I don't mean to harsh his idea, just that his approach was quixotic. I respect him, and I think the idea was good. The execution was...not.

The issues with the execution and methodology are neatly outlined in Lord_Kane's post.

1) I don't see the criticisms you list as 'minor differences'. They represent huge, fundamental differences in philosophy and approach, with regards to games, DRM and consumer rights.

2) Your use of the term 'infighting' is interesting. I don't see the 'gaming community' as united in any sense. I don't see Ross or others like him (who have been buying/supporting DRMed products over the past 20 years) as 'one of us' or part of our community. Gamers who buy DRMed products are literally the problem, since they are the ones who have enabled and normalized these pernicious design practices.

If Ross Scott isn't planning to change his personal purchasing habits, after these negative experiences, and start rejecting DRMed products, then there is no hope. Because he isn't willing to help himself. It's like saying: "Help! I'm addicted to crack! I need someone else to come and break my addiction for me. I need the people supplying the crack to be punished. But ... I am unwilling to make any changes to my lifestyle to fight the addiction myself. Society is the problem here, the system is the problem - everyone else is the problem."

I haven't seen Ross showing any willingness to accept his responsibility for the part that his purchasing habits have played in stoking the problem. I haven't seen him doing anything to promote DRM-free, or call on his followers to make changes to their habits and reject DRMed games in future. Therefore, he is not 'one of us'.

3) As soon as you start saying things like 'DRM is ok', 'developers should be free to design their games how they choose', you are immediately going to lose the entire DRM-free community. Anyone who is part of the DRM-free community could have told Ross that, but he apparently failed to understand this.

Worse still Ross excuse for why he still willingly buys from drmed storefronts is a clear sign of no resolve and no valid ground to stand on.. while claiming he hates DRM as he claims he voted with his wallet for 20 years but that didn't work and thus resumed buying games that was drmed even new releases at full price as he was tired of missing out ..

Plus he never really mentions drm-free places and he has said several times''voting with your wallet does nothing but makes one miss out ''

Well, as long as politicians think weapons are way more important than any sort of culture including art and pop culture which is what games are considered on the most upper level. As long as the world is full of bloodshed and with limited appreciation of cultural matters, as long as it goes this trail... it does not even matter if someone is presenting 5 million signatures related to any matters involving games: It will not be taken serious and it is a "low matter" to them. In fact, most politicians does not even play games... it does not strike their hearts, and anything where no heart is involved is ultimately failing.

In any case... he can not present them with something "trivial"... because trying to extend the lifetime of a bunch of online-games with a pretty narrow minded focus in the end... will just not be taken sufficiently serious.

The picture should be way bigger. Perhaps he should really take a close look at GOG and Archive, involving game and other media preservation, which got a way broader picture for what they truly "stand in for"... and this is important in order to become sufficiently noticed as a non trivial... but actually some serious matter.

As far as I understand it, this initiative is against the "you will own nothing and be happy" Davos-mindset.

Meaning people make their games dependent upon DRM-servers on the internet, then randomly switch them off because, well, not even because of reasons, they can just decide randomly.

Its really common sense. You should be able to actually own a game just like you can own a 100 year old car or a 300 year old house.

I disagree 100% with this stance (which I see as highly defeatist). Voting with my wallet (i.e. not buying DRMed games) completely solves the problem for me, because it means I am unaffected by these issues. I have not bought games that rely on always-online DRM servers, which are going to be taken away from me at some point in the future. The Crew being de-activated doesn't affect me, because the game never existed for me in the first place.

As for 'missing out', that is complete bunk as well. There are literally thousands of great DRM-free games available - more than anyone could play in their lifetime. The only things I am 'missing out' on are DRM, having my consumer rights stripped and having my property arbitrarily taken away at somebody else's whim. I am more than happy to 'miss out' on those.

Thankfully, this failed before it got to a point where the failure could be codified. The damag is minimal for those who cxome after, if they want to try a similar movement on a smaller scale, there is no precedent to rebuke it.

Well, in 100 years people can actually legally fully own games (because the copyright is gone) but the issue is... at this point this game may already be completely gone, its source code vanished into the eternity (which is actually already the case for many way younger games) and the game itself perhaps even beyond repair because completely broken and not playable by modern systems. In comparison, a hundreds of year old house can be preserved really good... if the price is alright, and even a historical oldtimer car can be preserved well at a certain price. A game on the other hand... its preservation can be extremely tricky and many online games are already rendered unplayable, in worst case forever. As, nobody is either gonna rebuild its missing codes/content or even making it playable on a 100 years younger system. You can read any 100 year old book with your bare eyes... this is completely impossible for any game with a strong dependency on a hardware and even OS-software. However, up to this point politicians still does not sufficiently notice this issue and that it can become more of a issue in long term than it seems to appear for now.

Unless, we simply accept that a huge load of games simply, at some point... my fade into the eternity with a more or less audible fart...

Just a few companies, such as the creators of Freespace 2, got a wider "view" and they was providing the source code. This game may last almost a eternity because it will be easy to keep it playable and adapt it to modern systems. Some other companies even completely lost the source code already... it is a shame but a reality we have to accept.

For sure, emulators will become way more important in the future, as it is in many cases the only way in order to still keep a old game playable.

Agreed fully

I mean, I buy the games I want to play. Most of that is DRM-free. I virtually always buy DRM-free, even if I paid previously. Some games will never be DRM-Free. But I enter into that with the knowledge that it could go away. And as much as that makes me unhappy, there's no one to blame but me for going after that experience. I don't regret playing Elden Ring or Lies of P. I don't regret almost any of the games I've "purchased," because of those, the few that are no longer available, I was done with years ago. I got my money's worth out of them.

The misinformation about Stop Killing Games has reached even GOG forums, this makes me sad.

Here's a short outline for everyone, who does not want to bother reading the initiative/petition:

- The EU petition is about raising the issue of disabling games, first and foremost (since this is a petition), not exact/detailed solutions, becasue there are currently no laws in place that allow the consumers to react when the product is disabled.

- This is about future games, SKG is not asking about retro-active laws to be made. So applying any of the issues to the existing games does nothing. The games that will be developed in the future will just have to include the end-of-life plan, that's it.

Besides, Ross did not call anyone an idiot in his video. He said that the gamers don't care about games being destroyed, and people in general don't care about anything: the SKG EU petition was 2nd/3rd most popular petition in general, so it should tell you how much people care.

I wish GOG would support the initiative, as they initially intended, since it would fit with the GOG Preservation Program 100%.

Invalid metaphor.

I can't exactly roll up to the factory with a 1912 Stanley steam car and expect anything to happen, because the factory that built it stopped existing over 70 years ago.
I can't exactly contact the people who built my house either, they've been dead for as long.

There's a generally agreed social contract that if you buy a house or car (not renting), that you are the one whom the onus of maintainership is upon.

Intellectual property is a different beast.

He most factually indirectly did say they was.. given he said gamers didn't understand it , while none gamers do understand it.. That is in fact indirectly calling gamers idiots and none gamers atleast smarter.. Sure he could have indeed meant gamers didn't care games are getting destroyed or no longer accessible/functional but thats not what his wording conveys in the linked video when he mentioned the matter

Where did you get this from, and what do you mean by 'in general'?

Several petitions have managed to gather enough signatures to be passed on to the committee, while SKG didn’t even manage to reach half the number needed. So what exactly do you mean by 'most popular'?

If you are correct, it would mean only one or two other petitions have ever managed to reach enough signatures.

Ross stated it actually saying it keep going from the 2nd and 3rd spot