6 ms·
They are going to do what movie industry is already doing: create shell company for release of each game. Then they will shut down the company when they want,
by vl 4mo ago
They are going to do what movie industry is already doing: create shell company for release of each game.
Then they will shut down the company when they want, and there will be nobody to come for.
- tyleo 4mo agoI mentioned this in a separate thread. It seems like a huge risk to release an online game if you don't do this now. A single bad game can take down a studio. Now there's even more risk because a previously successful game may come with a big bill in the future if you have to do refunds or some late architecture change when you instead want to take a product down to save money.
- jnovek 4mo agoPerhaps they should just write games in a way where they can actually release server code when they it shuts down?
- Rapzid 4mo agoPerhaps "they" can write games however they want? If you don't like it, don't do business with them? This is a weird thing to be legislating on.
- jnovek 4mo agoI think it’s a great thing to be legislating on. I would like to see it on the federal level, myself.
- wsve 4mo agoConsumer protection laws are "weird"? I'd hate to live in your world...
- unleaded 4mo agoIt's too late to decide not to do business with them once they've stopped you from using a product you already bought.
- paulryanrogers 4mo agoThe word "buy" is defrauding people when the thing purchased can be bricked before even getting it home.
- FeepingCreature 4mo agoPerhaps "they" are in a country with laws, and the laws now include restrictions on "however they want"?
- skotobaza 4mo ago>Perhaps "they" can write games however they want? No? I don't want any developer to suddenly "want" to write code that bricks my OS for instance. What if they decide to do this after the game was released and I bought it?
- radium3d 4mo agoThese laws just complicate things, make it more expensive to run a game company and these government people don't get it. This will just result in making it more expensive to make games and keep them running. On top of that, it incentivises subscription based games. > 'it excludes games provided via subscription services, free-to-play games, and games that are inherently playable offline indefinitely. It also prohibits the continued sale or distribution of games that have become unusable due to service termination.' The only winners are lawyers. NOT gamers. The lawyers always like to call their laws "protect X" lol
- BeetleB 4mo agoDisagree. I can see the challenges for games that are really only meant to be played on a centralized server, but what about games that need to connect to a server just to play locally? Demanding consumers be able to do that is not making things particularly hard on the company.
- FeepingCreature 4mo agoThat's correct. This will make it more expensive to make games. However, the games will be better for it, and the games made the most expensive are those with exploitive business models such as lootboxes.
- littlecranky67 4mo agoSo nobody to come after you for copyright violation if you run a community-patched (a.k.a. cracked) version of the game?
- mh- 4mo agoWell, no. Just like other purpose-built vehicles (like the ones for motion picture productions), they will transfer rights to other entities before shutting down.
- littlecranky67 4mo agoHow is something like that not considered when a law like that is passed?
- agoodusername63 4mo agoDespite the good intentions of SKG, their efforts are being heavily shaped by the intense lobbying against them. This law has a lot of weird omissions and obvious loopholes because industry lobbyists want it that way for their clients. It's a very clever law in the studio and publisher's favor. It changes pretty much nothing. The worst GaaS plagues on the industry will be able to keep trucking along as usual and the few service games remaining that have an upfront cost will slap on the tiniest singleplayer function to meet the law. Hell a model viewer might even meet it, or at the very least bait people into trying to waste time in court over it. All while making nice headlines implying that SKG is making meaningful progress (they're not)
- FeepingCreature 4mo agoJudges are in fact allowed to notice that someone is obviously fucking with them.
- Akronymus 4mo agoAnd then lose the rights to those franchises/codebases/etc? I don't think that'll realistically happen.
- cyanydeez 4mo agoright, but what are you going to do? Have strong regulations for anonymous, criminal, businesses which operate as a shadow political class that can multiply at whim and influence global governance? Yah, right!
- ryandrake 4mo agoSo, CA should get rid of those loopholes, too! We need to culturally accept things like "zero day law patches" for loopholes and unintended consequences. Legislators, don't just pass a law, see it incentivizing something unintended, and then throw up your hands crying "Well, we tried!" Patch the law as soon as the bad behavior starts!
- markstos 4mo agoAnd how you would craft a law to prevent a company from forming sub-companies for specific games to isolate risk? Or make it illegal for a company to go bankrupt? Creating sub-companies is common business practice that even small businesses use. Like if a small company wants to buy a building, they may form an LLC to hold the property to isolate that risk from the rest of their business.
- Ukv 4mo agoBankruptcy process already involves identifying and administering the company's assets, so releasing the server software (as-is) to owners of the game could be part of that.
- markstos 4mo agoBesides bankruptcy there is also shutting a business down, in which case are no new owners. Lavabit and Silent Circle being examples of businesses that shutdown rather than comply with laws they didn't like.
- Ukv 4mo agoShutting down operations as Lavabit/Silent Circle did doesn't negate existing contractual obligations. Voluntarily dissolving the company would also involve completing performance of outstanding contracts.
- jandrewrogers 4mo agoHow would this solve anything? Performance under existing contracts is still required to shutdown. The mechanisms for getting around contract performance without bankruptcy essentially require handing control of the company to the contractual counter-parties.
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]