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EU Citizen's initiative to pass legislation to stop game publishers disabling games we paid for (www.stopkillinggames.com)

submitted 3 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Videogames are being destroyed! Most video games work indefinitely, but a growing number are designed to stop working as soon as publishers end support. This effectively robs customers, destroys games as an artform, and is unnecessary. Our movement seeks to pass new law in the EU to put an end to this practice. Our proposal would do the following:

Require video games sold to remain in a working state when support ends.

Require no connections to the publisher after support ends.

Not interfere with any business practices while a game is still being supported.

If you are an EU citizen, please sign the Citizens' Initiative!

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (3 children)

An interesting question is whether this would be constitutional in the US, if ever attempted here. Generally, forcing developers to code something has been considered "compelled speech", though this defense gets deployed to varying degrees of effectiveness (i.e. refusing to code proper authentication doesn't exempt you from liability in a breach just because requiring that auth would compel you to code it).

Frankly I have no faith we'll ever see game makes forced into being consumer-friendly, and I've just begun to refuse to purchase any "Live Service" games precisely because I don't want to be investing hours of my time into something that can be taken away at-will.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Generally, forcing developers to code something has been considered "compelled speech"

I'm European so I don't quite understand.
Say person A paid person B to say X and had a valid contract. If B didn't say X can person A sue person B to compel performance of contract or just money back/damages?

At least for new games wouldn't it just be an implied part of the purchasing contract, meaning money back at least.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

If B didn’t say X can person A sue person B to compel performance of contract or just money back/damages?

Well first, my question more relates to the US Constitution's 1st Amendment, which guarantees freedom of speech from government/public interference, which is why a law could not compel someone to code something, but also, even in contract disputes between private parties, you will only be able to compel Specific Performance (doing an action) if you can show that monetary or other compensatory damages would be unable to properly compensate for the breach, and Specific Performance can never cover "personal obligations" such as continued employment.

If you had already written the code, but refused to turn it over, that might be possible to compel, but if it wasn't yet written I don't believe the courts would ever compel you to write that code as a form of compensation for contract breach.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

If you're talking about being forced to code as in "make the game work on it's own without the server", I'm thinking a "working state" includes "here's what you need to run the server privately", no more coding should be necessary.

Idk if you were thinking they'd be legally compelled to convert server based multiplayer games into peer-to-peer, but that's not how I see it.

It should also not be legally possible to prosecute restoration work to make unsupported games run on private servers.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Good question. Presumably games like this will have a server that is proprietary, and the compulsion may simply be to make the server source or executables available, rather than creating anything new