Dead Games News: Response from UK Government
Вставка
- Опубліковано 8 тра 2024
- News on what the UK government response means on the issue of game destruction by publishers! It's not all awful, just most of it! Also, some news on how the campaign to end game destruction is going internationally. Relevant links below:
Australian Petition:
www.aph.gov.au/e-petitions/pe...
UK Petition:
petition.parliament.uk/petiti...
Canadian Petition:
www.ourcommons.ca/petitions/e...
stopkillinggames.com - Ігри
Submit this story to the BBC news technology department! If enough people makes a ruckus that way, the BBC themselves will reach out to relevant 3rd parties for a response. Those governmental departments may not answer to us, but they WILL answer to the BBC or any other major UK newspapers
Please try this! Could be super cool if Ross would do a interview on BBC too! Though this is probably a looong shot...
@zxul2340 absolutely not a long shot! They recently interviewed the guy who's making the Fallout London mod because Bethesda's update messed up his project. If they're willing to make a story as inconsequential as that then an international campaign will definitely get their attention
Honestly any ideas like these seems worth it too, even if just to get attention
You should try to email this to Ross. while he does read the comments it also helps to make sure he will for CERTAIN see it.
Frankly they gutted the BBC years ago by putting patsies in charge. I wouldn't count on them for much.
UK citizen here. I hate to rain on the parade, but unfortunately that 100k petition thing isn't as significant as you might think. What it says is "the issue will be discussed in parliament". This is not a promise to act on the issue and almost every time I've seen a petition reach this mark, the response has been "yeah, we're not gonna talk about this."
The Tradings Standards thing is definitely the way to go, but if you want to put a spin on this that makes it more politically appealing, I'd say "The EU is sleeping on this! Thank god you're not beholden to their backwards ways!". It's awful, and a lie, but almost every politician is desperate to find some silver lining to the Brexit thing. If we were breaking new legal ground ahead of the EU, that would make a LOT of politicians happy.
Underrated comment imo. I did sign the petition but honestly all I was expecting to become of it is that it may help drive awareness about the situation among consumers. Even at 100k they only say it will be "considered for debate in parliament", so a discussion in a near empty room amongst those who know very little on the subject isn't even guaranteed lol.
Pushing the Brexit angle is a nice idea though, I could get behind that.
Unless it hits like 500k or 1m or whatever the next threshold is - yeah it's basically useless lol
I don't think I've ever seen a 100k+ petition ever actually get taken seriously by parliament despite the best efforts from all the Facebook mums sharing it around
Also, seconded with the idea about using some pro-Brexit type thing as a way to get MP's to take it more seriously. It's dumb, but might actually work lmao
As another UK citizen, if you make enough ruckus, they can't ignore a petition. They can say they wont answer it, BUT, when people actually do act on their inaction they will have to respond. Unfortunately the tories are in charge, and that means they align with the companies pulling this stuff, & will try to dismiss it. But if enough people make their displeasure known, ie protest, theres hope for it.
Problem is, getting the UK to protest anything is a challenge, stoicism at its best. Get enough people actively making this an issue that needs solved will force the parliament to make action on it.
@Lunaboops They don't really seem to stand for much of anything. Snub and ourtight round up their base, snubbed their oppo, alternate betwen snubbing vaious other interests.
They've lukewarmly managed some bare minimum stuff on like some child protection stuff, but they had to get held to the fire on that.
@@Lunaboops "Problem is, getting the UK to protest anything is a challenge"
No it really isn't. You're confusing the Twitter-types with the general population. They'll certainly block roads for hamas or to raise awareness of the climate dangers of (Chinese) pollution though.
Found out Japan has a very intresting law requiring game companies to refund in game purchases when the game is taken offline. Would be nice to see that global.
Not just nice, but absolutely necessary!
Vendors of physical products aren't allowed to repossess the products they sold either, not even for a full refund, so why the hell are game publishers allowed to?
Also, on that note: why are streaming services allowed to offer you to "buy"/"purchase" media content on their site and then hold your purchased content hostage on their server and this behind their subscription paywall with no way for the buyer to download it in an open standard format when they decide to end their subscription or when the streaming service deletes the purchased content from their servers? How is calling that transaction "buy" or "purchase" NOT false advertising? Or how is it not theft/destruction of foreign properties when they keep you from storing the content where you want or delete it?
It's high time we apply the existing trade laws to digital goods!
For offline games with (online) DRM that means providing a no DRM/offline DRM patch, for games with online mode and pure online games that means providing a way for players to self-host online play when shutting down the required online services.
@@LRM12o8 It is legally called “buy” because you are buying a “license” to view the media through their service. This is actually true with many digital services, including many modern apps and games. Since the license is not guaranteed in perpetuity (forever), the company has the right to terminate the license just like other contracts. Many online games even have explicit sections of the license that allow them to terminate your license at any time if they decide you aren’t playing by the rules, whatever they determine those rules to be. Without a license, you would purchase “the software” and just like any other purchase (car, computer, etc) you can do whatever you want with it. You could reverse engineer the code, modify the code, make copies, and even resell the code on a secondary market. The companies, of course, don’t want that to happen.
@@LRM12o8 Like back in the day when we all had LAN parties which worked without internet
Wow, an actually good law! Those seem to be getting more rare.
i rather have a law which makes publishers patch the game where it is still playable offline when the game shuts down
The government is conflating SUPPORT with NOT KILLING THE GAME. These needs to be a clear distinction. Support includes customer service, ongoing updates, fixes, maintenance. NOT KILLING THE GAME includes designing it in a way that it can be abandoned peacefully.
This. If I didn't know any better (that they're incredibly stupid) I'd believe they're trying to strawman the case to put it under the rug.
Exactly, the phone analogy demonstrates how completely they've missed to point. Imagine instead that you have an iPhone. Every time you turn it on, and every 24 hours it remains on, it needs to connect to Apple servers to validate that it's a legally purchased copy, and if it ever fails to validate, it locks you out of using it and won't unlock again until it can revalidate itself. Then Apple announces that they're shutting down the validation servers because they're getting too expensive to run. That's what's happening with The Crew.
@@hoodiegal I don't understand the paragraph where they made the comparison with phones and how that's an argument "against" the Stop Killing Games case? They said it themselves: A phone that the manufacturer no longer supports will still *_work,_* though it won't receive security updates and may not work properly with modern apps.
Which is a good parallel with what the Stop Killing Games campaign wants..?
Granted, a phone is hardware and a game is software, but it still kind of fits as a parallel. The game publisher doesn't have to guarantee that their servers stay up or that their game still runs on the newest version of Windows. Just that the game functions after end of support without the official servers (using an offline mode or server emulation)
The term you're looking for is "Planned Obsolesence" which is normally illegal. Software should be protected under those laws.
Talking about 'killing games' is incredibly detrimental that kind of hyperbole makes you look like a raving lunatic and is just going to make any government employee think you are a quack and disregard everything you say.
That expiration date really hits home that studios are doing everything they can to avoid telling the truth. It's not even a "Tastes great!" or "New improved formula" sort of sales pitch. It's like if food producers did everything they could to avoid printing "Best by" dates on products where the packaging keeps you from telling if it's gone bad or how long you have before it turns.
It's even worse than that.
Technically, you _can_ eat food after it's expiration date - in the sense that you are physically capable of doing so. You shouldn't, it's a bad idea, but you can.
A game that's passed its expiration date is _completely unable to be used in any way period._
This is a very good comparison in my eyes. "Imagine if food companies argued that they didn't need best by dates. That is what modern software companies are doing"
@@fireflocs You shouldn't really be eating post to begin with, it's usually mostly paper and card, so that's technically edible, but the little plastic windows you get on some official/urgent letters definitely pose a health hazard.
This, but they also want to be able to take the bread from you even if the bread is still good, just so you buy more bread.
Seriously, every upvote this comment. This is something that a person in the government could even BEGIN to understand. Ross needs to see this comment.
"Sue Ubisoft in UK for not providing _'The Crew'_ with an expiration date of the game on the retail box" is not something I've thought of, unsure of how it'll turn out if it'll become a precedent, and how I'll feel about it in the long run - but at least it sounds absurdly funny in the moment: a publisher gets fined for not following regulations on informing the customer like a food company which didn't print a "best before" bit on the carton of milk made and sold by it.
Hopefully, it's possible to make the fine even bigger by throwing in the charges of "planned obsolescence".
Something like "expire within a year? Money back. Expire within a legally mandated time it should reasonably be operational? Half refund. Etc.
Here in the Netherlands we have rules for devices that say a user should get a minimum reasonable use-time out of it or get a free replacement or money back.
That even trumps the 1 year standard warranty if it's a manufacturing issue or error.
@@Virtualblueart That's literally the only way you could achieve this, as online game inherently survive as long as there are enough users playing it to warrant the cost of maintaining the servers. It would make no sense to set an expirey date, but guaranteeing a refund if it closes within a certain period after you bought it, that's fair.
You're on shaky ground with your foundational argument.
That is the assertion of "Planned Obsolescence" ... as while a Developer / Publisher *might* plan to perform an "End of Life" to one of their products., that in of itself doesn't mean that the Product itself is guaranteed to cease functioning.
This isn't the same as for example the Automotive or Mobile Phone Industries., where their Hardware is either quite literally designed to fail after a certain lifespan... or how their Software Ecosystem works means that the absence of any further updates then directly prevents access to Online Functionality (Store, Previous Purchases, etc.)
There does *need* to be an open discussion about such practises and what measure should be in place to prevent such predatory approaches., especially given that those Business' who are _most_ engaged with such are also Market Leaders (i.e. they have available funds and more often than not are receiving uncompetitive tax breaks., either through backroom deals, formal agreements for "Special Treatment" by Governments or utilising loopholes available to Corporate Entities).
Now while I agree., how particularly EA and UbiSoft operate with their GaaS Products., such-as "The Crew" but also various Multiplayer Focused (as both engaged *heavily* in Multiplayer Only Games for almost an entire Generation) where-by Servers are shut-down and repurposed for their Latest Releases; without any "Final Patch" and Additional Release for the Public to run their *own* Servers.
The problem comes into play when we're talking in more general terms.
That is _most_ games cease functioning because a Developer will simply go bankrupt., and while Publishers are typically responsible for Infrastructure (i.e. Servers, Accounts, etc.) the problem is that there *would* be a clear cost component to when a Developer goes under thus the need to either underwrite that Developer until they complete work to allow Games to continue functioning without them (which keep in mind, you've just lost your job... where is the incentive to COMPLETE that work *if* the Publisher is legally *required* to get the Developers to do that?) otherwise they'd need to bring in Contractors, which is fine except then they'll take time to get up to speed on the Codebase to then rework it to accomplish what is desired.
This is of course assuming it was even written in the first place for that to be possible without more-or-less a complete re-write.
Thus, potentially up to 18 - 24mo. of redevelopment with zero return (as I'd imagine you'd expect this as a FREE update)., so; possibly looking at albeit it lower a full development cycle and cost JUST to maintain playability.
All of course assuming there are no issues with more modern Platforms (i.e. New Release of Windows, Linux, MacOS; or the various Consoles... assuming you'd want them included too; each of which have different ecosystems and platform licensing agreements. I mean while sure, Microsoft have ZERO issues with you changing a product from Retail, Sub or Free-to-Play... Android, iOS, AppStore, Sony *and* Steam; would all *require* a new release as if it were a new product)
Look., we all agree it sucks when Developers / Publishers "Pull-the-Plug" on Games., especially GaaS Titles.
The problem is that while it would be nice to have legislation that prevents them from simply seeing their income drop too much, or release a new version and be like "Yeah, let's brick the previous version... try to get people onto our new Game."., the problem as a whole is much more complex and nuanced than simply the _more_ scummy behaviour of the BIG Publishers/Developers.
Now something I *would* argue would be better to see an initial change in the law would be with Abandonware in general terms.
That is to say that _should_ a Publisher / Developer *not* have *ANY* active development / involvement with a released Game., that game after 10 years then it becomes Public Domain... including Intellectual Property.
This would be to say that., someone like EA (for example) or the various Financial Companies that just sit on IPs / Games... that are no longer sold or engaged with., just hording them; can be openly shared, cracked (removed protection) and freely distributed; as well as anyone being allowed to utilise said IP.
And if this is also followed up with that *any* Software that is either sold or has been monetised *MUST* be in a *Functional* State on its intended platforms., with a provision that "In Development" Access may only be a maximum of 24mo. from initial release.
This is to prevent games from being in "Perma Early Access" while earning., with the excuse for non-functional elements being "Well it's Work-in-Progress..."... sure, but you've monetise it; either through a buy-in (Retail) or through IAP; once you're EARNING from a Product it then should be a legal requirement to ensure said Product is functional (to an original promised degree, i.e. Features) or permit FULL refunds within 24mo.
And as noted, said Software should be Functional with each release.
The point I'm making is once you have *basics* in place, you can then expand / specialise said legislation regarding things like GaaS Titles.
@@alexatkin Incoming text on the back of box and splash screen when starting up the game: "We will only guarantee the game will remain playable for a period of 30 days from it's initial release. Online features may be shut down at any time after this date without notice, as outlined in the EULA"
I'm from the UK and have signed the petition, this morning I received this e-mail:
"The Petitions Committee (the group of MPs who oversee the petitions system) has considered the Government’s response to this petition. They felt the response did not respond directly to the request of the petition. They have therefore asked the Government to provide a revised response.
When the Committee receives a revised response from the Government, we will publish this and share it with you."
Keep the fight going
“But first things first: the Australian petition”
*cuts to Mad Max*
I snorted when I saw the cut
Its fitting because Mad Max had content cut from the game with some WB service going offline.
@@herpderp3131Lol of course. I know that the WB ID thing for Mortal Kombat X just gave owners the free content from it.
@@herpderp3131 Yup! But at least on PC, mods will get the DLC back, none of which was all that important. What it won't get back is the functionality of the offline scrap-collecting station which makes grinding scrap a LOT more laborious.
Me and Max have both signed 👍
Canada petition has already surpassed the requirement to be addressed by the government. It always looks better the more signatures there are though.
"SUP FOOL" is a 10/10 videogame licence plate
also i done my democromancing for the week by signing
This guy must be a real fan of Freeman's Mind, huh? Pretty obscure reference, but I got it
For Democracy!
@@therealmrglanet2127He likes Freeman's mind so much, that he has the whole series on his channel!
New mini update came through just now:
Petitions Committee requests a revised response from the Government
The Petitions Committee (the group of MPs who oversee the petitions system) has considered the Government’s response to this petition. They felt the response did not respond directly to the request of the petition. They have therefore asked the Government to provide a revised response.
Was just about to post this myself. It's good that they've decided it requires a better response.
@@The13thGhostBunny Ditto. Hopefully we'll get a meatier response this time. One that actually engages with the core points of the petition.
It's almost like the government said 'Oh hey, this sounds an awful lot like fraud.' I'm ready to see Ross Scott's real-life Phoenix Wright spinoff.
You are doing the world a favor Ross. Lets go!
Global hero!
Damn Straight! lets go
Woo!
Hey Ross, it might be worth pinning this as relevant: the UK govt has started mandating that digital products (in this case, IoT such as smart home products, surveillance cameras, etc) NEED to have a term of expiry, a "best before" date. I think this is absolutely relevant here because the reasons for this are very similar.
This seems highly relevant indeed. Have my upvote, up to the top you go!
Yes, definitely worth looking into!
Seems like the law's written vaguely enough that almost any "internet-connectable product" comes under the law, including games and consoles. (Though there are some exceptions, like phone apps.)
Nintendo UK's already published that the Switch, and Switch games, will receive updates "Until (at least) 29 April 2026" because of it.
Won't help stop games shutting down, but seems like they at least need to include expiry dates now in the UK.
If it helps: the law is "The Product Security and Telecommunications Infrastructure (Security Requirements for Relevant Connectable Products) Regulations 2023".
The downside is that publishers will start to put expiration dates on EVERY game, even the ones that do not require an internet connection, this will then backfire when eventually all games have some sort of online component meaning games can just be switched off as soon as the publisher wants you to buy the new one. Imagine if every Elder Scrolls game became unplayable just before the release of Elder Scrolls 6? I still play Morrowind 22 years after it came out...
I feel that this debacle surrounding The Crew needs to be handled very carefully because it is going to lead to major changes in publishing and any change in publishing often bites consumers on the dick.
@@krashd that's not how technology works homie. if a game doesn';t require internet services to function, there's no way to turn it off remotely, therefore it keeps working no matter what some ahole wants.
@@krashd what do you think why most games that have no good reason for it require an online connection these days? the publishers are ALREADY doing that... its not a "they might start" its a "they are"
and theyve been doing that for a long time - the battlefield series for example always starts massively degrading the service on the previous iteration of the most recently released game, to get people to migrate over
look at the hitman games that always require an online connection to work even though they are purely single player
look at the latest iterations of heroes of might and magic - same deal there, even if you never touch the multiplayer parts
games like diablo 3 and 4 requiring a live connection at all times
this will just make it visible
meanwhile any games that dont have requirements like this - they will work indefinitely as long as the hardware and software requirements are met (compatible and sufficient processing power as well as a compatible operating system with the necessary libraries)... so any working copy will keep working, no matter what the company does - heck in such cases the company could just decide to put a "best before" label on it for the next century and not worry about any legal problems from that... and to a consumer? that would be a pretty clear message as well... especially when a bunch of the games sitting next to it on the shelf state dates one or two years from the current date
Just got an email from the UK Parliament website (I signed the petition) saying that the guys who QC these things have basically told the government "yeah, not good enough, chief" and told them to rewrite their response; they were basically answering the question indirectly like absolutely every politician ever. So hopefully now we'll get an ACTUAL response.
Here's hoping that they are now forced to address the actual points of the petition as opposed to making up points they'd rather address.
@@JamesTobiasStewart The petition needs 100k signatures and has barely crossed 1/4 of the way there. They won't have to do anything. A MUCH bigger fight was put up against lootboxes and other gambling and predatory practices in video games, they even tried the "Won't somebody think of the children!?" tactic, and it went nowhere. The UK government, especially THIS UK government, do not give a rats arse about any of this, regardless of how loud people get.
@@surgicalslinky This UK government has 6 weeks left in the tank, so thats at least a positive
@@xb2856 And then we have another five years of an even more useless government.
I'm a UK citizen and I'm glad I had the opportunity to sign your petition. Companies really do need to STOP KILLING GAMES!
How is your cat doing?
@@deadbeef576 My cats are doing great. Adopting them from a shelter was the best decision I ever made.
Putting a label on games telling you when they'll shut down will HUGELY impact the sales. Even if all it leads to is companies figuring out a new way to obfuscate, i'll be happy that the ball is in their court for once.
I hate to be the pessimist but... will it? I doubt they'd be required to say "THE GAME WILL SHUT DOWN AND NOT FUNCTION ON JANUARY 1ST 2030", I'm guessing it'll just be a little "expires 1/1/2030" which
A) can be interpreted multiple ways, I might read that as the code expiring on that day rather than the game itself
B) would be easy to obfuscate for digital marketplaces that don't care about consumer rights, and easy to make region-specific without any major costs or development time, thus limiting global impact. On a physical copy it might be hard to miss but on a store page full of text it could be very easy to unless a pop-up states it while attempting to purchase (which is highly unlikely to be required, since that would be a marketplace obligation rather than a game publisher obligation)
@@plushie946I think if they were made to do it by the gov, there would be some sort of standard to what actually qualified as valid information
They couldn't just be vague on purpose.
@@stitchfinger7678 Again, that involves much wider implications because it'd require digital marketplaces to add this additional information. Governments are still years behind on digital marketplace regulation. I worry such requirements would have robust guidelines for physical copies, but may neglect to require online marketplaces such as steam from displaying the information. If the requirements lay entirely on the companies it is likely they'd only be required to post the end date on their own websites and marketplaces but would not require third party marketplaces to do so.
"Best before 31/1/2030."
@@plushie946I think I would, even with a "Best by 2030"
That tells me;
Single player with no online features: They will stop patching. Still playable (purchase)
Single player with online features: They plan to stop support and some features may break (no purchase until more info is gathered)
Multiplayer game: the game is dead in that year and unplayable. (No purchase, unless detailed plan to allow local host or other solution is laid out)
Not perfect, but it's a start.
I did get an e-mail from the French consumer protection thingy (I'm Swiss, so I did do the international thing) and all they gave me is a quote from Ubisoft that they announced the shutdown. I responded that I'm not happy with the response, and that I'd like to get a way to play the game without Ubisofts servers.
Today I got an E-Mail from ubisoft asking if my ticket is still valide, and I did ensure it stays open by expressing that I'd like to play the singleplayer game without their servers too.
Is there any place I should forward those e-mails to?
I don't know but I liked the comment so more people see it.
At the end he shows his email on screen! Maybe send those to him there
11:49 "The CRA has a time limit of up to six years _after a breach of contract_ during which a consumer can take legal action."
It is as it's said: Up to 6 years _after breaching the contract_ - not from the date you sign/agree to the contract, but the date in which the contract itself is breached.
So if you can find something in the EULA to use in a legal case, you have up to 6 years after 31/03/2024 (potentially up to 2030) for a case to be made.
technically they didn't breach any contract: their right to remove your licence was there in the EULA from day 1. what they did wrong is they failed to comply to UK requirements about giving you all relevant information. so I think this 6 years thing doesn't apply in this case
@@vsm1456 I'm not quite sure in this case. But if relevant information is deliberately not in the contract, it can mean that part of the contract didn't apply. But it depends, a lot. The EULA also isn't part of the contract of sale, it's to limit liability of the provider and outline correct use of the software by the end user. They can't just decide in a EULA that they aren't liable for their end of the contract of sale, that's statutory. Either way, the only thing that actually matters is as you pointed out that they didn't provide relevant information that would've affected the decision to purchase.
@@Bozebothe CMA also has soft powers to intervene outside court and these are about to be enhanced through the digital markets bill
If Ross appears on BBC news for a interview, I'm totally gonna watch it.
bbc news are a bunch of preds. they got caught protecting the uk's worst known pedo for over 40 years. jimmy savile was a king at the bbc.
uk royal family involved as well
As an American I’m holding up my hands to give my energy to all you foreign guys who can actually do something about this. Best of luck.
Spirit protest!
I'm archiving games and other data SO HARD.
If you have any friends or contacts overseas, spread the word to them. That's what I've been doing from Texas. Just ask folks to sign the petition for archival purposes.
You can also spread the information. There will never be a point where everyone who should know about this campaign knows about it.
@@glass7923 I think GamersNexus is on the job, they said: "we're letting this thing brew a bit..." and the fact we know how heavy-handed they are god have mercy to whom experience their wrath! 🤣
I signed the UK petition and got this response. I can't say I fully understood it but it seemed to be saying "nah, mate, not interested". I didn't realise the implication of the paragraph Ross seized on. Good work, Mr Scott!
Same here, I thought the campaign was a bust in the UK until I saw this video.
Hey Ross. I just got an email from the Petitions Committee saying they have requested a revised response from the UK government because they did not directly address the issue outlined in the petition. There may still be hope!
Yeah that made a pleasant surprise.
"Would you like to sign my petition?"
-Accursed Farms
Suddenly, i have Postal 2 vibes.
To be honest I was expecting some useless non-answer from the Government without them trying to understand the issue beyond "This might inconvience our donors." but lo and behold they may have given us a loophole to actually act.
Gaming Companies are not their donors. Also, the UK you can't donate in the same way as the US. They have regulations on the specific they may even use to campaign.
its a pretty poopy response but its good enough for us to do something i guess
@@1famekouby Erm... Not really at all related to what I posted...
Specially considering that in the US donating to politicians can be done quite legally, even things like offering jobs after they are done being a Politician, so it has nothing to do with being "above the law"...
You do realize the government is the one enforcing copyright laws right?
@@1famekouby
Fella, I'd take our laws over this than those in the US.
You've effectively made it so any ten bob billionaire can influence elections - look at the damage Soros has done with District Attorney cronyism.
Britain has become something of a nanny state where we over regulate speech etc but in some respects this nannying has worked out well in that we have much higher food standards than you do in the US (much higher, as in ridiculously higher standards in comparison.)
Now things are starting to make sense- more on this later.
Now that you mentioned it... what happened to the guy who role played as that character in the comments? He seemed to have a mental breakdown the last time I saw him. Hope he's doing well.
@@boneman-calciumenjoyer8290 which video is that?
@@masako8980 Maabus
@@masako8980
From my best guess, it may have been The Admiral.
@@boneman-calciumenjoyer8290WhT are you guys talking about
Swapping to Max Max the instant he mentions Australia was a brilliant touch.
Uk govt sent another response saying the last one wasnt directly adressing the problem so they will do another response
Here's hoping we see an improvement.
Canada hit 1000 within the first 24 hours, currently at ~1300 [Edit: Hour after the video released, just shy of 1600] [Edit: 2 Hours, 1800] [Edit 3: 4 hours post video, we're at over 2100] [Edit 4: 8 Hours post video, 2500 signatures!]
just singed it bro, send it to all your friends and family
Why not abolish copyright law?
We're going to need a lot of signatures for this to go anywhere. It doesn't seem like any of the major parties care.
Splendid.
I'm doing my part! 💪
"Self check-out law enforcement" was by design. Company's have spent trillions over the last 30 years to make the system like this in the UK and the USA. I'm thinking of two key figures in UK and American politics that opened the floodgates to this kind of crap.
What are their names?
@@Sewblon Ronald and Margaret
@@TheGruntonfire8 So what did they do that gave us self-checkout law enforcement?
@@Sewblon Both Thatcher and Reagan hugely reduces government regulation, to the point where many industries were essentially allowed to do whatever they wanted, and those regulations have never been re-implemented.
@@pt8306 And noboeing had problems with that ever again.
just got this update and it is good news!
"The Petitions Committee (the group of MPs who oversee the petitions system) has considered the Government’s response to this petition. They felt the response did not respond directly to the request of the petition. They have therefore asked the Government to provide a revised response.
When the Committee receives a revised response from the Government, we will publish this and share it with you."
We could yet see a open air grilling of them!
I don't get how something as simple as "I don't want the painting I purchased to melt into goo in a couple years" is such a hot topic in the government. Well actually I DO understand how, but still. My heart goes out to the modelers, texture artists, and programmers who won't be able to show their families and friends what they spent YEARS of their life on because their bosses chucked into an incinerator.
I'm so glad I'm in science where my publications will stay up pretty much forever. In an age where we can preserve all digital media, this is insane.
It feels like in their obfuscating non-committal neutral response produced after hearing a condensed tl;dr version of the petition from an intern they might have accidentally slipped something actually useful.
A nice surprise.
This is dreadful, Ross hates mazes!
As he has said before, he is not a minutaur
@@MrBox009 judging by the minotaurs actions, he didn't like the maze much either.
UK news, the UK petition is being closed as part of the election process. It will need to be started again from scratch as the old one won’t be reopened.
Heads THEY win! Tails YOU lose!
@@iamrocketray I took the coin. I win-lose!
really the biggest problem this faces in the UK is that it's happening on an election year (an election which is all but guaranteed to result in a change in the ruling party) which makes it unlikely that any of the outgoing MPs are going to be interested
What goes out must be replaced though and one good thing is that the Tories are losing a lot of seats to Labour, the Tories are always ALWAYS going to side with corporate over consumer so it's Labour MPs we really need on this.
@@krashd ALL UK politicians are in the pockets of Big Business or Big Pharma or Big Banking. SO no hope of this going anywhere!
When a UK government petition hits 100k and they are then obligated to discuss it in parliament, that often just means like three people will show up and half-heartedly acknowledge that the petition exists. Or at least that's the bare minimum of what would actually happen. and I'm not confident I can see much more than that happening on this issue where the government themselves clearly don't understand or care about it. It'll probably be more effective to take things down the other route with regulators instead.
Maybe we'll have to wait until some MPs are young enough to actually understand what a video game is.
@@Archangelm127 that will take decades :(
yeah it doesn't usually amount to much, but it will mean that we'll get a more detailed view of what the government's position is on it and thus a better idea of where things stand
It’s better than nothing. Somebody who cares about videogames in Parliament might take it further.
@@Archangelm127 People in their 50s now grew up with video games, like they basically invented the medium itself or rather people older than them did. But somehow none of those in parliament apparently.
Listening to this update i randomly had an image of Ross testifying before Congress pop in my head
Followed by Louis Rossmann speaking on how GM killing your car when the new model releases would not fly either.
An important note on the Australian Petition!! It DOES NOT COUNT until you CONFIRM IN THE EMAIL they send you.
It might be the same in other countries, but it is definitely the case for Australia.
Another UK citizen here, I would kill to act on this huge opportunity.
When I read the gvmt response myself I practically jumped out of my seat at that paragraph lol.
Massive thanks as always to the incredible volunteers - incl. Ross - putting in all of this work. Not all herous wear capes
I came here not because of the call of the bell, but because of the call of the heart.
Stop killing games!
Abolish copyright laws I agree!
@@BicBoi1984 "Abolishing copyright laws" was never the goal of this campaign. Having an end of life plan for an online game doesn't impact the copyright status of the game.
.com
@@BicBoi1984 Well that's borderline radical, which is fine, but this is a very specific campaign. These are adjacent issues though, so if you care about that then you probably care about this. Just try to be a teamplayer and not get into arguments about things well beyond the scope of this campaign.
I agree.
We should ask the government what other products can be recalled without compensation at any point after sale.
I signed it and got an email a few days later saying the petition committee think the response that was given by parliament is inadequate and doesn't answer the question, so parliament are going to be made to provide a new answer!
As an American that can't participate in this movement, but just got through the rollercoaster war of Helldivers vs Sony, godspeed you mad bastard.
The game is still delisted in those countries on Steam and as a result, my negative review got appended instead of changed into positive. Still not over.
@@Ozzianman It's not going to release in those countries because of local laws, trade tariffs and restrictions, currency stability and any number of other legal reasons. It is over. PlayStatiion Network launched in 2006 and if it's not available in every country by now, it won't be. Get over it.
@@surgicalslinky
Sony should never have made the game available for sale in those regions to begin with. That is the *MAIN ISSUE* here. They sold the game to people outside of PSN supported regions who were able to play for months only to make the game unplayable. Steam did accept refund requests from players who could no longer play the game.
They never would have gotten this large of a backlash from the community if they had enforced PSN requirements and much more importantly, had region restrictions in place from day one. Communication is key and they failed. People are in the right for being mad at Sony. So no, it is not quite over. Sony's failure in communication and enforcement has damaged customer trust among PC players. That is goodwill they have to rebuild.
That response feels exactly like being on customer service for a technical problem in which the CSR has much less of a clue than yourself on what's going on. The good thing is that usually results in things escalating until someone that actually knows what is going on talks to you, so hopefully the same happens here.
100K signatures would require MPs to debate the topic in a side chamber of the house of commons. They're usually pretty boring affairs where the usual partisan types stand up and pontificate about nothing that's actually relevant to the debate, but a scant few MPs will actually do some research into the topic and try to highlight the issue properly. The likelyhood of this even coming close to landing on the prime minister's desk is so minimial as to be ignored, especially in an election year. If the thing gets like a million signatures then *maybe*. But yeah we're mostly going to have to rely on existing laws here, rather than hoping for new laws to be written in our favor.
No it doesn't. "this petition will be **considered** for debate in Parliament"
I think this "acceptable standard" clause would be violated if the product didn't function, so I think the crew is in violation of UK consumer law.
You're right Ross.
I had nooo clue that in the ToS they say they can just take it from you and demand you also destroy the product.
Imagine if they tried to pull that with cars or something.
"We've just released the new Ford, we've decided we don't want anyone having the older models so please immediately destroy your car in your local crusher"
That part was wild I can't believe it's allowed
@@raidcrhonos Like, I knew the ToS would be bad but like not like that blatantly evil bad. Like, you can't even sugar coat it like, at all.
@@raidcrhonos It's almost definitely not allowed, but they put it in there anyways because they can (and it looks threatening to the average person lol)
the problem is no one reads tos or eulas, then get shocked when something they should have read gets taken from them or implemented in a way that they don't like and the unfortunate part, it is perfectly legal for servers to online only games to shut down if the company finds reason to do so, in this case, the crew was basically dead anyway and why should they upkeep a game that barely has people playing? online games shut down all the time and no one bats an eye, not even governmental bodies care.
@@XHiddenXSniperX We all know people ignore EULAs (for many quite valid reasons) but the big problem with them, apart from them being allowed to claim corporate rights to things that are clearly illegal, is that you're not presented with the EULA before purchase, and that companies can change or cancel their EULA at any time, and you're required to agree to their terms to even use the product you already paid for. And if there are changes to the EULA that you might disagree with enough to stop using the product, if they have taken place outside of a refund period, your SOL
Signed for Canada! Thanks for doing this!
A few things about the UK:
In the UK we have different law for:
* England and Wales,
* Scotland and
* Northern Ireland.
The country of Wales is not properly recognised as a country separate to England in some ways. (There is nothing for Wales on the Union Flag, for example.) This may change in the future, as we now have a devolved government for all of Wales and local Welsh laws voted on by people elected only by people living in Wales would make more sense. At the same time Great Britain (minus Northern Ireland because of the flexing of Brexiteers) is a common trade area. So maybe it doesn't make sense to have people other than the UK Parliament deciding on this. I'm not sure.
* Scotland might not have this law, but it will have it's own law. There is actually a petition website for the Scottish Parliament (and one for the Welsh devolved government) but they do not control every aspect of law in Scotland (and Wales). They have some power, but not full power. So you might need the UK Parliament to update Scottish Consumer Law. Again I am not sure. You really need to find a Scottish law expert who can tell you if the one petition to Westminster can do the whole thing.
* Trading Standards: In the UK Trading Standards offices are part of local government. So you would not get one investigation for all of England and Wales. You are basically dealing with someone for a small part of England or Wales that would be investigating people sold hat game in that area. (I'm not sure Trading Standards is fully up to the challenge of online sales.)
Another avenue you might want to investigate is the Freedom of Information (FOI) laws. If you look up "How to make a freedom of information (FOI) request" on the UK government websites, you will see that you can make requests from "publicly owned companies". So if any of the companies have an office in the UK and are advertising the game for sale in the UK, that would probably be a situation where you can make the required request, in the specific way and say: "When does this game that requires an internet connection expire?" and share any evasive responses you get to pressurise the companies into telling the truth.
Check the Freedom of Information request laws in other countries too. If publically traded companies started to get lots and lots of FOI requests for every game they would probably rack up a lot of money dealing with them and would probably decide that being transparent was cheaper.
Good luck!
Incidentally, the thing related to Northern Ireland might turn out to be relevant if you can chase this up with the EU parliament and they decide it is an EU-wide issue, rather than an issue for individual countries to rule on.
I know that the EU has decided to take on mobile phone and computer companies that make glued in batteries, that make it harder for users to keep using their phones, for example. And I hear you when you say that "Phones and video games are not the same thing" but the EU focus here is to not have a ton of phones go into landfill. When it comes to video games, if people are going to stores and buying a DVD ROM or Blu-ray with the data on and the game gets "turned off" that means those games go into landfill. And that could be your angle at getting help from the EU. If the purchase is virtual and people are just downloading ones and zeros then the environmental concern might not apply.
Another Detail: Almost no game requires an Internet Connection itself, they require an appropriate answer from the DRM or other (likely) Publisher controlled Servers, regardless of ones own internet connection (even though that usually that happens via the Internet). So imho 'requires internet connection to be played' is simply misleading as if that was the Case the Crew would still be playable for anyone with an Internet connection, but it doesn't because it's not the intenret that's missing but the answer from the DRM or other (likely) Publisher controlled Servers.
Damn…I never wanted to be first like this. Keep up the good fight, Ross. You’re the closest thing to TotalBiscuit we’ve had since he passed, and we’ve really needed a voice with power to help fight back.
Thanks for all that you do, man. Take care
Was able to sign both the Canadian and UK petitions. Gotta love that dual citizenship.
Maybe we could send this to the Watchdog show on the BBC? That could reach a huge audience
Just an FYI: The petition has been updated today:
"The Petitions Committee (the group of MPs who oversee the petitions system) has considered the Government’s response to this petition. They felt the response did not respond directly to the request of the petition. They have therefore asked the Government to provide a revised response."
Here's hoping we get something more substantial this time. Preferably that addresses what was asked.
18,520 signatures in the uk so far.
Awesome work Ross you’re a true revolutionary with work like this
We got this, let's keep them from killing our games!
Except that this has another problem ... as a general election has been called in the UK. All petitions to the UK government are currently closed / suspended & won't carry over - UNLESS / UNTIL a new government is elected. After that, folks will probably have to create a new petition aimed at the new government.
The breach of contract, that would definitely be at worst, the timing of the announcement of shutting the game down, and at best, the timing of the shutdown. The time of purchase has no relevance to the timing, as far as I can tell, because at that time, the contract was not breached. They were sold a perpetual license, and as long as they are left with the idea that they can play their game for whatever unforeseen future, then the contract has yet been breached. That's how I see it.
Yay! Its working, sorta for now...
gotta hope it doesnt lose momentum, if that happens were screwed
self-checkout law enforcement is another banger statement to add to my vernacular
That license plate is the best thing ever. You got this Ross!
I've signed the UK petition, long shot but I hope we get some where.
Elected MPs are older people who still think VideoGames are toys for children or murder simulators that train school shooters, either way they see gaming as bad/irelevent in society and thus will not care and do nothing.
I would say that the amount of dead games being sold at game resellers means that the lay person expects it to keep working indefinitely
Exactly, the single player portions at least. And there is already a distinction between the single player and multi player aspects very much understood legally.
My main takeaway from reading the response was that the matter will have to be tested in court - it's a civil matter, and the govt itself won't be getting involved directly. Best start looking at funding a specific lawsuit (with enough cash to get lawyers who have a chance of defeating corporate lawyers) to create a precedent. As for the 100k signatures and law - it's actually more underwhelming, all it means is that the matter will be debated in parliament. Which tends to be a rather depressing affair, typically maybe a dozen or two bored parliamentarians having a discussion about it - it doesn't automatically mean that anyone will actually suggest a piece of legislation to follow...
The UK regulator the CMA could bring the case. Or a consumer rights group like Which. Any ruling would have affect on all similar terms. The CMA is getting more powers soon through the digital markets Bill too
Ross is such a brilliant visual storyteller... That uses Mad Max game when talking about Australia.
Saw it submitted earlier (just commenting for the algo) but it’s definitely a good idea to submit these stories to the technology departments of a variety of news organizations. If you contacted the BBC, AP News, The Guardian, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, etc. you would be drawing a lot of attention to this issue!
Response from the UK government...
You know, people wrote to them before....and got a petition passed to discuss a topic on the floor.....and then they agreed that "we don't need to discuss this" and considered the topic "discussed"
Because really out of all the things that need addressing this is last for sure.
"We're getting closer... to something." This last line perfectly sums up my feelings about this update. 😅
"... And then convince government to do their job..."
Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmlet me stop you right there...
Already signed and got as many of my Australian friends to sign the Australian petition, and spread the news to various Australian groups. I have now poked two Canadian friends and got them to sign the Canadian petition and asked them to also spread the word. We can do this, everyone! Thank you Scott Ross for being the driving force behind this campaign! ✊
Makes me wonder if Accursed Farms will acknowledge the demise of the LittleBigPlanet series alongside the serious archival efforts that went into saving almost ALL of the levels from LBP1, LBP2 and LBP3 here? :O
but those games are actually still playable.
Relevance?
It'll probably show up on Dead Game News
I wouldn't be surprised if he's aware of it, though it's not necessarily relevant to the campaign so if he mentions it it'll be in another video.
Yeah, I made a twitter post on it, unfortunately I can't really do much about it in the present, hence we're trying to get the law enforced on the industry. Everything we're doing is to prevent that sort of thing from happening in the future. The LBP user levels would be in a hazier area, but if we can get our foot in the door in guaranteeing games aren't destroyed, then surely how functional they are would be the next thing examined by the public. It's the sort of thing where if I had been able to act on this 10 years ago, it might not be happening now, but I just have to go with where the openings are.
You're doing the world a favor Ross! Thank you!
May 22 isn't a far away date, so Australians who have purchased The Crew and want to join the action need to hurry. As for the UK side, the ammo there isn't quite plenty but at least there's something to work with. I really hope this keeps getting more traction, so that videogame companies stop treating games as perishable consumables. Thank you for the update, Ross!
Being a Canadian-Australian citizen, I have signed both petitions. Huzzah. PITA that the Australian system does not support e-mail addresses with + symbols in them. 😕
Half and half eh? As a Brit I bestow upon thee the title Daughter of the Colonies for services to petition signage!
Proud of ya man. You're killing it, thanks for really spear heading this.
Thank you so much for doing this, and thanks to anyone who signed petitions! Let's take back our games! :D
Just signed the Canadian petition - was waiting for that. Excellent work! Let's keep making noise!
During its Kickstarter, Elite Dangerous was promised to have an offline mode in the event they would shut the game down. Frontier is a UK studio. The law, according to that paragraph, could ensure Elites continuance.
I got this in an email, so why am I watching? Because none other than Gordon Freeman is reading it out!
These companies need to put into laymans terms bold in the front of the cover of the game or even have a customer "sign" a disclaimer that the game will be unavailable after the games lifetime. I bet the games sales would drop dramatically till they got rid of that.
Technically we DO sign an agreement. We have to agree to the ToS, which did clearly state from day one they could kill the game at any time. Unfortunately because of that, this is likely all going to end up going nowhere. I hope I'm wrong though.
@CommanderRedEXE how's that boot taste?
The point is, you shouldn't need to be a lawyer to understand what is happening with your purchases.
Don't play semantics.
Because then we revert to quite literally defining everything, in which this case we would revert all the way to purchase/buy. Which has a strict definition.
In the case of these companies, you're not buying games, yet they sell them to you. Not lease or rent them. So unless they change THEIR terminology it's only a matter of time before this DOES hit congress, at least here in the states, and either A.) Game makers have to use the terms lease/rent, or B.) When you buy a game it's forever yours to use infinitely and they can't take that away.
@@garypinholster1962 I'm not bootlicking. I'm looking at this LEGALLY. We were told from day one they could shut it down any time. LEGALLY, this would be considered more than a fair warning.
Clearly YOU don't know a thing about legality. They may not have given an exact date, but they gave a warning regardless. In ToS you HAD to agree to, so you could play at that. Almost like you AGEEED to those terms to play. Meaning legally, they already won.
I say this as similar lawsuits have happened in the past and been tossed out for similar reasons.
I HATE Ubisoft and the fact games can be shut down. But legally speaking early warning was given via ToS required to be accepted to play.
@@CommanderRedEXE Guess it's back to pirating then. Middle finger to all the legal eagles.
You do realize that AGAIN law is by definition. By definition you are NOT purchasing the game nor buying it. You are leasing it.
This is, as the video stated at one point, imagine if a phone company did this in someway. At an undetermined time, at some point Google will brick your physical device for arbitrary reasons.
You can't morally support wrong laws. Your arguments are bordering the "well slavery was legal" territory. As well as all this, ToS have to follow laws, this is ALSO like a company like EK Waterblocks in recent news, sending C&D's to employees for breaking NDA's cause they whistleblew about internal affairs at the company. NDA's are essentially, a ToS. It's only legal IF it is following laws. And I have a feeling these companies, when pressured in the courts, will collapse when trying to defend their practices.
I do think we will see that in our lifetimes thankfully. I'd hate to have to keep on pirating stuff. Just such a hassle.
@@CommanderRedEXECourts don’t usually get too hung up on obscure details in a TOS. They know that nobody reads them and they accept that, because it just isn’t realistic to expect otherwise considering human nature.
Greetings from Quebec, Canada! Glad to do my part (Starship Troopers-style) to stop games from being killed! Thanks a lot, Ross & Co!
Hey just letting you know the UK gov have updated their response, it appears certain MPs pressured the original response stating it did not answer the petition concern sufficiently.
Give it a look I think there's more to work with in there
Happy to hear there might be an angle now. That's fantastic news
Interesting, cause that little bit about clarity of rules is exactly why the helldivers 2 situation exploded. The game itself says psn is mandatory, but the psn website said its not.
The developers said they turned the mandatory linking off, but it was planned up to six months prior to release.
Sony let it slide for a whole 3 months, and then also as publisher sold the product to the many markets without psn apparently knowing that access would be taken away.
They put themselves in a situation where they have to argue against fraud by making a case of negligence as to why they sold a game to places that would get restricted access.
Oh and the whole fuckin thing was for absolutely no reason from the publisher.
(Edit)
But we still won, because we dive together or not at all. That shit gave me hope, and I honestly hope some of the fan base can realize how closely related these two subjects are. Doubly so since HD2 is in fact an always online "live service" game. It too will die one day, and when that day comes, we will need to remember May 6th
That fight isn't over actually. The games haven't been unrestricted from those countries and Sony added 3 more for a total of 180 countries that just can't buy the game now.
Thanks for all your efforts on this! Doing my best to spread awareness in Canada about our Petition.
Best of luck everyone with your own efforts.
Canadian petition signed, looking at 4099 signatures so far:
Alberta 532
British Columbia 722
Manitoba 143
New Brunswick 82
Newfoundland and Labrador 47
Northwest Territories 3
Nova Scotia 135
Nunavut 2
Ontario 1552
Prince Edward Island 17
Quebec 690
Saskatchewan 124
Yukon 5
Excellent work Dr. Freeman. Recently Helldivers 2 had attempted to enforce PSN logins to play, depriving over 100 countries of their $40-$60 game. It looks like the industry depriving customers of their ownership and not disclosing that has become a criminal habit as of late. I'll be on the lookout for more games that have done this to report to the proper authorities. Thanks for the great work as always. I can see your MIT degree is speaking pretty well.
We are on the right track!
I'm a UK citizen and I have signed the petition and shared it.
If the UK petition gets 100,000, it will be debated by MPs, but not "in Parliament" (the House of Commons). It's just a dozen guys in a fancy room that's within in the Houses of Parliament (the Palace of Westminster). Those MPs will debate/decide if it should go any further.
Petitions rarely achieve anything, but they're normally unrealistic. Consumer rights is a sensible issue, so the MPs should at least give it a fair hearing.
Ross, please extend this to Turkey. I will personally do everything in my power as a gamer to spread this. I am trying to find a gamer lawyer right this moment. Turkey is kind of embedded in European law in different ways in my knowledge, and we have a legal system VERY open to social media pressure. Try it out and i will do my part.
You're a legend Ross. Campaigns like this are extremely important for keeping our rights not just as gamers but customers in general. The corporations will gladly take every inch we don't fight for. Otherwise we'll own nothing and very much not be happy
Oh hey, I remember seeing Shelby's video on Tech Tangents about dead games, and he linked to your site and there wasn't a petition for my country (Australia), so I parked the tab and thought I'd check back later. Now I just saw this video in my feed and thought it would be interesting to see your progress in the UK, but it turned out the petition was already live! Petition signed, and forwarded to my friends.
Keep fighting the good fight!
I can only bow my head in deep respect.
Was waiting for this update
Keep it going, Ross. The other day there was a huge win in the fight against scummy business practices where Sony ended up reversing some bullshit account link requirement between Steam and PSN that would have cut access to Helldivers 2 if you lived somewhere PSN was not available. We did it in that situation, we can do it in this one too.
The game's still gonna die.
That was a dumb decision they, thankfully, went back on (even though I don't play Helldivers 2). This won't be so simple due to the scope, but we can always hope.
Or you guys can hope. I am a US citizen with near no social presence, so I can't do anything for stopkillinggames
They probably did it to pump up their PSN numbers
It's not reversed until the purchase button reappears on Steam for players in non-PSN countries. I happen to be one of them.
@@dusanmeseldzija3882 This! People are celebrating too early. The fact they still aren't allowing sales again is a huge red flag they're going to let things die down the shove it in later, likely after GoT gets people used to needing PSN for the co-op stuff.
I just submitted my report today using the international path after waiting two weeks for the email, I'm doing my part!
On the licences for use of vehicles in game expiring, reminded me of games like GTA removing Songs from games because the licence for those songs expired. However that made me think of an avenue of attack for older politicians who might not care/understand.
It's like how companies would make CD's with collections of greatest hits and sell them to consumers but when the licence expired the only thing they can do is stop selling it. However for games they can forcibly remove that content digitally from your game regardless when you purchased it this would be like companies coming to your house and taking the CD away from you when the licences expire. You bought the game expecting to be able to play it when you wanted not informed there was an expiry that would digitally remove the content you paid for.