An increasing number of videogames are sold as goods, but designed to be completely unplayable for everyone as soon as support ends. The legality of this practice is untested worldwide, and many governments do not have clear laws regarding these actions. It is our goal to have authorities examine this behavior and hopefully end it, as it is an assault on both consumer rights and preservation of media. We are pursuing this in two ways:

TL;DR this is an EU petition aimed at making sure that companies are obligated to distribute binaries of the server code of their multiplayer and live service games. Currently, video game companies of online/live service games use a form of SaaSS (Service as a Software Substitute) model where the “game” someone has purchased is simply a license to run the game in only the way the company sees fit (their servers, their platform, their rules). If a company were to go under or simply not run the servers required for the full game to function, then the user is out of luck as they’ve effectively had the game taken away from them.

This is just another example of why ALL leftists must strive to fight for free software. If we don’t consider software which respects your freedom an important endeavor to uphold, then we make ourselves vulnerable for further and further exploitation. If you’re reading this, this includes you as well.

  • chickentendrils [any, comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
    19·
    3 months ago

    Yeah there have been efforts since game servers without server software for consumers to run themselves were first commercialized, to prevent this outcome where profit motivation and shortsightedness will lock us out of so much. It’s good this effort seems to be getting somewhere in the current system.

    I can’t stop thinking how remarkable it is that Doom spawned the speed running phenomenon, and people use specific version builds of those early entries, yet some of its most recent entries like DOOM (2016) are without playable version archives because of extremely preservation-hostile DRM schemes. Fuckers need to publish at a minimum all previous builds DRM-free for customers once a version is cracked, before DRM implementation in entertainment software can be banned entirely.

    Oh, and I want source code + assets on file with a library of Congress or equivalent in different places for publication once it becomes abandonware.

    • hello_hello [comrade/them]@hexbear.netOPMEnglish
      5·
      3 months ago

      One of my professors recently asked me why I support “piracy” (I uploaded the class’s textbook to Libgen I’m so fucking cool) and it’s that I neither support plagarism nor breaking copyright law (licensing work incorrectly and sharing it incorrectly), but I do support artists getting a livable wage and not having to worry about anything else but their art.

      It seems that when I “pirate” the artists are left starving and when I “purchase” the artists are still left starving, so tell me? What’s not changing?

      Also lmao this professor was cool with me uploading his textbook because it was a live service E-book that I had to painstakingly screenshot each page and put them in a PDF in Libreoffice Draw. He also thinks live service E-books are bullshit but doesn’t have the Marxism to explain why.

      • Dirt_Owl [comrade/them, they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
        2·
        3 months ago

        Based. You rule. Love to see it. Knowledge is meant to be shared.

        E-books are bullshit, but also my University lets us access them for free during our degree, so at least poor people can read them instead of shelling out $200 for Campbell’s Biology.

        My problem is that these are temporary access. You can’t read them once you graduate which is bullshit.

        Physical copies of these books should be given to students for free and subsidised by the government. But noooo we need to give money to Elon for his piss shuttles and to Israel to bomb babies.

  • AssortedBiscuits [they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
    15·
    3 months ago

    The source of the rot is that they’re proprietary software. As a counterexample, look at Doom. It’s a FOSS game licensed under the GPL. This is the main reason why there’s so many source ports and why WADs are still being created today that stretch the limits of what the engine can handle. While most games will become abandonware like all abandoned proprietary software, Doom will continue to live on.

    • egonallanon@lemm.eeEnglish
      8·
      3 months ago

      I thought it was just the various early ID engines that were open sourced but the original WADs themselves were still copyrighted?

    • hello_hello [comrade/them]@hexbear.netOPMEnglish
      5·
      3 months ago

      You’re absolutely right, the solution would be to license games under copyleft. Most games make the most amount of their money in the opening months they’re releasing (or even just the opening weekend), having a clause that states in X amount of time the game will be copylefted and given back to the community would be great.

      I currently obtained a Fitgirl copy of Hitman because it comes with the peacock server which is a Hitman server implementation that runs on localhost. Hitman, if you’re not connected to the internet, will arbitrarily remove half the game’s content from you until you reconnect. This includes while you’re IN-GAME as well playing a level. I swear more people would actually play Hitman if the developers didn’t shoot themselves in the foot trying to financialize Hitman to the tiniest detail.

      Piracy is not stealing because you aren’t taking anything away, just getting your fair share

  • RyanGosling [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
    13·
    3 months ago

    One example of a ‘multiplayer’ game being kept alive is GTA San Andres. It never got official multiplayer support, not even its anniversary remaster. But players developed their own over the decades and it’s still active. A lot of lesser known/less popular inactive games have received fan revivals with varying degrees of support - Wizards 101, GoonTown, FreeRealms, Arctic Combat, to name a few.

    If car manufacturers, and manufacturers of physical goods in general, are required to continue supporting their discontinued products, recalling defective shit, and repairing them, I don’t see why a software company shouldn’t be forced to do the same or release the source code and release itself from that responsibility.

  • Egon [they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
    10·
    3 months ago

    Stop killing games

    I’m sorry, but socialism is inherently anti-gamer and when there’s no gamers at all it’s communism. Marks wrote about it

    • hello_hello [comrade/them]@hexbear.netOPMEnglish
      5·
      3 months ago

      That’s why North Korea is peak AES because there are no gamers at all. China is revisionist because they’re Gaming with Chinese Characteristics (GWCC)

  • egg1918 [she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
    8·
    3 months ago

    I remember playing Halo CE on school computers on a USB in like 7th grade. We shared it with everyone , had lan parties, and modded the shit out of it.

    All software should be that accessible