Out of the loop

"Known game dev."

His "game" has been in limbo for what, a decade? And he "worked" at blizzard because of his daddy.

Dude doesn't know shit.

That's kind of the biggest problem with this whole ordeal. The people who are talking about it aren't capable of reading the petition, the petition isn't asking for that. Same problem we have with near every controversy.

The EU already mandates minimal service life for things like security updates. I don't see why it won't make it past courts. Hell, under EU laws regarding warranty, games publishers are probably already forced to either run game servers for a minimum of two years (or offer alternatives such as full refunds). This concept is just extending the mandated warranty in a sense. As for the software itself, manufacturers are under tons of regulation when it comes to support and availability of replacement parts in various industries. Entitlement does play a role, but that may very well be in the fact that consumers are simply entitled to access to the goods and services they purchased.

Also, there's nothing stopping companies from releasing alternative servers when their main servers turn off. Games used to come with dedicated servers for free. Companies just decided not to do it anymore because they can make more money with their current strategy. While the games are being sold, these companies make hundreds of millions or even billions of profit. The cost of their servers remaining available is just part of their profit forecast.

None of this will fail because it would be impossible to make happen. The real question is probably if consumers have more power than the video games lobby. I doubt they do. The proposal goes against the financial incentives of video game publishers, so they'll try to convince lawmakers not to bother. If their attempts fail, there's a chance certain games won't make it into the EU if such a law passes, or that certain content won't be available, but it's not like nobody will make games anymore.

A more realistic scenario of a law like this will have game publishers state an expiration date on their software. They already have to when it comes to security updates, but they'll probably have to put a sticker on it like "this game/DLC will stop working after 2026" and let consumers decide whether to buy the product or not.

Only naive, entitled gamers would demand such a wild thing. It's not going to get past any courts

Which is why the SKG campaign is specifically not demanding that. Pirate Software has misrepresented the stance of the SKG campaign consistently in his videos. Seriously.

Hmm, I would like to add on a couple of points to you reply (against your reply, now that I reread it):

1. I feel that he really was 100 percent in opposition against the movement, no?
2. About the movement, the creator of the movement also agrees that the movement can most probably not be applied to current games today, as it can be unfeasible for the exact same points you say, he wants it to be applied to future games being developed, by having the end of life of games be considered right from the beginning of games.
3. Moreover, about the legislative part of it, doesn't a petition not need to deal with the exact legal wording? I belived petitions to be more like "hey, this is what the idea is, and this many people support it". More like a letter to like actual law makers that this is a problem, and we need laws regarding this problem. Then the clear and robust arguments for each of the (very valid, of course!) problems and caveats you mention will need to be clearly articulated by them.

The latest pile-on against him is due to him having some reservations about the wording and intent of the petition/movement and, because we’re currently in a era where False Dichotomy is king: anything other than 100% unquestioning support is treated as 100% unequivocal opposition, and vice versa. 😒

His video's thumbnail is literally him throwing the petition into a dumpster. If we were not meant to see him as 100% in opposition, that's kind of on him TBH. He certainly communicates that way.

Of you’re going to legislate immortality on games, then you’re going to need to make your argument for it clear and robust, who has responsibility for what, how deprecating technology is handled, and so on.

Missing the point, as it's not a piece of legislation, it's a petition. Nobody expects it to be turned directly into law, but for the successful petition to start a process between various interest groups ultimately resulting in a law that's a compromise. Of course, if you tell people not to sign the petition, that process will never start in the first place.

and also asserts that people who purchase games don't own them

Isn't that a large part of what the petition is aiming for though?

Especially if you live in Malta or Cyprus.

That doesn't matter at this point. The country threshold has been reached. Now it "only" needs to reach 1 million total signatures before the end of july, currently sitting at around 600k.