[this_user]

I think the EU governments simply have much more important things to do than to regulate what are essentially toys. People who call themselves "gamers" especially seem lack perspective to recognise that this is just a silly hobby rather than something that actually matters and urgently needs to be addressed by the government.

[animuchan]

What requires regulating is not the hobby, but instead the 250-billion-dollar market built on predatory practices.

(E.g. we somehow have a lot of bodies regulating sport events, whereas playing football is just a silly hobby rather than something that actually matters. Same logic applies.)

[johnnyanmac]

There's a lot of predatory practices in games, but shutting down an unpopular game is not one of them. We mostly lost the lootbox war, so I don't see this law getting much more sympathy.

[animuchan]

Shutting down a live service game after collecting a generous up-front payment from many a customer is very much a rug pull, NFT style, is it not?

Free-to-play games, or even purely subscription-based games, I kind of agree. But a thing I bought for 60-100 reserve currency shouldn't just poof! and disappear, especially if the company pulling the rug is doing well (hi, Ubisoft).

[johnnyanmac]

Depends on the time active. If it was like the day before (2023) that pretended to be an MMO but couldn't even do that for 3 days, then yes. That should be punished. If it's your average games as a service that stays actively updated for 2 years and then shuts down I don't know if I can call that a "rug pull". That's still 2 years of actively updated entertainment, which isn't something most offline games can muster up.

I guess it comes down to how long is long enough for that 60-100 currency. I'm sure greybeards who stuck with WOW for 20 years wouldn't feel swindled if the game shut down tomorrow. Devestated, but a huge chunk of lifetime entertainment is far from a rug pull. Meanwhile you can feel betrayed by stuff like Babylon's fall that didn't even make a year (even if very few were optimistic to begin with).

[larschdk]

Agreed. They'd have a much better chance focusing on specific deceptive business practices. The EU would be more likely to require explicit and clear labeling of what it is that you are buying.