freak sorting their Lemmy homepage to Top Monthly who just found this post, but I’d advise to edit it to let people know that even if the site lists more than 1M signatures the actually valid ones might be less, so signing even now is still a good idea, as the creator said.
Not only do I not mind you yoinking the text, I want to thank you for your contribution to the cause. If everyone who has signed could get one more person to sign, the initiative would succeed!
Glad to help out, and thank you for letting me use your well written words! :D
This also has big implications for consumer rights and society as a whole in other areas of digital technology and right to repair, it is a foot in the door to start actually holding manufacturers responsible for the full lifecycle of their products (digital and real) that requires them to actually relinquish their control when their product reaches end-of-commercial-life, instead of turning everything into digital garbage out of what basically amounts to apathy and compulsive rights hoarding.
It saddens me that my country (Italy) has such a low percentage of signatures. Most of us are either ignorant of anything happening outside of our borders, or straight up doomers who don’t believe anything can ever change for the better.
Big congrats to my fellow northern cousins. I was expecting Poland, who has a healthy videogame industry, to gather a good enough number of signatures, but 160% is wild! It’s refreshing seeing so many people joining the petition - It’s not even about videogames: this initiative will have huge repercussions on the lifespan of other, unrelated products and, in general terms, planned obsolescence.
I think it’s been very hard for us to spread awareness into countries where a majority don’t also speak English, as the organizer and much of the coverage is only in English.
If you know of any big Italian gaming YouTubers or streamers that might be receptive to helping or talking about the campaign, could you reach out to them about it with a comment?
Raiden and Midna at PLAYERINSIDE did it (again) this week and are going to do it again in their video today.
I bet that if they point out that we are losing to the French, we may achieve incredible results in record time.
Except in Pisa.
Absolute legend.
Everyone was calling it “stop killing games” instead of “stop destroying games” and I literally thought it was a petition to stop games with murder and violence lol never even got farther than seeing the title.
Definitely a good idea to switch over to stop destroying games if that wasn’t the official title already…
Damn great example of why it’s stupid to only read headlines.
I’m not going to read something if the title doesn’t interest me. It’s also a great example of write headlines that are accurate and informative.
I would love to know where the people who downvoted you are getting the time and energy to read every single article they see a headline for.
By that logic I might assume your new title for the movement is to stop any games with destruction! Make only wholesome games!
Edit: Also “destroying” a game is very subjective. Your suggestion is definitely a downgrade.
Did my part and signed, I hope it reaches the required threshold
Signed the UK parliament one, sadly drowning in those Brexit benefits when it comes to the other.
Don’t Give Up. You Can Cuss The Whole Time Just Don’t Give Up.
I initially read this as a petition to stop games that have killing in them facepalm
Still better reading comprehension than PirateSoftware.
Fuck Thor.
I mean, big YouTubers like Charlie and others covering Thor’s bullshit is what drove this huge spike in signatures so maybe we should be thanking Thor lol
“Fuck you, Thor, but also thanks. But definitely fuck you, Thor.”
“And by thanks I actually means fuck you”
Nah, fuck Thor — he could have been the YouTuber pushing for coverage of Stop Killing Games, instead he decided to double down on his stupid bullshit.
Reminder — he was a Blizzard employee for 7 years. I think that, plus his ‘my shit doesn’t stink and if you think it does, you’re wrong and banned’ attitude should give you all you need to know.
Unless someone corrects me, I think his argument boils down to, “we shouldn’t allow the release of server binaries for online-enabled games because it’s too hard for the developers”.
Well, if that’s the case, then Thor, that’s a “you” (the company) problem. Not a “me” (the consumer) problem. And if you’re not going to release a server binary but we’re “buying” the game, purchasers have legitimate moral and legal grounds to demand that they be informed that they are buying a license, or renting, the game; they are not owning a functional copy of the game outright.
Addendum, for clarity:
My beef isn’t even with a games-as-a-service premise at all. It’s the corporatist trend in arguing that single-player experiences need perpetual online connectivity, or that releasing self-hosted PvP server functionality is prima fascia “unrealistic in every scenario”.
Some games, like WoW, no way. I understand the depth of the server stack for MMOs. Other games that are PvP-competitive could easily be self-hosted.
The irony is that these companies could still make a boatload of money off of these old competitive online games with more maps and skins, even though they’ve deprecated their own server stack and cloud-back-end. Essentially, they’d pass the burden of hosting to the players, but still sell content sporadically.
“Stop Killing Games” needs more refined language about what it’s asking for, no doubt. There are many scenarios where blanket statements about demanding source code are just not feasible.
I’m turning 42 this summer. I’ve been a software developer for 15 years now. I’d like to even say that a few of those years I even came across like I knew what I was talking about. But this basic issue is not about software development. This is about consumer advocacy, and it was a huge turn off to watch him perform the mental gymnastics on
why people should be screwed overwhy false/deceptive advertising by the industry is acceptable.purchasers have legitimate moral and legal grounds to demand that they be informed that they are buying a license, or renting, the game; they are not owning a functional copy of the game outright.
I’m pretty sure that’s already the case, if you read the ToS of most games.
Not that it makes this any better.
The typeface must be 16pt, bold, and the copy itself should be on the front page and be required on the cover description(s).
My beef isn’t even with a games-as-a-service premise at all. It’s the corporatist trend in arguing that single-player experiences need perpetual online connectivity, or that releasing self-hosted PvP server functionality is prima fascia “unrealistic in every scenario”. Some games, like WoW, no way. I get the depth of the server stack for MMOs. Other games that are PvP-competitive could easily be self-hosted. These companies could still make money off of these old competitive online games, even though they’ve deprecated their own server stack.
“Stop Killing Games” needs more refined language about what it’s asking for, no doubt. There are many scenarios where blanket statements about demanding source code are just not feasible.
However, let’s not pretend that the industry is not pushing enshittification tactics used by almost every business that’s publicly traded. That’s the spirit in which this movement is fighting against.
Its not allowing the release, its requiring it.
Good.
Require it; if I buy something I require every feature of my own product, if I purchased it.
Too hard? Fine.
Then the law should require the fact that you the seller must say I’m renting a game or product, or purchased a limited license. They can’t say I “bought it and own it” if they can prevent me from using it however I want whenever they want. Force them to be explicitly clear about what I’m getting for my money.
Thor reminds me a lot of chatgpt. Subjects that I am not an expert in, he sounds intelligent and like he is providing good advice. The second he provides advice in an area where I am a subject matter expect, it makes me realize how full of shit he is.
Drama drives these things. I totally understand Ross not wanting to engage in it 10 months ago but look at what it can do.
Yeah. It has rapidly turned an initiative that was already unnecessarily combative toward devs (fuck the publishers though) and associated it with harassment and review bombing games that are actually Doing It Right just because they worked with the wrong third party studio. Not to mention all the “Well, we don’t agree with everything asmongold says, but let’s call a truce so long as he is gonna let us play our video games”
And… honestly? I have disliked thor since LONG before all y’all realized he isn’t the world’s best WoW player or he has an opinion you don’t like because he was considering things from the perspective of the people who would be doing the work to enact these “simple requirements”.
But it feels REAL fucking everyday normal to watch people immediately go from “the harassment campaign that led to the death of Mikayla Raines was horrible” to “Let’s fucking ruin Pirate Software’s life and attack him and everything he has ever associated with because we are morally righteous”
Let’s be real here; arrogant twats don’t off themselves. Too much ego.
Damm I wish I could sigh these things but some dumb fucks decided I can’t
Ah. You must be from The Divided Kingdom.
Yeah
I hope this petition succeeds. There are games and other digital media I want to experience, but corporations are dead set on just trotting out new things on their terms.
I’ve been hearing about this for so long I honestly can’t remember whether I’ve already signed it.
Not an issue! Just try signing in again and it won’t add it if you already signed
Just tried, turns out I had already signed it.
