May videochat with fans. Had some followup commentary on the Games as a service video, and several good questions afterward. More normal videos coming!

Since I’ve made the “Games as a Service” video, several US attorneys have weighed in on the legal portions of my video. There’s not a total consensus and in some cases there was minor misunderstanding, but the conclusions all point in the same direction: GAAS is either not fraud or else extremely difficult to prove it’s fraud. Furthermore, even if it was established as fraud, it would be on such a minor level under the law, that it may not even carry a penalty. Barring new information, I’m leaning towards declaring the USA a lost cause on this manner and focusing on countries with stronger consumer protection laws.

Anyway, here’s a list of the legal analyses, and some additional appearances I had in responding. I recommend not watching these unless you’re bored or doing something else as most are quite long:

“YouTuber Law” video analysis
I think this is the best one (also the 2nd shortest). He grasped my arguments well and gave a realistic look at the situation.

Leonard French long video analysis
A longer look at the laws in the video, I also had some audio appearances in this one where I asked more questions.

Leonard French short video analysis
A quick look at the laws in the video, he made some conclusions that weren’t quite applicable, which prompted the longer analysis

Hoeg Law video analysis
I thought his legal portion was relatively good, though there was a small misinterpretation on the legal portion and a major misinterpretation on my stance.

Hoeg Law audio discussion / debate
I appeared with Hoeg Law to go over his rebuttal and debate was was said in the previous video. Discussed the larger issue also and not just the law in this one.

Nick Rekieta Law discussion
A more casual discussion, he takes a differing view than most other attorneys, but still comes to a similar conclusion, that working within the confines of existing law is unlikely to work in USA. We talk about various other things too.

 

Anyway, sorry to flood the site with all this legal analysis, I swear that’s not the long-term direction things are taking, more regular videos coming!

 

ADHD version: Ross was right on some things, wrong on some things, doesn’t matter for USA; the situation there is basically hopeless on legal protection against destroying games.

Ask questions or topics to discuss here for the next videochat with fans on 5:00pm UTC on May 5th at twitch.tv/rossbroadcast. This one may be longer than usual since the “games as a service” video made a pretty big splash, so I’m guessing there may be more questions on that.

My ultimate video on “games as a service”! This video is more fact-heavy than the vast majority of ones I make, but it’s on a topic that I think is the largest problem in gaming today. As you’ll see in the video, this is my declaration of war on “games as a service.” I’ve been meaning to make this video since at least last year, there’s been a lot leading up to this. It’s quite long and dryer than my usual stuff, you may want to watch it in chunks, or just skip straight to the ending.

In the past, I’ve made “Dead Game News” videos as a way to shine a light on how bad the practice of destroying games is. That hasn’t been enough to curtail the practice in any way whatsoever; on the contrary, the practice continues to accelerate. This video is essentially what “Dead Game News” was leading up to. I was hoping to raise enough awareness on the topic to take some sort of real action against it. Most of the video is a “deprogramming” of the industry narrative as to what “games as a service” is, similar to how you would try to treat a rescued cult member, hence the reason it’s so long.

The end goal of this video is to lead to some sort of legal action against the industry (details on that in the video). Now that I’ve learned enough about the topic to see that this could actually be possible, I think it’s the only chance for saving many games in the future. I honestly have zero idea if this video will lead to real action being taken or if things will completely fizzle out. Either way, I felt compelled to make it, like it wasn’t even in my control. This video is very much a “It’s better to regret something you have done, than regret something you haven’t done” situation.

This did take time away from my other usual videos, my apologies about that, but it also served as an exorcism for me so that I don’t have to keep obsessing on this topic in the future. It’s in fate’s hands now, I’ve done what I can, we’ll just see what happens. Anyway, more fun videos are coming for the future, which is what I’d rather be making anyway!

Here’s the latest videochat with fans. I talk some about the next video coming up, plus answered questions as usual. The topics of AI learning, Stadia, and Watch Dogs came up. More videos coming this month!