Marvin-R: the crew wasn't killed by DRM.
Half of it was though:-
"All versions require Ubisoft Connect and VMProtect DRM and a constant internet connection for all game modes" https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/The_Crew When you log into an online game's multiplayer server, all sorts of silent background checks take place (account purchase verification check for the game itself (DRM), account checks for bans for cheating (uses DRM to enforce), additional purchase verification checks for DLC / MT's to know what extra content to unlock (DRM), etc. Now it's a given that no multiplayer server = no more online multi-player, but forcing single player mode behind online DRM checks by design absolutely means DRM played its part in killing the whole game (SP+MP), not just half of it (MP only). The Crew isn't the first game to have online server's shut down. It is notable though that nothing single-player works post server closure precisely because everything single-player was designed to be DRM'd up to the eyeballs in addition to being an online service (they're not mutually exclusive).
reseme: but diverting discussion from “you do not take my game away that I’ve paid for” to “is ok or not to have drm in games” is not an intelligent way to deal with governments.
Marvin-R: by targetting the act of killing a game you shut down all those methods and whatever else a publisher can come up with, while leaving the way to keep a game alive up to the publishers and devs so they can pick what's most suitable for their games and business model.
Marvin-R: by not going after DRM altogether, it's more likely to get the support of the EU and less likely to be fought by the game industry.
Marvin-R: and in the end, if an SKG law ends up being passed it would mean publishers would eventually have to remove online-only DRM from their games if they want to cut support.
- First up the IP is owned by the publishers. It's up to them whether they want to sell or not and you'd have to change entire national IP laws to literally force companies to sell old products they don't want / are unprofitable. Huge fail there if you want change but aren't actually proposing any changes to the relevant legislation and generally expect countries to tear up the core of Intellectual Property laws by taking away distribution rights from IP owners...
- Secondly, it does literally nothing vs situations where devs go out of business. It's like threatening to sue Psygnosis to bring Lemmings & DiscWorld to PC. If they don't exist anymore, there's no-one to sue or regulate. Obvious loophole for new games - create a subsidiary publisher, transfer all online-only services you want to gt rid of to them, then a year later close the whole subsidiary studio down.
- Thirdly, the source code is protected IP. They can't be forced to open source anything just because they don't want to sell it until it expires and becomes Public Domain. If they reuse some of that server-side code, eg, DLC activation code in The Crew 2, the IP expiration clock even resets.
- Fourth, if a company uses time-limited licensed content, and that expires they literally can't legally publish the game. So half these racing games are gone anyway. Changing the law to ban time limits basically involves changing contract laws to allow courts to dictate contractual terms between two private parties, another huge can of worms.
- Fifth, Ross, etc, want to "preserve" online-service games with existing purchases of DLC / micro-transactions intact. In the real-world, those MT's have to be unlocked by an online DRM server that has access to the person's online account that in turn contains a record of what they purchased, how it was paid for (Credit Card details, etc), all of which are linked together. The publisher isn't going to breach any data protection laws and just give those databases to community modders, nor is any court going to order them to do so. The whole back-end logistics of DLC / MT's in-game currency, pay2win 'booster packs', etc, paid for with real money and activated via in-game online DRM checks tied to online accounts is nothing remotely like letting the community setup its own online / LAN servers for Doom 1-2.
- Sixth, publishers may react to all this simply by making such online-only games streaming only. Then you'll own nothing at all, get to enjoy more crappily monetized pay2win content, and still be at the whims of random closure as not even the EU have banned streaming services from removing titles content).
I understand people's angst at losing The Crew, but a lot of people sound unbelievably clueless about the legal side of what some magical SKG law to right all wrongs they're suggesting involves that it's almost pure completely divorced from any legal reality Hopium such that a proposal to lobby digital stores to remove DRM after a time-limit (eg, 3-5 years post release) by default unless publishers opt-out actually sounds the saner option than expecting dozens of countries to all simultaneously tear up IP / contract legislation just for gamers who want the benefit of DRM-Free preservability but with all the DRM still left in...
