[nerdjon]

See this is why I made the comment I did, nothing that you just said is at all clear from the petition and as it is written it doesn't conform to what you are saying here.

> For single player focused games, this means removing the phone-home verification or drm so it can function offline.

I really doubt that anyone would dispute that. If we are only talking about that, its just fine.

> For multiplayer focused games, this means allowing users to run their own server. It DOES NOT mean keeping official servers running forever.

This is where it gets confusing, since then you say:

> And also it needs to be clear this DOES NOT APPLY to games that have a monthly subscription fee like WoW, or games that are completely free to play.

That should be clear from the petition but why are those 2 a distinction? You have to buy WoW, its expansions, and pay a subscription fee.

Why is that inherently different from buying an online only game, that you just don't have to pay a subscription for? For example, Guild Wars 2. For any reason that mattered it is identical to WoW when it comes to the server side of things. Except it doesn't have a subscription.

If we really are going to make that distinction, it should have been in the petition. I had the same problem with the website that was discussing the Crew, critical information about what exactly we were talking about was missing and actually what we were talking about only came up after discussing it here.

> Because this is a bad practice that only recently started, and it needs to be stopped before it gets worse.

This petition also really needs examples of this, because I struggled to find an example so so far the only ones presented as games that are unplayable because of phoning home is NFS Underground and The Crew. When the petition is making it out to be a much larger and wide spread problem than it currently is.

[beretguy]

Just watch this video so that you get up to speed with what we are talking about

https://invidious.private.coffee/watch?v=tUAX0gnZ3Nw

Alternative YouTube link:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tUAX0gnZ3Nw

[anon_cow1111]

WoW only charges the base monthly subscription fee for 90% of the game, you don't actually buy the game+old expansions. The very newest expansion costs something, which could be tricky to fit into the law criteria, but everything else is included with the monthly bill.

For GW2, any new regulations would apply normally because you bought a product(the game), not a service(a subscription). So yeah, they'd have to let you host a sever when they shut official servers down.

Completely free games don't apply because... they're free. You have not entered into a legal contract with the publisher because no money was exchanged. They're not obligated to keep supporting a free product.

If you thought the wording on the petitions is confusing, you might want to tell the guy behind it directly. ( rosswscott at google's mail service). It was actually revised by... probably many people and some things may have been lost in repeated edits.

(I can find a list of games that have been killed off. I'll have to reply to this later because I saw it linked in a video and I can't remember which one it was)

[nerdjon]

> WoW only charges the base monthly subscription fee for 90% of the game, you don't actually buy the game+old expansions. The very newest expansion costs something, which could be tricky to fit into the law criteria, but everything else is included with the monthly bill.

> For GW2, any new regulations would apply normally because you bought a product(the game), not a service(a subscription). So yeah, they'd have to let you host a sever when they shut official servers down.

That distinction doesn't really make sense. If your argument is to stop killing games, why do games like WoW get an exception? You still are loosing access to something you paid for, before you ever put in your credit card for a subscription. It's irrelevant how they bundle expansions or make some free later, if you were subscribed from the beginning you bought a lot of expansions and the base game.

To be clear here, I think its fine that GW2, Wow, and any online only game could shut down and you loose access to it. As a consumer you should well understand that some things are online only, it is built to be online and if the servers shut down you should understand that. If somehow we can make an exception that WoW is fine, clearly consumers understand online only games regardless of how it was paid for.

Not talking about phoning home, but an actual online game.

I just don't understand how you justify the distinction of how some online games are somehow different from others. It weakens the entire argument to carve out exceptions that have no basis on the underlying technology on why something isn't realistic.

> If you thought the wording on the petitions is confusing, you might want to tell the guy behind it directly.

It is less that it is confusing, my point is that is conflating 2 very different things.

Phoning home, and truly online games.

The reason I responded to you is you started your first post seemingly from a place of authority or understanding of this:

> OK as usual there's a ton of misunderstanding on this issue so I feel the need to summarize it:

That implies that you know something that we don't, further enforced by you mentioning things in your original post that is nowhere to be found in this petition.

If that is not the case and your original post was your own understanding of what is written but not from a place of having any additional information than that makes this conversation very different.

[anon_cow1111]

>That implies that you know something that we don't, further enforced by you mentioning things in your original post that is nowhere to be found in this petition.

I "have additional information" in that I've watched the videos that have led up to the petition(s), and although the goals are stated within the petition page, it's more of a condensed semi-legalese which might be difficult for a random reader to extrapolate (and it may be too condensed).

>why do games like WoW get an exception?

Again, payed expansions for subscription games are a tricky area. If you bought additional content beyond a monthly fee, imo a good compromise might be issuing a refund within a certain time period. That's an issue for government to debate though. If I ONLY signed up for Wow's base subscription and bought nothing else, it's pretty clear-cut that I'm only entitled to service for the payed period and nothing else.

>If somehow we can make an exception that WoW is fine, clearly consumers understand online only games...

Most consumers clearly understand how a subscription works, that you stop paying and stop getting service.

Most consumers also understand that if you buy something as a one-time payment only, it shouldn't be taken away arbitrarily, this is how most multiplayer games have worked for the last... 30 years or so? If Wow's payed expansions get a pass here, it's ONLY because running a server might require unreasonable hardware for an individual (believe me, I'd prefer not to give them a pass).

Anyway, here's a list of fully-dead games on pc. This includes a bunch of F2P games, which may or may not be a subject of this regulation depending on the game specifics

https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Category:Unplayable_games

And here's a list of physical-copy games that can be considered at-risk: https://www.doesitplay.org/index

Anything that lists "no" under offline mode is pretty much going to die, anything with "download required" is potentially dead unless someone figures out a patch when the server shuts down.

[nerdjon]

> I "have additional information" in that I've watched the videos that have led up to the petition(s), and although the goals are stated within the petition page, it's more of a condensed semi-legalese which might be difficult for a random reader to extrapolate (and it may be too condensed).

Maybe this is my misunderstanding of how this system for the EU is supposed to work, but there is no indication anywhere here that there is supporting information about this anywhere else. I mean we can assume, but its not here. That also assumes that the videos that you are referring to are directly related to this petition.

> Again, payed expansions for subscription games are a tricky area. If you bought additional content beyond a monthly fee, imo a good compromise might be issuing a refund within a certain time period. That's an issue for government to debate though. If I ONLY signed up for Wow's base subscription and bought nothing else, it's pretty clear-cut that I'm only entitled to service for the payed period and nothing else.

But I don't understand how that is realistically any different than an expansion for GW2 for example. I understand what you are saying about a subscription, but realistically the difference is pretty minimal and implies that consumers don't understand what an online game is unless they put in a credit card? I don't buy that argument, the internet was not invented yesterday, online gaming was not invented yesterday.

> Most consumers also understand that if you buy something as a one-time payment only, it shouldn't be taken away arbitrarily

Most consumers also understand that a game shutting down or the servers shutting down for an online game, is not "arbitrary".

> this is how most multiplayer games have worked for the last... 30 years or so?

I don't believe that timeline is accurate. p2p online gaming has not been mainstream for a very long time. Halo 5 started using dedicated servers 9 years ago. Overwatch 8 years ago has always been dedicated servers. MMO's have obviously always been dedicated servers and WoW came out 20 years ago, everquest 25 years ago. There are other examples but I don't feel like looking up the full history of gaming.

Let's also not pretend that the only reason companies switched to dedicated servers was for money. p2p servers had tons of problems. From host advantage, lag since even today most people have really bad upload speeds, games ending or pausing if the host left, if you could run a private server you had to pay for that.

Dedicated servers fixed major problems with online gaming, especially anything competitive. It really isn't hard to find people complaining about online play back at this time. Most people just kinda forgot about it, or didn't grow up playing those games so never experienced it but I have vivid memories of it with Halo 2 and 3. It sucked, it was better than nothing and was a ton of fun, but when the problems came up, it sucked.

But even when those games were p2p, they still had an online requirement for matchmaking. Halo 2 came out 20 years ago. The online component was required for the online part to work.

Now yes, Halo 2 supported LAN play. and thats great, but that doesn't work for every game due to the game requirements itself. I highly highly doubt the idea of LAN play for WoW is anywhere at all realistic.

> If Wow's payed expansions get a pass here, it's ONLY because running a server might require unreasonable hardware for an individual (believe me, I'd prefer not to give them a pass).

But you can make that exact same argument for GW2. Outside of a subscription the server side for those games are fundamentally not that different. Obviously different code, but they are still both MMO's and everything that comes along with that.

> https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Category:Unplayable_games

Going back to my original argument, it doesn't help that that list includes many online games not just games that "phone home". That is the list I am far more interested in.

Including Overwatch and FFXIV (Yes I know what happened with reborn) is questionable at best given that both of those games are still running, just have been updated and changed. Most people don't argue that every patch of an MMO should be readily playable so not really sure why those 2 are there.

> Anything that lists "no" under offline mode is pretty much going to die, anything with "download required" is potentially dead unless someone figures out a patch when the server shuts down.

Multiple people have responded with similar things, that X game requires phoning home right now so it's at risk. Well this petition does nothing about that. It doesn't stop the practice of phoning home in the first place.

Honestly that would be far more valuable and just avoid this situation in the first place, which I would fully support a ban on phoning home since it also frustrates me with mobile gaming with my steam deck and similar.

For all we know there is already a solution in place for these games that just has to be released or flipped on. Given that that list is almost 3000 and the other list is 177, that is a huge discrepancy that may not ever be a thing.

But I am going to leave this here because I don't think we are getting anywhere with this conversation. Ultimately your responses and others is why I have a problem with this petition.

There are at least 3 different interpretations of this in this thread.

We have mine that sees that it only ever mentions phoning home and is concerned that its scope seems to not match its original (and only clearly outlined) concern and could be misunderstood.

There is yours that says that no they are talking about online games, but only some that don't require a subscription.

And then there is someone else who is specifically using WoW as an example of a game that should open up when it closes down.

Clearly there is a lot missing here. We have very critical points that are not clear, we don't know the scope, and we are all interpreting it different ways, possibly just to align with our own views with no basis on what the original writers intended.