Could you please clarify to what extent though? Ubisoft games can have up to 5x layers of DRM (1. Ubisoft client, 2. Denuvo, 3. VMProtect, 4. Steam client check (for some games bought through Steam that require both Steam & Ubisoft clients), 5. Game specific multi-player server DRM).

Are you saying you want to remove all layers 1-5, or just layer No. 5? The impression many are consistently getting for past wording is just the latter. And even if it is (hopefully) the former and you are planning to legislate DRM-Free games at some announced End of Life, the whole thing seems aimed primarily at online-only MP games with an official server closure date, but there would be literally no change at all to 99% of most other games whose "EOL" technically never ends, ie, see the 90's / 2000's games that get put on Steam then 15, 20, 25 years goes by and they're still technically "supported" (and many like Syberia remain DRM'd after almost 25 years). The whole thing seems to be mostly about keeping online multi-player gaming servers alive, whilst your initiative wouldn't apply at all to most games that technically never receive any announced "EOL retirement" server closure date that seems to be the only thing that trigger whatever laws your initiative is proposing?

I'm still struggling to understand how that translates into "you WOULD have a backup for every game you buy" when there's no point in backing up any game that still has store level and / or Denuvo DRM left in for decades on end.

Thanks, this reaffirms my thoughts on this because I think it's simply naive to think that gamers (of all ages) alone are going to realize something and be the one changing obscure big companies by having a silent protest outside their offices.

It's like fighting gambling/monetization advertised against children or certain drugs/food - at some point you have to try to take them to the court, or change the law(s), for better or worse.

Attacking DRM head-on won't work as the past 30 years have shown, but I think this is the step we need in the right direction, even if it's seemingly small. Games with DRM are like SaaS (or GaaS if you will) and with that comes certain responsibilities, or rather, it should.

And no, this isn't some "catch them all"-initiative. Sometimes you'll loose more if you don't compromise.

But sure, let's just sit idle by and continue to watch companies have have almost zero accountability, because that have worked out so well 'til now, right?

Just a shame some of us can't sign on.

This thread is gonna die under its own weight. There's just way too much word salad here.

The Crew - bad example, I personally don't know about it and I'm sure a lot don't either - Take WoW Classic for your most recent nostalgia conundrum. With that dev or whoever the fk saying You think you know what you want but you don't - paraphrasing. And if you're honest with yourselves you'll probably start giving him the right, because games aren't just code as someone quoted me with and as this guy Rossino said. Code is just the interface through which the game is presented. But a game is actually something alive and alived by people playing it, that's why Classic while still preserves that nostalgia it's mostly because of the people that have jumped on the hype train and are actively playing it. Even single player games were more valid then than now because they were actual, with the times. Games need to constantly be society meta to be valid.
And timeless games as they are called, probably will connect with their uselessness because ultimately that's what games are, a meta of life till you start leaving the meta and start living life.

Game preservation is such an energy drag for an inherently wrong feeling, nostalgia is.. useless if you use it to go back in time. Nostalgia helps you remember the right feels, but you need to be able to have those feels all the time - because that's how it was - not only through said game or place or time, or people, it's a mix of everything and if you live that feeling you need to be able to reproduce it everywhere.


And and lastly, GOG I feel is in the right by withdrawing, because a movement that supports DRM is inherently flawed. Drm is the issue, part of the bigger issues of life such as money in banks not being yours, and them controlling the flow of money simply because they are more accessible to them than you -which is crazy, but you could see the effects of that during the pandemic, when your basic needs and by the law we all upheld, basic right, were behind a drm wall, where if u did not comply, your basic needs were no longer provided - and that's why you should not outsource power and that's why you should not let steam drm your games.

Because this life is in balance, you get comfort somewhere else that has to blow out and affect you still, you can't escape the pain aaaa. K.


Also also, memorable notion to the guy saying OS's are becoming drm'ed into the processor? Did I read that right, I'm out of the loop, but I remember something more alarming when UEFI became essentially a DRM instead of BIOS and with some bells and whistles that were indeed some limitations, pushed a drm into the first lvl communication between hardware and software - a drm.
Something on the same lvl of bios but updated could have been made, but big money decides.

Well, I say, stop caring about what they do, and hands on move your life in the right direction and that is all, asking for someone else to make your life better is the pitfall you're all in.

Buy a batch of hdds, build an oldschool system and preserve, you all still have this option, and this rush will also create a market for it, and maybe you'll get the attention of someone willing to build them anew - that's how it works. But really.... find out what you really want in life before nostalging over a couple of rocks.

Which will never truly be resolved and again GOG can't do much about it doen't have that many Online only games to begin with.

ultimately he is just an youtuber making videos about videogames, is not some clever lobby expert and politicians and negotiator. those are different set of skills than what he is doing on youtube. no one is expert in anything, often we forget that other people are not supermen, and we start asking too much. all this "Ross like drm crowd" is an example. Bros, if he like drms or not (he doesn't) is not important, he already did a lot of things to make this campaign reached half a million people in EU, give the guy a break. He has against him all this corporate army of paid experienced lobbyists that earn yearly more than Ross made in all his youtube lifespan.

Not replying to you specifically but I want to address the "they have licenses, music problems other stuff so that is why they kill the game" argument.

If I go to a car rental company, rent a car, then sell it to you. Is that an excuse for me when the repo man comes to your house and takes the car away? I can just keep your money and nothing happens?

If ubisoft took back deals to allow certain resources (like the cars branding) for 5 years without you knowing, then they sell the game to you without telling you that they will need to destroy the game in 5 years, is that ok with you? That they keep the money?

The clue thing here is that they should had told you. Let then see how many games they sell if they inform you when the game will be deleted.

Which makes the whole movement from anyone looking in a waste of time, Ross is over his head so no one will take it seriously no matter how many signitures he has. Its not a matter of liking Ross in the vid said he's fine so long as the game is supported.

By saying that it goes against the whole point of what GOG as a store is.

The care example doesn't make sense you sold him the car right? Short of nothing being signed the car would be under hi name. That is not licensing works with music or cars. Short of renewing it, the owners in most cases will never sell the right to keep an IP in a game. So poor example there.

With that you are going with an argument unrelated to games, its way alot of movies and games don't use license in them anymore not worth the money. Plus again most games are a license to play not own.

They don't need to tell you if something iss licensed at this point if something is based on a real world product who assume this. Plus again the crew is an online game not sp.

GOG did a despicable thing by baiting support for months, wasting the campaign efforts by diverting their attention to this "we will promote you" juicy fruit that you can't say no to. Even if they would had smelled something fishy the opportunity was too big to say no. So wasted time discussing and planned back and forth, endless projects and meetings between the team about this.

I understand everyone has his opinion but "GOG did nothing wrong" is really infuriating. Jessus, is like finding your girlfriend in bed with some other dude.

you need to write in another program then paste the comment, it doesn't work for me also, so long as the message is not too big for the forum character limit, cut and paste work for me. also try different browsers.
explain why is a waste of time because I don't understand it. you are building an argument on this "waste of time" premise, explain first.

I wrote an entire parapgraph as to why someone already mentioned it in this forum maybe read what's written. If EU court system isn't interested no one will. No amount of signatures will change that. Tell us if they won't do anything who will no backing will change that outcome. Its not bait, maybe they saw something then realized based on thi thread alone it doesn't align with what the store stands for. Hows about removing emotion from you're responses and think logically. Because like Ross you lack the understanding of IP, licensing and how much of a legal nightmare that is. Heck as anyone who tried to go against Nintendo how well that went.

Indeed, on the car part. Ross himself used that same analogy: https://www.youtube.com/clip/Ugkxly_O-3JxyBULIT283l5A1KOhnNsWC3Bj

And the FAQ also addresses this:
>Aren't companies unable to do this due to license agreements they make with other companies that expire? Like with music, other software, product brands, etc.?
No. While those can be a problem for the industry, those would only prohibit the company from selling additional copies of the game once their license expires. They would not prevent existing buyers from continuing to use the game they have already paid for.

-[Stop Killing Games](https://www.stopkillinggames.com/faq)

Bankai9212, you misunderstand how the ECI works
https://citizens-initiative.europa.eu/how-it-works

And that Initiatives have had an impact:
https://citizens-initiative.europa.eu/initiatives/details/2012/000003/water-and-sanitation-are-human-right-water-public-good-not-commodity

https://citizens-initiative.europa.eu/initiatives/details/2020/000001/stop-finning-stop-the-trade

https://citizens-initiative.europa.eu/save-cruelty-free-cosmetics-commit-europe-without-animal-testing

Also the EU operates by civil law, not common law like in the USA

Let me cite some legal crap that gives a taste as to how they'd be interested in this:

[Texts adopted - Esports and video games - Thursday, 10 November 2022]https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/TA-9-2022-0388_EN.html

* D: “whereas **the Court of Justice of the EU has recognised that video games are complex creative works with a unique and creative value**, protected both by Directive 2009/24/EC on the legal protection of computer programs” (Directive in Question: [Directive - 2009/24 - EN - EUR-Lex (europa.eu)]https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/LSU/?uri=CELEX%3A32009L0024)
* Under “Video games and esports: challenges, opportunities and a European strategy”:
* 16. “video games and esports have great potential to further promote European history, identity, heritage, values and diversity through immersive experiences; believes that they also have the potential to contribute to the EU’s soft power”
* 18. “ video games are an integral part of Europe’s cultural heritage and should therefore be preserved and promoted; suggests that support be provided, in cooperation with the industry, for the creation of an archive to preserve the most culturally significant European video games and ensure their playability in the future; highlights the need, in this regard, to build upon existing projects such as the International Computer Game Collection (ICS) and numerous video game museums across the EU”
* Regarding computer programmes in general from [Directive - 2009/24 - EN - EUR-Lex (europa.eu)]https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/ALL/?uri=CELEX%3A32009L0024 Point 15: ...Nevertheless, circumstances may exist when such a reproduction of the code and translation of its form are indispensable to obtain the necessary information to achieve the interoperability of an independently created program with other programs. It has therefore to be considered that, in these limited circumstances only, performance of the acts of reproduction and translation by or on behalf of a person having a right to use a copy of the program is legitimate and compatible with fair practice and must therefore be deemed not to require the authorisation of the rightholder.

[Texts adopted - Consumer protection in online video games: a European single market approach - 18 January 2023]https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/TA-9-2023-0008_EN.html

* D: “whereas despite its central role in the European cultural and creative ecosystem, the video game sector is still neglected by policymakers in comparison to other media industries”
* 1: "Underlines the value of video games...as pieces of cultural expression by their creators, individual players and wider gaming communities.
* "2: “\[...\] underlines that the video game sector offers an increasing number of new job opportunities for many cultural creators, such as game developers, designers, writers, music producers and other artists, which any Union action in this field, especially funding activities, should take into consideration;”
* “Stresses that video games straddle both the digital and cultural sectors, as video games also represent a crucial part of the cultural and creative ecosystem”

https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/P-9-2024-001352-ASW_EN.html

"This situation is a mess, even without the initiative. Like, we've had agencies say there is no clear legal regulation on this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w70Xc9CStoE&list=PLheQeINBJzWa6RmeCpWwu0KRHAidNFVTB&t=1512s). We've had a lawyer say that the law that's supposed to govern this is not fit for purpose or something like that. So just calling attention to this problem is kind of creating a legal mess to begin with. And we're hoping it get resolved in a good way without the initiative and we get lucky and this is all just redundant.

However, this initiative is coming in and if we got 1 million signatures and that passed, then that's creating a grassroots pressure to come up with a relatively reasonable sounding solution. You know, okay, the consumer has a reasonable chance to continue using the product they bought or paid for. So what we have here is like a mess - where again I compare it to Uber coming on to the scene - where the law wasn't sure how to deal with this. So we have lawmakers not wanting to deal with this because it's a mess, but then we have this big kind of Grassroots movement coming in saying, "Here. Do this. This is the answer.". So it's like, "Okay well, this will be politically popular to do this, and we don't know how to handle this anyway, and they're kind of giving us an outline and a mandate so we can just kind of do this - you know massage out the details - and my constituency doesn't really seem to care much about video games games anyway, so this is going to be a political win. Yeah let's do it."

So I'm looking at it easy from that perspective. Compare that to something like immigration reform or tax reform or something where people are going to be really divided. The constituencies there might be all over the place on it. Or it's going to be a real mess of an issue to sort out because we have to undo existing law. Whereas this one, we're not even undoing law it's just that the law isn't even there for it.
...
Somebody was saying he was with me until I insulted politicians and corporations, then he went too far. Yeah, and these were pretty lightweight insults too XD

We'll see how the consumer agencies [France, Germany, Australia] react to this, because it has not been easy for them, I'll tell you that much. I think we were normally supposed to get like a return response from France's agency in like 1-2 months we're going on six months [currently 1+ year] now. And it's been escalated and they said this is very complicated, yeah it is. So it's not easy for them.
...
I think the people who don't see this as easy at all - there's a chance they have no idea what's coming from what we stirred up on this. Because the law has not been covering this and I don't know of a neat way to cover this that either goes in our favor or else gives basically a middle finger to consumers.” - Ross Scott
https://youtu.be/sbNZ4LhxVHg?list=PLheQeINBJzWa6RmeCpWwu0KRHAidNFVTB&t=10759

the posts above me kinda explained it, but not in simple terms:
this is a european citizens initiative, not a change.org campaign.
that means the EU is legally obligated to take it seriously when over 1 million signatures are presented.

I'm well aware what happens if the licence game isn't removed the game is removed from sale nothing more.

Also those examples are radically different compared to whats being discussed. Water sanitation, trade effects the economy as a whole. As for animal testing there are plenty of orgs that would easily back that cause compared to video games.

At which point it either could not be bought anymore or it would remain exclusive to some DRM agnostic platform I am never going to use.

Usually with the DRM definition arguments on this forum I tend to take the "vegetarian" side rather than the far more militant "vegan" side that often seems to label almost any kind of design decision they don't agree with as DRM, but trying to get either side here to support this initiative of yours is kind of like trying to convince vegans & vegetarians to agree that their menu can include meat just as long the "proper rituals" were done while killing the source of that meat.

And do you have any idea about what tends to happen when laws are getting drafted against big corporations, their lobbyist come in and manage to manipulate the process to a point where at best such a law just doesn't really achieve any of the originally intended goals and at worst it also causes major unintended negative consequences to the smaller players in that sector of the industry and the consumers. Add on top of that all the problems that can happen when computer illiterate legislators start drafting any laws involving computing even without any undesired outside influence and it should become quite clear why I rather would have us all strive to be better at voting with our wallets than put any hope on any government to be able to preserve any terminally ill released games by the legislative route.

Seriously, this forum hates me, I tried 3 times, can't post my replies. Here's another pastebin:

pastebin.com/h0PHEVCW