Stop Killing Games needs more support

TL;DR: If you are an EU citizen (not merely a resident) you can sign the Stop Killing Games EU initiative. This is not your typical open letter, this is a government-level initiative that will need to be discussed if it passes. At the moment we have way more than the required million signatures, but we do not know how many of these are fraudulent and might get tossed out. Keep on signing! There are less than ten days left, so don't put if off. Now for those who don't know what any of this means, I'll do my best to elaborate.

Very important: do not sign if you are not an EU citizen and do not sign fraudulently. You are not helping, those votes will be tossed out. And that's the good scenario. Since this is an official government initiative you might very well get Interpol on your ass for obstructing a democratic process.

What this is about

In short, a number of people are taking issue with the idea that the games they purchased can permanently shut off for no reason. In the past it used to be that if you bought a copy that copy was yours to keep. Even when Nintendo stopped supporting the GameBoy you could still keep playing your old games, it's not as if they sent someone over to smash your console and cartridges.

This has changed with the introduction of online connectivity. Originally online connectivity was optional, it was an extra for people who wanted it. You could play Starcraft offline on your own, over LAN or over Battle.net, you had the choice. Even if Battle.net were to shut down you would still be able to play the game through the other options. This was perfectly fine.

Over the years the balance has been broken and games are now inherently tied to an online connection even when there is not technical reason for it. This can range from an initial online activation on installation to requiring an always-online connection even when playing alone. When the servers are taken offline the entire game is lost, not just official multiplayer servers.

The YouTuber Ross Scott from Accursed Farms (YouTube link) has been reporting on the topic for years before finally starting the Stop Killing Games movement. The EU initiative is one of its actions and so far the most promising one. It is worth adding that SKG is a global movement, it's not just about the EU. Ross is sort of a public face, but he is not heading the EU initiative (since he is just an EU resident, not a citizen), that part is done by other people.

But video games are for losers, why should I care?

Like it or not, video games are a precursor to the future of software in general. Before the Apple AppStore and the Google PlayStore we had Steam. Before smartphones with their apps we had the Wii with its channels.

If you don't want your dish washer's manufacturer to have a kill switch you will need to stop normalizing this behaviour right here right now.

The initiative is just the starting point, not the goal

A common misunderstanding is that the EU initiative is not the final goal, it is just the opening act. This is why it does not have to take into account every edge case and answer every question right now. There will be discussions and negotiations if and when the initiative passes.

Think of the poor billion-euro corporations

The games industry is afraid, very afraid. The Video Games Europe lobby group has released a position paper full of the typical corporate double-speak you would expect. Louis Rossmann (YouTube link) has released a video going over the entire thing, so I won't repeat his points.

What follows is my own personal take

Video games are licensed, not sold

This is a misused argument. The reason video games and all other software are licensed is because the sale does not transfer ownership of copyright or trademark. When I buy a Super Mario game that does not allow me to distribute copies or make my own Super Mario games from the copy I bought. On the other hand, when I buy a kitchen table I am allowed to chop it into firewood and sell the pieces.

There, that's what "licensed, not sold" means. It does not mean the copyright holder and just invalidate my license willy-nilly.

It is not retroactive, no one expects servers to run forever

So many counter-arguments are based on the assumption that either publishers will have to support games indefinitely or that they will have to retrofit their already released games to be playable offline as single-player games.

Both of these points are unreasonable and not something SKG is asking for. It will only apply to newly released games, and even then there will be a grace period after the law passes.

Self-hosting complexity is not an issue

Another counter-argument is that the average computer user would not know how to self-host a server. That's true, but the average user these days might not even know what a folder structure is. Being convenient for the average user was never a requirement. If I have to orchestrate ten different docker containers to get the game running, so be it. I won't be happy about it, but it is something that's workable for a sufficiently technically literate person.

We do not need everything the publisher needs

Modern hosting is a complicated interplay of many services. But we don't need stuff like app-store integration, analytics, payment processing, or whatever dystopian spyware the official servers are equipped with. A slimmed down setup that stubs out those unnecessary services will do just fine.

On 3rd-party software suppliers

If a law passes that makes existing 3rd-party middleware impossible to user suppliers will adapt and new contracts will be negotiated. This happens in other industries all the time. Suppliers want to keep making money, and if one supplier refuses for whatever reason another one will take the business.