Petition e-4965 - Petitions
www.ourcommons.ca

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.giftedmc.com/post/441893

Stop Killing Games Canadian Petition - Now Open For Signature

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/20896275

Stop Killing Games Canadian Petition - Now Open For Signature

Petition E-4965 is the one that is posted to stopkillinggames.com, Ross Scott (Accursed Farms)'s campaign to end the practice of bricking games people have purchased, whenever the publisher doesn’t want to support it anymore.

It is open for signing by Canadian Citizens and Permanent Residents, until September 5th 2024.

Please spread the word to your Canadian friends and family who take interest in games, and please add your name to it to support this campaign to help preserve games in some form in perpetuity.

Thank you!

  • Victor Villas@lemmy.ca
    0·
    5 months ago

    Pass legislation requiring publishers that sell or license video games or that sell related features and assets for said games to do the following once they end support for said games: leave their games in a functional state, and remove any mandatory connections to the publisher or affiliated parties necessary for said games to function;

    How enforceable is this legislation in face of games that simply cannot function without multiplayer? The developers of a game similar to Among Us would be forced to update the game with bots to be compliant?

    I signed the petition but can’t say I’m hopeful the Parliament will write good legislation on this…

    • dubyakay@lemmy.ca
      0·
      5 months ago

      Publish the source. Look at id and Quake/Quakeworld. The game is still alive and well after Romero released all source codes to let people iterate their own clients and servers.

    • Dizzy Devil Ducky@lemm.eeEnglish
      0·
      5 months ago

      I imagine it being basically impossible for MMORPG games. How do you keep an MMORPG alive without removing the MMO part?

      • chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world
        0·
        5 months ago

        There are player-run servers for MMORPGs such as Ultima Online and EverQuest. If the developers released the server software the fans wouldn’t have to implement their own (which they did for those two games). If the company is no longer running their own servers they are no longer making money from subscriptions so they won’t lose money to competition from player-run servers.

        • Victor Villas@lemmy.ca
          0·
          5 months ago

          fans wouldn’t have to implement their own (which they did for those two games)

          Wow, TIL. People are amazing.

    • brenticus@lemmy.world
      0·
      5 months ago

      I feel the same way regarding whether this legislation would be enforceable or good, but there are a lot of ways developers could make this work that they currently don’t. That includes bot players, local multiplayer functionality, dedicated server tools, IP-based connections, etc. Many DRM and anti-cheat implementations also cause problems and would need to be either removed or only used in certain contexts.

      Right now in a lot of games if you aren’t playing multiplayer on official servers through official matchmaking functions with invasive kernel-level anti-cheat there’s no other way to play, but that hasn’t always been the case nor does it need to be the case.

    • m0darn@lemmy.ca
      0·
      5 months ago

      The developers of a game similar to Among Us would be forced to update the game with bots to be compliant?

      I’m not a programmer or IT specialist or anything but I think the ask would be more like,

      when discontinuing multiplayer service they must roll out an update to allow gamers to specify private server addresses

      They don’t need to program bots, they need to open the code enough for fans to keep the game functional. Like when I was a kid I could play multi player games with my friends by typing their phone number into the game. Our computers would connect through the phone lines and we could battle for the fate of Azeroth. I still remember the phone number of the friend I did that with.