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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.
Post edited June 24, 2025 by ElDoRado1239
Been following SKG for quite some time and I really feel like there's some concerns that have been brought up here that I would like to address as someone who is unaffiliated with - though am a staunch supporter of the movement. And much like Ross in his video, I have to say that I'm actually very disappointed wtih the public perception even among the "FCK DRM" crowd.
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Time4Tea: Yes, unsurprising. The whole initiative was a total non-starter in the first place, misunderstanding the core underlying issues at hand (game design/DRM) and proposing unrealistic and unworkable band-aid fixes.

If banning DRM at the national legislative level is not possible, then the only solution will be through consumer-led action/education.
Stop Killing Games was never necessarily about "banning DRM." If you go back to the beginning, Ross has never stated that SKG is about banning DRM. Publishers and developers are free to do with their game as they please during the lifespan of the product. The goal of SKG is ultimately about the end of life of the game and to ensure that games remain as playable (or as close to it as the platonic ideal) after the game developer decides it is no longer worth supporting on their end.

It's about getting what you have paid for. Ross has never said anything other than that. He's never even said to yank out Denuvo. He's said that he wants people who have purchased a product the opportunity to use that product after that company decides they no longer wish to sell that product. Chrysler stopped making the PT Cruiser in 2010 but they didn't take away those car's engines just because they "no longer support it", did they? No. You have a right to repair your car.

And you might say that games and cars are not the same - but if you have a copy of Half Life 2 on DVD, no one would tell you that you're not entitled to make a physical copy of that DVD. Or if it's scratched to hell, no one is going to tell you that you're breaking the law if you resurface that DVD. But when it comes to digital copies - it's expected that once you lose access to it because the publisher no longer wishes to support that game, that you just dust your hands and be done with it. That's insane. It'd be no different if Nintendo suddenly decided to repossess every 10Nes chip on every NES cartridge because that was Nintendo's intellectual property and owning it could lead to you reverse engineering it which could lead you to hacking your Nintendo Entertainment System. But hey, it's okay because you still have your physical copy even though you can no longer run it without that DRM.

So no, Ross isn't saying "CRACK ALL DRM FOREVER". Publishers are free to do with their product as they please as long as they give you some form of the product that you have paid for. That is a pretty significant misrepresentation of SKG. SKG is not about piracy or giving away stuff for free. It is about being able to use the product you have paid for. It's no different than being able to play Doom 1 multiplayer without official company support.

Another point you've discussed - consumer led actions - have their own issues. Please do not get me wrong. I love mods and love consumer support. But it is important to know that while the consumer-led action is great a lot of the consumer-led action is actually illegal. Abandonware does not exist from a legal standpoint. Legally it is copyright infringement.

This is not me saying it's wrong or bad. But abandonware is no different from piracy, legally. Even if the game is in copyright limbo like No One Lives Forever and "belongs" to three entities, the fact of the matter is 1) it's breaking the law. And you might say that's no concern of yours for whatever reason you may have, but the fact is it's still piracy under the law. And under the law, Houghton Mifflin has every right to sue your favourite abandonware site into the ground for daring to carry and distribute a copy of 1984's Alley Cat. Sure, they will probably not sue, but they would likely have the legal right to do so. So goes the same with every other piece of abandonware out there. Someone probably owns it and someone has the legal right to sue the distributors of that software.

So goes with other fan efforts out there. There's nothing stopping a copyright holder who was once cool from selling to an overzealous jerk who suddenly decides that your fan efforts are worthless and you need to adhere to their new rules or you get hit with a cease & desist. Don't think that a decade of development can protect you. AM2R had 10 years in development and was hit with a C&D. Some publishers are ambivalent to your presence. But I think it's a gamble to debate your fan project on the whims of a publisher. Sure, some may tacitly approve of your project. Maybe they ask you to stop working on your project but are nice about it, but at the end of the day, relying on the fans to save a game you like is a risky bet at best even if some companies like Bethesda or FromSoftware (see:DSFix) rely on their fans to make their games playable.
A second reply.
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BanditKeith2: And I watched the video I now will not listen to Rosses content for the most part as he basically is calling people who regularly enjoy games as idiots who don't understand what is laid out before them on the '' SKG '' thing.. and saying those who don't play games or barely do understand it better ..
I'm sorry if you feel this way but frankly, that is not what Ross has been expressing whatsoever. If you feel like Ross thinks peple who enjoy games are idiots, that's not what he intended at all and i'm sure he'd tell you that he apologizes for the misconception. I firmly believe that there are passions that are intense over this discussion but the last thing he would do is accuse people who are passionate gamers - particularly on GOG - of being idiots is at best a misalignment of values. Ross is the kind of guy who would get in to the trenches here and talk trash with the best of us. I've talked to him a few times and found him nothing but down to earth and humble.

I feel like what's come up here is stemming from a frustration on his part over something he is passionate about. He absolutely does not think gamers who do not see his point of view are idiots. On the contrary. The man has a deep and abiding love of people who are passionate about gaming - which is why if he seemed frustrated, that it's not anger at people but at the situation that Stop Killing Games has arrived at. Trust me when I say that he is the kind of person who would be willing to hear you out if you feel like he called you an idiot.

Where he's coming from, he absolutely is from a place of truth and honesty. But also frustration. He's trying to make people understand how critical this movement is and if you've felt slighted by his words, I'm positive that this is not his meaning. Ross ultimately wants to be heard and understood. I believe it's fair to accept that some people have interpreted his words in a way that does not align with his values.
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Time4Tea: For those of us who don't have time to watch the video, can you briefly clarify in what sense it has 'missed'?
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dnovraD: Not enough signatures for the European Initiative to take a look over it; another problem I think it had, that he was aiming too high. Maybe state/country level first, France and others would likely be easy to get this certified within; and bring a domino effect.
At the end of the day, he needed 1 million signatures across the entirety of the European Union to get this in front of parliament. He hit about 500k which, while is not a small amount by any metric, is no where near large enough to get significant traction despite the fact that it's 500,000 signatures which is a lot of people by any metric.
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Time4Tea: For those of us who don't have time to watch the video, can you briefly clarify in what sense it has 'missed'?
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BanditKeith2: Basically he said ''not enough support '' and ''not enough signatures '' while also apparently the place he was trying to get it taken serious in more or less kinda tossed it out do do they technically have laws and regulations that fall into what ''stop killing games'' is attempting .. Add to that he admitted he didn't understand the lows and such enough to make SKGs work.

Also Ross seems to not get that the reason many people are going on about'' you'd need to essentially rework multiplayer and online games to be a single player experience and balance things to be completable with a single player experience...if SKGs happened is because it would kinda need to be to have them playable after server shutdown as many actually wouldn't get fan run or maintained game servers and connections

Among many other things
I hate to bring your comments up again, but this is a gross misrepresentation of what he's said time and time again. He has actually rebutted this criticism time and time agian. He's never asked for multiplayer games to have a singleplayer mode forced into them. This is something you would know if you'd watched any of the videos he's put out. And I don't mean to get aggressive but this is patent misinformation that seems culled from Pirate Software - a man whose entire views about this project are malformed or misinformed based on the perception that he's a video games publisher who doesn't like the idea of having to support games that he no longer has the money to do. Which - if you'd listen to the videos - no one is required to do.

No one is required to support multiplayer Quake, Doom, Duke Nukem 3D, Left 4 Dead, etc. No one is out here saying that "these multiplayer games should be forced into a multiplayer mode". No. Because frankly first of all, they can survive without being reliant on the multiplayer experience. But their multiplayer experince can survive without being a live service game. This isn't even the tip of the iceberg.

No one is begging for multiplayer games to suddenly be reworked into single player games. Ross is asking for publishers to give people the product they paid for.
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dnovraD: Not enough signatures for the European Initiative to take a look over it; another problem I think it had, that he was aiming too high. Maybe state/country level first, France and others would likely be easy to get this certified within; and bring a domino effect.
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Time4Tea: Ah ok, I see. Thanks! So, he didn't get enough signatures and now he's presumably raging at the gaming community for not sharing his vision and backing his initiative.
I would hardly call his reaction "raging". Dude is very disappointed that gamers aren't more interested in preserving gaming history which I can fully get behind. If you think his reaction is raging, I'm sorry you feel that way but I would absolutely not describe that as an accurate representation.
Post edited June 24, 2025 by trachea
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Time4Tea: Ah ok, I see. Thanks! So, he didn't get enough signatures and now he's presumably raging at the gaming community for not sharing his vision and backing his initiative.
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amok: In the UK it got enough signatures to be heard in parliament, where it took the representatives present about 2 seconds to say "nah, we dont care. We have more important things to worry about".

Being heard does not mean anything will change
I have to be honest in that I really think your viewpoint here is not helpful at all. "THE LAWMAKERS DON'T CARE SO WHY SHOULD WE?" argument is bad. Why bother having hope for anything? Why bother raising our voices at all? Just because you fail at one goal doesn't mean you should quit altogether. This is one of the most disheartening posts I've ever seen. Why are you even on GOG if you don't want the status quo to change? the Apple Pippin is *that way*.
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amok: In the UK it got enough signatures to be heard in parliament, where it took the representatives present about 2 seconds to say "nah, we dont care. We have more important things to worry about".

Being heard does not mean anything will change
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trachea: I have to be honest in that I really think your viewpoint here is not helpful at all. "THE LAWMAKERS DON'T CARE SO WHY SHOULD WE?" argument is bad. Why bother having hope for anything? Why bother raising our voices at all? Just because you fail at one goal doesn't mean you should quit altogether. This is one of the most disheartening posts I've ever seen. Why are you even on GOG if you don't want the status quo to change? the Apple Pippin is *that way*.
Because this was the wrong approach, it was clear from the beginning how it would turn out. If you know something isn’t going to work, then when it doesn’t work out, it shouldn’t be a big surprise - it’s just a sign that you need to try something else that might actually be effective.

I’m not saying you shouldn’t be active or try to make changes, even by influencing lawmakers. But if you go about it in a way that’s doomed from the start, then it becomes a wasted effort. SKG may have had good intentions, but the execution was ultimately meaningless. After all, the road to hell is paved with good intentions

(P.S. I'm on GOG because I'm an old gamer, and they make old games playable on modern computers. But I'm sure GOG will really thank you for trying to drive away part of their customer base just to be left with only the "pure, righteous" gamers like you. Probably a great business strategy there.)
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trachea: Why are you even on GOG if you don't want the status quo to change? the Apple Pippin is *that way*.
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amok: (P.S. I'm on GOG because I'm an old gamer, and they make old games playable on modern computers.
Same reason I came here, at least until I realized I was collecting them more so than playing them. I certainly didn't come here to be an activist.
Post edited June 24, 2025 by Pheace
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amok: (P.S. I'm on GOG because I'm an old gamer, and they make old games playable on modern computers.
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Pheace: Same reason I came here, at least until I realized I was collecting them more so than playing them. I certainly didn't come here to be an activist.
With all due respect, you're taking a political stance whether you like it or not. But you need to realize that your stance on media that you want to consume is political whether you want it to be or not. You may think you're avoiding any political stance but you're supporting GOG which is already a contentious platform because they have an anti DRM stance.
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trachea: I have to be honest in that I really think your viewpoint here is not helpful at all. "THE LAWMAKERS DON'T CARE SO WHY SHOULD WE?" argument is bad. Why bother having hope for anything? Why bother raising our voices at all? Just because you fail at one goal doesn't mean you should quit altogether. This is one of the most disheartening posts I've ever seen. Why are you even on GOG if you don't want the status quo to change? the Apple Pippin is *that way*.
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amok: Because this was the wrong approach, it was clear from the beginning how it would turn out. If you know something isn’t going to work, then when it doesn’t work out, it shouldn’t be a big surprise - it’s just a sign that you need to try something else that might actually be effective.

I’m not saying you shouldn’t be active or try to make changes, even by influencing lawmakers. But if you go about it in a way that’s doomed from the start, then it becomes a wasted effort. SKG may have had good intentions, but the execution was ultimately meaningless. After all, the road to hell is paved with good intentions

(P.S. I'm on GOG because I'm an old gamer, and they make old games playable on modern computers. But I'm sure GOG will really thank you for trying to drive away part of their customer base just to be left with only the "pure, righteous" gamers like you. Probably a great business strategy there.)
Okay then. What WAS the right approach? With all due respect, if you are going to be out there telling people that they need to go about things "the right way", maybe stand up and say what that particular direction is. Because frankly, I haven't seen a good argument about how Stop Killing Games should have gone that wasn't what they already did.

This isn't about trying to determine who is a "pure, righteous gamer" . This is about making sure that our children can have the same opportunity to experience the same media that you and I did when we were children. I absolutely do not want to prevent anyone from experiencing the games I loved when I was a kid. I don't know where you got that impression from but it is absolutely not the case here.

I welcome all people to the medium with open arms.
Though maybe an entirely predictable outcome, seems like Ross went much further to bring the game preservation issues to the forefront. He has a very admirable position that, I'm sure, we would all defend in a perfect world. Alas, that's not how things typically work out and though I was his staunch supporter, even I saw the writing on the wall.

I think there is still something to be said for game preservation for live service games. Is everyone going to collectivity agree that anything not meeting an arbitrary margin by a publisher is going to be permanently removed? Seems like a crappy pill to swallow. Ross's angle was to ensure that you got to keep something on the grounds that you paid for it. Ultimate goal was to stop games from disappearing altogether. Crew was just a posterchild, but there are dozens of games we'll never see again that had no right to be live action games to begin with and were yanked forever. BattleForge is a good example.

Maybe this whole attempt will inspire someone else to take a much more piecemeal approach?
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trachea: A second reply.
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BanditKeith2: And I watched the video I now will not listen to Rosses content for the most part as he basically is calling people who regularly enjoy games as idiots who don't understand what is laid out before them on the '' SKG '' thing.. and saying those who don't play games or barely do understand it better ..
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trachea: I'm sorry if you feel this way but frankly, that is not what Ross has been expressing whatsoever. If you feel like Ross thinks peple who enjoy games are idiots, that's not what he intended at all and i'm sure he'd tell you that he apologizes for the misconception. I firmly believe that there are passions that are intense over this discussion but the last thing he would do is accuse people who are passionate gamers - particularly on GOG - of being idiots is at best a misalignment of values. Ross is the kind of guy who would get in to the trenches here and talk trash with the best of us. I've talked to him a few times and found him nothing but down to earth and humble.

I feel like what's come up here is stemming from a frustration on his part over something he is passionate about. He absolutely does not think gamers who do not see his point of view are idiots. On the contrary. The man has a deep and abiding love of people who are passionate about gaming - which is why if he seemed frustrated, that it's not anger at people but at the situation that Stop Killing Games has arrived at. Trust me when I say that he is the kind of person who would be willing to hear you out if you feel like he called you an idiot.

Where he's coming from, he absolutely is from a place of truth and honesty. But also frustration. He's trying to make people understand how critical this movement is and if you've felt slighted by his words, I'm positive that this is not his meaning. Ross ultimately wants to be heard and understood. I believe it's fair to accept that some people have interpreted his words in a way that does not align with his values.
He outright said that actual gamers are idiots in a sense because in the video he said that none gamers understand what he is going for .. while gamers do not at all.. that is clearly calling gamers idiots in a sense
Post edited June 24, 2025 by BanditKeith2
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trachea: Stop Killing Games was never necessarily about "banning DRM." If you go back to the beginning, Ross has never stated that SKG is about banning DRM. Publishers and developers are free to do with their game as they please during the lifespan of the product. The goal of SKG is ultimately about the end of life of the game and to ensure that games remain as playable (or as close to it as the platonic ideal) after the game developer decides it is no longer worth supporting on their end.
Yes, I understand that, but in my view, this position is precisely the core problem with the initiative. Because the underlying problem is the DRM/always online. It is the games being designed to remove control/ownership from the consumer, in such a way that they are defective in the first place. This method of design renders the games inherently disposable and un-preservable. Once they have been designed in this way, it is already too late for them to be saved.

Saying that essentially 'DRM is ok' and 'developers should be free to design their game how they see fit' is fundamentally wrong. It misses the point and glosses over highly anti-consumer practices in a way which is unhealthy and I find un-palatable. When SKG says things like this, I know straight away that the initiative is misguided and it will fail to achieve anything - because it is trying to treat the symptom and not the cause.
Post edited June 24, 2025 by Time4Tea
In short: if they can take a game like The Crew away from you, then you never really owned it in the first place. Buying it was your choice/mistake and if you don't want to go through similar experiences in future, then you need to wake up to the realities of anti-consumer practices like DRM/always-online, and be more careful what games you buy/support in the future.

Trying to petition governments to forcibly get your DRM-ed games back for you is like 'trying to shut the stable door after the horse has bolted'. You gave up your consumer rights at the point of purchase.
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BanditKeith2: Basically he said ''not enough support '' and ''not enough signatures '' while also apparently the place he was trying to get it taken serious in more or less kinda tossed it out do do they technically have laws and regulations that fall into what ''stop killing games'' is attempting .. Add to that he admitted he didn't understand the lows and such enough to make SKGs work.

Also Ross seems to not get that the reason many people are going on about'' you'd need to essentially rework multiplayer and online games to be a single player experience and balance things to be completable with a single player experience...if SKGs happened is because it would kinda need to be to have them playable after server shutdown as many actually wouldn't get fan run or maintained game servers and connections

Among many other things
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trachea: I hate to bring your comments up again, but this is a gross misrepresentation of what he's said time and time again. He has actually rebutted this criticism time and time agian. He's never asked for multiplayer games to have a singleplayer mode forced into them. This is something you would know if you'd watched any of the videos he's put out. And I don't mean to get aggressive but this is patent misinformation that seems culled from Pirate Software - a man whose entire views about this project are malformed or misinformed based on the perception that he's a video games publisher who doesn't like the idea of having to support games that he no longer has the money to do. Which - if you'd listen to the videos - no one is required to do.

No one is required to support multiplayer Quake, Doom, Duke Nukem 3D, Left 4 Dead, etc. No one is out here saying that "these multiplayer games should be forced into a multiplayer mode". No. Because frankly first of all, they can survive without being reliant on the multiplayer experience. But their multiplayer experince can survive without being a live service game. This isn't even the tip of the iceberg.

No one is begging for multiplayer games to suddenly be reworked into single player games. Ross is asking for publishers to give people the product they paid for.
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Time4Tea: Ah ok, I see. Thanks! So, he didn't get enough signatures and now he's presumably raging at the gaming community for not sharing his vision and backing his initiative.
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trachea: I would hardly call his reaction "raging". Dude is very disappointed that gamers aren't more interested in preserving gaming history which I can fully get behind. If you think his reaction is raging, I'm sorry you feel that way but I would absolutely not describe that as an accurate representation.
First things first I never watched this ''Pirate software'' dudes stuff and not many others stuff on the subject of SKGs

Now heres the thing if that was truly the case him not wanting multiplayer games and other online server based games that aren't single player games to be keep around in the manner you describe , then he shouldn't have at different points keep bringing up online multiplayer games as examples ..

thus he has to on some level want something like mentioned or at the very least not get that the fact is the matter I brought up is it pretty much is one of the only logical end result conclusions because of how most multiplayer and server related games function anymore .. as rarely anymore if at all does say the ''arena shooter'' genre of games like say Quake or other similar games have lan or peer-to-peer/user-to-user.. based game scenario.. where as other games are set up where you need a group to actually beat the game not a solo game factor here.. in fact I can only think of a select few that actually do have a situation where they can be beat solo.. And thats because they had that from the start same with the games like Quakle to have them be viable to keep around and not be a waste you'd need atleast a ''bot'' scenario for em but most games from what I gather haven't made use of bots for a long time and Lan or other similar situations is basically dead for such a game genre now

So the problem is despite everything he brought this sort of view to the SKG thing do to anyone thinking properly could see how most would view as a logical outcome

And I wasn't saying support the game endlessly just that the comment factor you brought up is one of the most logical view conclusions one can getbecause of how modern multiplayer game desing and how they are built work
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trachea: Stop Killing Games was never necessarily about "banning DRM." If you go back to the beginning, Ross has never stated that SKG is about banning DRM. Publishers and developers are free to do with their game as they please during the lifespan of the product. The goal of SKG is ultimately about the end of life of the game and to ensure that games remain as playable (or as close to it as the platonic ideal) after the game developer decides it is no longer worth supporting on their end.
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Time4Tea: Yes, I understand that, but in my view, this position is precisely the core problem with the initiative. Because the underlying problem is the DRM/always online. It is the games being designed to remove control/ownership from the consumer, in such a way that they are defective in the first place. This method of design renders the games inherently disposable and un-preservable. Once they have been designed in this way, it is already too late for them to be saved.

Saying that essentially 'DRM is ok' and 'developers should be free to design their game how they see fit' is fundamentally wrong. It misses the point and glosses over highly anti-consumer practices in a way which is unhealthy and I find un-palatable. When SKG says things like this, I know straight away that the initiative is misguided and it will fail to achieve anything - because it is trying to treat the symptom and not the cause.
This so this is my main view aswell on SKGs biggest error/flaw and from my understanding Ross seems to not get that fact as he keeps giving what amounts to a ''none answer'' when people bring it up
Post edited June 25, 2025 by BanditKeith2