UK petition of "Require videogame publishers to keep games they have sold in a working state" just got thrown back to the Government
UK petition of "Require videogame publishers to keep games they have sold in a working state" just got thrown back to the Government
I just received this email saying that the response "did not respond directly to the request of the petition"
You recently signed the petition “Require videogame publishers to keep games they have sold in a working state”: https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/659071
The Petitions Committee (the group of MPs who oversee the petitions system) has considered the Government’s response to this petition. They felt the response did not respond directly to the request of the petition. They have therefore asked the Government to provide a revised response.
When the Committee receives a revised response from the Government, we will publish this and share it with you.
Thanks, The Petitions team UK Government and Parliament
This is honestly pretty funny. Even another government agency recognized how bad the response was. That was literally like someone asking how old you are, and you respond by telling them the definition of age.
I hope everyone keeps putting some pressure on legislators about such things.
We have to remind companies that buying is buying.
I wish there was a petition for my country.
There might still be something you can do, go to https://www.stopkillinggames.com/ and you can see what you can do based on your country.
Thanks for the info.
I had already looked at it and nothing applies to my country, especially because I don’t own « the Crew ».
But I just watched this video and it’s revolting : https://youtu.be/QZYy9KzFT2w?si=znDa-mFop0AQvSu9
That's positively surprising, I expected them to leave it at that until petition reaches the second milestone (if that even happens). Let's see if anything new comes out of this.
I guess they want Pirate Party to win.
Pirate Party UK is very real and cool imo.
UK is one big Pirate Party
Aren't game purchases enforceable contracts? i.e. "I give you money. You give me game that works." ? (I'm avoiding words like "good" because that's subjective and it gets into a whole different discussion)
I'm curious on how signers of this petition think companies could afford to do this. Often times shutting a game down is because the interest of players has waned. Making a law to require them to keep that server and software running...forever? Is the end goal to kill any online game development?
It would make sense to require a company to release the code for players to host their own servers, which has been done by many games in the past. Not to continue to run it themselves.
Ross and the team have been very specific about not wanting to force companies to pay for server infrastructure forever.
They’ve said quite a few times that what they want is for game companies to at least patch their games so they can keep running without the online connection or provide players the tools to host their own servers so that the company can end support without the game becoming a brick.
Hopefully by requiring games to be playable after support ends and the servers shut down it will also change the way games are made so that they no longer require the constant connection.
Who says the companies need to keep the servers running? The petition is "to keep games in a working state".
It would make sense to require a company to release the code for players to host their own servers, which has been done by many games in the past. Not to continue to run it themselves.
That's basically what people are asking for. Instead of not being playable anymore, give consumers the means to keep it going for themselves.
This could mean always-online having to be gutted from the game after it's support ends so you can play it offline. Or server hosting files to host your own private or public server.
The goal is to have games not be impossible to play after X amount of time. How companies reach that goal is up to them.
If they no longer want to host and run servers, they should release the tools to allow the community to take over
The company will have the make that decision then, if it means opening the server for use or patching the game for local p2p play then so be it. Otherwise they should be forced to state the game is a rental not purchased if it requires a server that may shut down.
Otherwise they should be forced to state the game is a rental not purchased if it requires a server that may shut down.
But that is what they already do. Currently this might be hidden in the EULA, that no one reads, but even making this plainly visible during purchase wouldn't change much. I is not like the players have much choice when they want to play that specific game.
It doesn't even have to be peer to peer, they could just release the server code and a way to manage what server the game points to. Then you can self host or join a public one.
I can still play ut from like 20 odd yrs ago the choice yo take away hosting your own games was their choice.
It's true it does cost to keep things running. But like you say there are ways around this to push server costs onto players, or simply allow offline play with online features disabled.
I think if there were legislation in place then design decisions would adapt. If it were costly to just shut a game down abruptly, there would be player hosted options in place from the start and ideally less spurious "always online" requirements woven into the fabric of every game.
Probably the way they used to do things, provide the server hosting tools to the community.
Think like TF2 and CS:S.
There’s plenty (But not all) MP games that can do that.
It would make sense to require a company to release the code for players to host their own servers, which has been done by many games in the past. Not to continue to run it themselves.
That counts as "working state", assuming the published code is reasonable to operate (it must be FOSS, or at least permit open modification and distribution; and it must run in a server with specs that's reasonable to have at the time of game publication)
Game jams gonna be much higher stakes.
The year is 2067, i have to learn compatibility programming for Applesoft's newest OS so players can still play Spiderman Model I Ripped Online and Put Into Unreal Engines Third Person Platformer Demo
Honestly it's cute that you think that the British government give a damn what you think. They are incompetent and corrupt, why would you possibly think that they would have the mental capacity to effectively respond to this petition?
The Conservatives only care about profit, what you're asking them to do is legislate against businesses. They do not do that. They are not going to implement any pro-consumer laws because that just gets in the way of making large sums of money at the expense of everything else.
You're right. Everythings fucked, why try at all lets just roll over and take it.
Even if it has only 1% chance of working, I’m willing to spend 20 seconds putting my name and postcode on a website. I won’t die from typing 20 characters on a keyboard