Posted June 24, 2025
They really need a language coordinator. There can't be any emotionalisms in there. Nobody is "killing" games, nobody is "destroying" them either. Even just introducing themselves makes them lose support from high-level politicians.
The real issue is that customers pay for a perpetual license to use digital goods, but the publisher at some arbitrary time chooses to make the digital goods unusable, even though I am still entitled to using it.
EULAs are like trying to use customer consent when trying to claim slavery is legal that way, so those need to be dismissed. Customer has unwaiverable rights that exist for their protection. Babysitting regulations are great because of this, it doesn't matter how uninformed, stupid or clinically depressed a person is, you are prevented from making certain decisions that are very unfavorable to you.
You should own a game you buy in all sense except owning the intellectual property and code, like when you buy a painting (you're not the author, not the holder of the IP, and plagiarism could be a barebones parallel to copying code).
Imagine buying a painting and one day it randomly goes black, because the painter chose to stop selling new viewing licenses. Removal of DRM upon cessation of sale should be mandatory. It would still be illegal to play the game without owning a license to use it, don't confuse this with mandatory freeware. Also, making it mandatory to keep DRM servers online instead would only open a different can of worms.
Just look at any of the less fortunate IPs that go entangled into mergers and stuff. Like Codemasters/EA owning Leisure Suit Larry and Assembly Games had exclusive rights to sell games from that IP on Steam, but not on GOG... now imagine devs and publishers tossing around the legal requirement to keep a DRM server running, for many games, each with different DRM maybe.
As for MMOs, free-to-plays and similar games, this seems to often actually require release of proprietary server hosting software. This one would require some serious expert consulting, before a practicable solution can be made.
And microtransactions are probably best to ignore in this debate for now. If you buy food and let it spoil, nobody will side with you against the seller of the food. Instead, microtransactions should be fought on the grounds of addiction and child endangerment, you'll get much more traction there.
Not many will feel bad for your $100 Hatsune Miku skin you can't use after Fortnite servers closed. Meanwhile, there are many games specifically intended for children which contain what essentially are slot machines, this is how we can realistically set boundaries for publishers.
My two cents.
P.S.: Maybe we could get a standardised "DRM voiding protocol", some standardized way all DRMs could be dismissed as no longer necessary (i.e., game is no longer on sale), probably in some way involving a digitally signed "killswitch" from the company. This could remove all counterpoints like "what if my company no longer has employees to implement a DRM-free patch", which are in fact very valid.
The real issue is that customers pay for a perpetual license to use digital goods, but the publisher at some arbitrary time chooses to make the digital goods unusable, even though I am still entitled to using it.
EULAs are like trying to use customer consent when trying to claim slavery is legal that way, so those need to be dismissed. Customer has unwaiverable rights that exist for their protection. Babysitting regulations are great because of this, it doesn't matter how uninformed, stupid or clinically depressed a person is, you are prevented from making certain decisions that are very unfavorable to you.
You should own a game you buy in all sense except owning the intellectual property and code, like when you buy a painting (you're not the author, not the holder of the IP, and plagiarism could be a barebones parallel to copying code).
Imagine buying a painting and one day it randomly goes black, because the painter chose to stop selling new viewing licenses. Removal of DRM upon cessation of sale should be mandatory. It would still be illegal to play the game without owning a license to use it, don't confuse this with mandatory freeware. Also, making it mandatory to keep DRM servers online instead would only open a different can of worms.
Just look at any of the less fortunate IPs that go entangled into mergers and stuff. Like Codemasters/EA owning Leisure Suit Larry and Assembly Games had exclusive rights to sell games from that IP on Steam, but not on GOG... now imagine devs and publishers tossing around the legal requirement to keep a DRM server running, for many games, each with different DRM maybe.
As for MMOs, free-to-plays and similar games, this seems to often actually require release of proprietary server hosting software. This one would require some serious expert consulting, before a practicable solution can be made.
And microtransactions are probably best to ignore in this debate for now. If you buy food and let it spoil, nobody will side with you against the seller of the food. Instead, microtransactions should be fought on the grounds of addiction and child endangerment, you'll get much more traction there.
Not many will feel bad for your $100 Hatsune Miku skin you can't use after Fortnite servers closed. Meanwhile, there are many games specifically intended for children which contain what essentially are slot machines, this is how we can realistically set boundaries for publishers.
My two cents.
P.S.: Maybe we could get a standardised "DRM voiding protocol", some standardized way all DRMs could be dismissed as no longer necessary (i.e., game is no longer on sale), probably in some way involving a digitally signed "killswitch" from the company. This could remove all counterpoints like "what if my company no longer has employees to implement a DRM-free patch", which are in fact very valid.
Post edited June 24, 2025 by ElDoRado1239