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General discussionStop Killing Games Round 1 is a miss!(243 posts)(243 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted June 27, 2025
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Tuthrick: The thing is that SKG is a legal consumer protection initiative at its core that's why it focuses on a certain angle.

Yes, I would rather go with GOG's way - no DRM at all, offline installers all the way and we all are probably trying to do our part with buying games here and trying to convince others to drop platforms like Steam and join GOG.

I see however SKG initiative as an opportunity to make our voices heard, in that we are saying that there are glaring issues with the gaming industry. That is also why it's unfortunate that GOG didn't follow with their support as they intially intended. If the initiative would prove successful, then GOG could use that opportunity to get more people to join their mission.

I don't think that no DRM and SKG are mutually exclusive, I see them both as a benefit to the consumers. That's my perspective, I can't look into the future to see what the overall impact will SKG have, all we have is speculation. I am for better consumer protection law in general, so I support Stop Killing Games.
SKG and GOG is mutually exclusive as Ross has made clear that SKG is not about''No Drm'' and that SKG is actually ''okay with drm so long as the games are playable '' So yes they are incompatible
Posted June 27, 2025
I didn't say that DRM is a benefit to the customer, there's "no DRM" in that sentence. And I said that I can't say what impact will SKG have. Please, do not change what I actually wrote.

Let me clear this once more:

- Stop Killing Games is an initiative asking that EU would introduce consumer protection law for the ones that purchase a game and said game is unable to be run after the support ends.

I don't know what the indie developer and limited license potential scenarios are supposed to address here. You guys are fixed on the current situation and the technical details, and the initiative wants to change how it should look like in the future with regulating what's fair to the consumer. It's to start the discussion, not to give every exact detail yet. We don't know how it will be handled by the government in the end, but we are pointing that there's an unfair consumer treatment.

I still don't see how that's at odds with what's GOG doing, though.
Posted June 27, 2025
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Tuthrick: I didn't say that DRM is a benefit to the customer, there's "no DRM" in that sentence. And I said that I can't say what impact will SKG have. Please, do not change what I actually wrote.

Let me clear this once more:

- Stop Killing Games is an initiative asking that EU would introduce consumer protection law for the ones that purchase a game and said game is unable to be run after the support ends.

I don't know what the indie developer and limited license potential scenarios are supposed to address here. You guys are fixed on the current situation and the technical details, and the initiative wants to change how it should look like in the future with regulating what's fair to the consumer. It's to start the discussion, not to give every exact detail yet. We don't know how it will be handled by the government in the end, but we are pointing that there's an unfair consumer treatment.

I still don't see how that's at odds with what's GOG doing, though.
You literally put ''I don't think that no DRM and SKG are mutually exclusive, I see them both as a benefit to the consumers. That's my perspective, I can't look into the future to see what the overall impact will SKG have, all we have is speculation. I am for better consumer protection law in general, so I support Stop Killing Games.''

and Ross keeps going on about ''drm is fine SKG isn't about not having drm it can stay fully so long as consumers can play the game'' thus how SKGs and GOG is not one that benefits each other

Also SKGs is basically at best using the concept ''treating the symptoms not the cause'' which is what many here is basically saying .. that and how its written just won't work not in any real positive way and what Ross has in mind for Skg just won't work as its built in a manner that isn't feasible aswell as Ross seems more focused on the games like the Crew for instance rather then games that are feasible to be keep around .. Even then how its written and how Ross keeps going on about SKGs doesn't give it a good positive light for games in the future if one actually thinks logical.. rather then with their emotions
Post edited June 27, 2025 by BanditKeith2
Posted June 27, 2025
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Tuthrick: I didn't say that DRM is a benefit to the customer, there's "no DRM" in that sentence. And I said that I can't say what impact will SKG have. Please, do not change what I actually wrote.

Let me clear this once more:

- Stop Killing Games is an initiative asking that EU would introduce consumer protection law for the ones that purchase a game and said game is unable to be run after the support ends.

I don't know what the indie developer and limited license potential scenarios are supposed to address here. You guys are fixed on the current situation and the technical details, and the initiative wants to change how it should look like in the future with regulating what's fair to the consumer. It's to start the discussion, not to give every exact detail yet. We don't know how it will be handled by the government in the end, but we are pointing that there's an unfair consumer treatment.

I still don't see how that's at odds with what's GOG doing, though.
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BanditKeith2: You literally put ''I don't think that no DRM and SKG are mutually exclusive, I see them both as a benefit to the consumers. That's my perspective, I can't look into the future to see what the overall impact will SKG have, all we have is speculation. I am for better consumer protection law in general, so I support Stop Killing Games.''

and Ross keeps going on about ''drm is fine SKG isn't about not having drm it can stay fully so long as consumers can play the game'' thus how SKGs and GOG is not one that beniofits each other

Also SKGs is basically at best using the concept ''treating the symptoms not the cause'' which is what many here is basically saying .. that and how its written just won't work not in any real postive way and what Ross has in mind for SPK just won't work as its built in a manner that isn't feasible aswell as Ross seems more focused on the games like the Crew for instance rather then games that are feasible to be keep around .. Even then how its written and how Ross keeps going on about SKGs doesn't give it a good positive light for games in the future if one actually thinks logical.. rather then with their emotions
Or throw numbers in a vid saying "70% of games that require internet get destroyed" with little context to where the number is from and specifically internet most drm leverages the internet for validation.
Posted June 27, 2025
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randomuser.833: But for me personally the nail in the coffin was the racing game that was the initial point for this.
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Dawnsinger: Whether this was the reason or an example, the game was ubisoft native and as such likely most players would have been on ubisoft and not steam. So much for twisting numbers until they fit. I also read that TC still was at least twice as popular than it's successor, The Crew 2, even a year or longer after that one started. I don't know if that was true or not.
There was still number of owners vs number of monthly players.
And claiming that the game was still a big thing, what youtube guy (to lazy to look up his name and not even interested in his name) basically did, was a fucking joke.
And even those numbers might have been the guys who tried to get the network traffic to build private servers.

And if part 2 was half as popular when they killed part 1 (mind you, we are nearly a decade later), it would be even more dead then dead.
But when throwing this numbers just remember, that The Crew 1 got an addon end of 2016, while The Crew 2 was released in 2nd quarter of 2017.

As pointed out by others. We got a guy who basically wanted HIS single online game run for forever and that was it.
At best at the costs of the dev/publisher, giving a shit about laws and contracts and economics.
And because that guy had some obscure fame, he tried to punch way above his weight class. Might call it Hybris.

If he would have cared about games being available for forever, he would argued against DRM. But in the end he is a Steamvictim like so many others.


There will be one shoot for consumer rights for software and the current idea, that you only rent.
When Steam goes down (or at last ends in its current iteration).
And just a reminder, various Steam competitors, who where smaller, died over the years and nobody gave a fuck, because "it can never happen to steam". When it happens to Steam, we are talking.

Steam in its current state is a very small project privately owned by GabN and his fellows, who are not that young anymore, while they have cashed out for sure.
A lot of things can happen to that project, in the not so far future. Most things could be very destructive.
Just imagine GabN is gone and MS, Apple, Google, Meta and Tencent pulling out their checkbooks doing the "who got the largest".

Or to rephrase a saying about founders and their legacy.
Gen 1 builds up
Gen 2 is cashing out
Gen 3 is running to the ground.
Posted June 27, 2025
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Bankai9212: DRM protects consumers how? Because that has only ever benefited dev/publishers and nothing more.
As much as I loathe its existence, there's one sliver of benefit for users: the anti-cheat DRM. And for those terrible online games which requires constant monetisation to stay operational, the DRM helps to ensure the userbase loading the servers actually paid to be there.

I'm pretty sure we all hate playing a MP game and having those d*cks turn up who decide to cheat with all sorts of hacks which ruin the fun. Furthermore, you'd be seething if your money you decided to spend within the game or for an ongoing subscription was wasted on freeloaders who competed against you and didn't spend a dime.

DRM just to ensure a standalone product wasn't "stolen" though I don't appreciate, which is why I support GOG.
Posted June 27, 2025
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BanditKeith2: You literally put ''I don't think that no DRM and SKG are mutually exclusive, I see them both as a benefit to the consumers. That's my perspective, I can't look into the future to see what the overall impact will SKG have, all we have is speculation. I am for better consumer protection law in general, so I support Stop Killing Games.''

and Ross keeps going on about ''drm is fine SKG isn't about not having drm it can stay fully so long as consumers can play the game'' thus how SKGs and GOG is not one that beniofits each other

Also SKGs is basically at best using the concept ''treating the symptoms not the cause'' which is what many here is basically saying .. that and how its written just won't work not in any real postive way and what Ross has in mind for SPK just won't work as its built in a manner that isn't feasible aswell as Ross seems more focused on the games like the Crew for instance rather then games that are feasible to be keep around .. Even then how its written and how Ross keeps going on about SKGs doesn't give it a good positive light for games in the future if one actually thinks logical.. rather then with their emotions
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Bankai9212: Or throw numbers in a vid saying "70% of games that require internet get destroyed" with little context to where the number is from and specifically internet most drm leverages the internet for validation.
And when giving names for the games when asked ''like what games'' it was almost if not purely listing games that exists on a sever that was often stuff that need a server for everything .. not a drm check but pretty much everything.. like say a a mmo concept , what I believe is a racing game like ''the crew'' Hero shooters, extraction shooters , gacha/lootbox based games and so on
Post edited June 27, 2025 by BanditKeith2
Posted June 27, 2025
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Bankai9212: DRM protects consumers how? Because that has only ever benefited dev/publishers and nothing more.
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Braggadar: As much as I loathe its existence, there's one sliver of benefit for users: the anti-cheat DRM. And for those terrible online games which requires constant monetisation to stay operational, the DRM helps to ensure the userbase loading the servers actually paid to be there.

I'm pretty sure we all hate playing a MP game and having those d*cks turn up who decide to cheat with all sorts of hacks which ruin the fun. Furthermore, you'd be seething if your money you decided to spend within the game or for an ongoing subscription was wasted on freeloaders who competed against you and didn't spend a dime.

DRM just to ensure a standalone product wasn't "stolen" though I don't appreciate, which is why I support GOG.
Things like anti-cheat for mp makes sense though, not saying for those instances it doesn't help deal with online cheaters.
Posted June 27, 2025
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BanditKeith2: And when giving names for the games when asked ''like what games'' it was almost if not purely listing games that exists on a sever that was often stuff that need a server for everything .. not a drm check but pretty much everything.. like say a a mmo concept what I believe is a racing game like ''the crew'' Hero shooters, extraction shooters , gacha/lootbox based games and so on
Yes, that was the biggest joke.
Bragging about, that MMOs should be run for forever by the companies behind it. It would only be a question after how many years the MMO will have outlived its profit.

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Bankai9212: DRM protects consumers how? Because that has only ever benefited dev/publishers and nothing more.
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Braggadar: As much as I loathe its existence, there's one sliver of benefit for users: the anti-cheat DRM. And for those terrible online games which requires constant monetisation to stay operational, the DRM helps to ensure the userbase loading the servers actually paid to be there.

I'm pretty sure we all hate playing a MP game and having those d*cks turn up who decide to cheat with all sorts of hacks which ruin the fun. Furthermore, you'd be seething if your money you decided to spend within the game or for an ongoing subscription was wasted on freeloaders who competed against you and didn't spend a dime.

DRM just to ensure a standalone product wasn't "stolen" though I don't appreciate, which is why I support GOG.
They need this stuff today because there is no administrated server structure anymore and many of those games don't cost money but just another email.

Back in the days you had to search for servers and admins where fast in kickbanning when something seemed fishy.
Often enough even with public vote features for such things.
And if you got banned, you where in need to buy the game again.

Beside that, there where no Epeen-.profiles with showing off stuff inside.

Instead, today there is matchmaking without any human kooking at it and sometimes even P2P matchmaking, because you don't want to pay for servers.

It is not like it wasn't possible to do the same shit in the past.
You where just much more likely to get your ass kicked very fast when it happend, it did cost you money.
Post edited June 27, 2025 by randomuser.833
Posted June 27, 2025
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dnovraD: And the example was about maintainership, and how the onus of ownership changes that.
I'm not aware that maintainership is the issue though.

For example Troika Games is long gone but Vampire: Bloodlines still has its unofficial fanpatch, which makes the game work much better than at release.
Posted June 27, 2025
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Geromino: I'm not aware that maintainership is the issue though.

For example Troika Games is long gone but Vampire: Bloodlines still has its unofficial fanpatch, which makes the game work much better than at release.
It is easily the issue. Imagine if there was a massive paradigm shift from one CPU architecture to another. While emulation might be provided for a time, guess what? Eventually that'll dry up, with changing chipsets and/or cheapening out on support that costs them pennies. (Oh, look at that, Rosetta II to end support, Fedora discussing dropping 32-bit support, et al.)
Post edited June 27, 2025 by dnovraD
Posted June 27, 2025
high rated
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Tuthrick: I don't think that no DRM and SKG are mutually exclusive, I see them both as a benefit to the consumers.
In theory they shouldn't be mutually exclusive, but the problem is you only have to read many comments left underneath Ross's videos to see that a lot of people are treating this whole thing as less "something to support in addition to DRM-Free", and more a pro-DRM comfort blanket that's dishonestly giving them the impression "Sign this, and governments around the world will soon grant you all the benefits of DRM-Free in your DRM'd games" as self-justification for continuing to throw money at everything they claim to hate, so they don't have to change bad consumer habits.

And for reasons pointed out by many above, half of what SKG 'dreams' of happening won't. Even if SKG got everything they wanted as they wrote it, as paladin181 said, publishers will start to change the nature of licensing itself. Expect many publishers to respond by releasing racing, RPG, etc, games with chargeable subscriptions (even if its a very tiny sub less than $1 per year for 10 years worth of content) for which half the game's content is gated behind to sidestep the SKG "trigger" of excluding "actual subscription" games.

And Brian's comment perfectly highlights that the British Govt response is already the "canary in the coal-mine" of what to expect from other governments in general - What publishers are doing may be annoying but it simply isn't illegal. If Ross, etc, keeps over-playing on the pretence of ignorance, ie, "None of us knew that online-only, triple DRM'd games wouldn't be around forever" then governments will focus on that and just force surface changes (a more prominent "Service Based Game" clarification during checkout) and that'll be it. Problem isn't solved, but now half of SKG's 'ammo' has been taken away, and half the gamers who signed it will keep on lapping up every purchase, undermining their own cause:-

"Ivory Tower’s The Crew Motorfest launched amid several big releases this month, from Starfield to Mortal Kombat 1. Nevertheless, it’s seen some success, with Ubisoft claiming it had the best first week for the series in total unit sell-through. Overall consumer spending and adoption rate of the Season Pass also set new records."

"The franchise has seen over 40 million players since launching in 2014. Interestingly, The Crew 2 broke the record for the monthly average of users in July 2023."
https://gamingbolt.com/the-crew-motorfest-sets-first-week-sales-record-for-franchise

^ Given that Ross's claim that The Crew gamers have been "boycotting" the two sequels turned out to be completely untrue, one of the things governments might do prior to any legislation is demand to see metrics to gauge actual public sentiment (vs social media sensationalism). "It's been 6 months since we introduced our voluntary pre-checkout "Time-limited service game" transparency banners and sales of The Crew 4 have hit a new franchise record, so the feedback we've been getting from SKG gamers is that gamers are now happy with the changes..." will kill whatever remains of this stone-dead. If I can figure that out, then publishers legal depts certainly can too and probably already have the PR releases already written.
Post edited June 27, 2025 by ListyG
Posted June 27, 2025
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ListyG: In theory they shouldn't be mutually exclusive, but the problem is you only have to read many comments left underneath Ross's videos to see that a lot of people are treating this whole thing as less "something to support in addition to DRM-Free", and more a pro-DRM comfort blanket that's dishonestly giving them the impression "Sign this, and governments around the world will soon grant you all the benefits of DRM-Free in your DRM'd games" as self-justification for continuing to throw money at everything they claim to hate, so they don't have to change bad consumer habits.
Precisely, this is very well-written. The whole thing is a crutch. A seductive excuse for the gaming masses to justify carrying on doing what they have always done; a convenient way to offload all the responsibility onto someone else.

/applause
Post edited June 27, 2025 by Time4Tea
Posted June 27, 2025
Its as if people cant fix "stupid" nor mend the greedy from their bad behavior.
Posted June 27, 2025
At this point everyone is interesting in making pirate software the villain in the whole situation. They would rathr spend time doing that then focus on the movement itself. I feel like Ross last video was means to stir the pot to get attention to his movement.
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This is my favourite topic
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General discussionStop Killing Games Round 1 is a miss!(243 posts)(243 posts)
(243 posts)