Quick update on Abandonware legal news

[ekket]

Normally I don't make posts related to news events, but since I literally think this is the most important topic in gaming now (plus about a dozen people have emailed me about this), I'm making an exception on this. Many people have reported now that the Library of Congress now allows cracking single-player games to be legal. This may sound cynical of me, but I feel like too many people are viewing this as something worthy of dancing in the streets and solving the problems of dead games.

In my opinion, this barely solves anything. From an article I read on the matter, the following is stated:

"The LoC placed some important limitations on this new legal right, though. For one, gamers can't legally work to restore online gameplay in titles that required a defunct central server to coordinate such play."

This makes this new legal status almost worthless in my eyes for a few reasons:

1. While there were some exceptions, cracks to single player games (like at gamecopyworld.com) and abandonware games have more or less been operating out in the open. While giving these cracks legal status is definitely a positive thing by itself, I think it comes at a cost (below):

2. This does nothing to help games like Battleforge. In a sense, this is worse than nothing, because it reinforces that the practice of keeping online-only games is illegal.

3. While this legal status might be more important for places like museums, for the average person that actually wants to play the game, the legality is relatively inconsequential. People have been making cracks for decades and working on MMO server emulators for years without much regard to their legal status. While this sometimes leads to some legal conflict, I'm not aware of any server emulators for DEAD games that have been shut down completely due to the law. Besides, this new ruling says getting dead online-only games working is still illegal anyway.

4. This really does nothing to address the source of the problem, which I feel is that companies shouldn't be allowed to operate commercially if they're killing games with no end-of-life plan for them whatsoever. While I'm sure there's a better annd less hyperbolic analogy than this, what comes to mind reading this is something like "Good news! It's now illegal to whip your slaves UNLESS they've tried to run away!" rather than trying to limit slavery itself. I'm of course not trying to equate killing games with something as serious as slavery (I'm tired while typing this, it was the first analogy that came to mind), rather my point is that it's still completely backwards where we're focusing our attention on this. The Library of Congress is treating people who want to play dead games LESS like criminals instead of addressing how harmful this practice is to culture to begin with.

Anyway, sorry to burst people's bubbles with this, I just thought I should make a post on this before I got 20 more emails on the topic.

- - -

ADHD version: Ross says the ruling by the Library of Congress of being able to restore games isn't that big a deal and doesn't help save the most at-risk games at all.

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[BTGBullseye]

100% fully agree.

[Meelis13]

Tbh even having SP games cracked legally is step in right direction. Goverments do like to take baby steps in something like this, plus it definetly makes it easier to save MP portion as well when it becomes legal (only matter of time).

So yeah, i disagree that its not a big deal- it is, even though immideate profit is, well, non-existent. I mean thats how goverments try to do stuff- see how it works on scale that everyone is pretty much already doing it, then give bit more rights.

 

Still, you got a point of it not saving some most-threatened games. Not fan of MMORPG-s and MOBA-s, but i feel these 2 are most threatened by server closures, as well as any other online-only games (basically also those "singleplayer" games that require authentication every 5 minutes online).

 

As for companies, well i get where you are coming from, but truth be told- if your idea would be enforced, it actually would hurt industry badly, especially indie developers who might not have resources or time to get end-plan in. And there would be lot less AAA titles.. So imho, they should just pay some fee to all clients if they dont have end-of-the-life plan in place after some time.

[Ross Scott]

As for companies, well i get where you are coming from, but truth be told- if your idea would be enforced, it actually would hurt industry badly, especially indie developers who might not have resources or time to get end-plan in. And there would be lot less AAA titles..

I totally disagree on this for multiple reasons:

 

-If an indie developer doesn't have much in the way of resources, they're probably not creating a game that requires authentication from a central server to begin with. Afterall, that central server costs money for them to run.

 

-Even if they are, an end-of-life plan doesn't have to be expensive at all. Releasing as much of the relevant source code would count.

 

-This would not stop AAA development. AAA spends tens of millions or much more on games, an end of life plan would be a small fraction of the cost. All it would require would be to actually plan for it to begin with, instead of doing absolutely nothing and letting games die the way the industry standard currently is.

 

-Again, not as extreme, but the "it would hurt the industry badly" mentality was the same argument used by business owners for using child labor in coal mines, enforcing safety regulations, requiring overtime pay for over 40 hours, etc. Not only in this case do I not think it would be true at all, but this is a practice that should simply stop. I don't know of any wealth of games we would have lost if companies had planned to do SOMETHING for the players in the event they had to shut down the central server.

 

-Now this is speculative, but it's entirely possible this practice could INCREASE sales if it was marketed properly. Letting players know they are GUARANTEED to always be able to play their game could be promoted as a feature, especially once we see more and more die.

[SmashMaster]

As for companies, well i get where you are coming from, but truth be told- if your idea would be enforced, it actually would hurt industry badly, especially indie developers who might not have resources or time to get end-plan in. And there would be lot less AAA titles.. So imho, they should just pay some fee to all clients if they dont have end-of-the-life plan in place after some time.

 

As an indie developer myself, I can say that it's actually easier. If you're the sole owner of copyright for your game, or you share copyright with a small group of people, it's much easier to open-source your code. If you're worried about people stealing your work for profit, you can publish your code under a copy-left license like the GPL. Everybody wins, and nobody has to break the law.

[scottmitting]

TODAY

 

The reason for celebration isn't that we've reached our end-goal here, but that the EFF is fighting for the actual end goal and the library of congress is taking it seriously, and importantly the LoC has shot down most of BSA's counter-arguments. The relevant reading material is under section 8. Proposed Class 23: Abandoned Software – Video Games Requiring Server Communication (starting on page 51)

 

You're right about today. Unfortunately subsection (iii) (A) defines "Complete Games" as those that have no content hosted on remote servers, so you're still totally screwed on MMOs if you want to use any of their content. Reading this (and I read the whole thing this morning http://copyright.gov/1201/2015/fedreg-publicinspectionFR.pdf) creating new content would be a serious grey area, but that's besides the point. It's 100% unfeasible.. you might as well create a new game.

 

I'm frankly surprised any powers that be care about gamers. The justifications before the adopted exemption indicate to me that the LoC agrees that abandonware MMOs are completely unfair to the consumer, but seems to believe it doesn't have the power to change that portion under current legislation, as explained in section I.

 

TOMORROW - WHAT TO DO

 

I don't think Ross is being draconian at all here, and I think the comparison to child labor is very accurate, though clearly forced labor was a more life-destorying problem. It does seem unlikely and probably undesirable to have a requirement for partial refunds to all customers when an MMO is taken offline, but it does seem only fair to have strict rules about such events.

 

I totally disagree with the assertion that the market can fix this problem. That's what makes the child labor comparison apt here.

 

A fair solution to all parties would be to require game publishers to somehow let someone else take over the responsibility of running the server, either by opening the server end (not necessarily releasing the code or unencrypted assets) or by handing over control to a third-party to run at no additional cost to the end user. If they cannot provide for this hand off, the source code and all assets must be released to all people who purchased the product, with exceptions for privacy of end user data stored on servers. Privacy of end user data shall not include any intellectual property, to protect IP the operator of servers much ensure that some party is keeping the server only.

 

Penalties for not doing so is a full refund of 3x the purchase price to all consumers.

 

Lobbying the EFF for such legislation would be the next step here.

[Meelis13]

ok, fair points. i stand corrected.

[Riley Hawk]

I'll download whatever, whenever. I fought the law and I won.

[RandomGuy]

As meelis said, this news is big for one main reason: it's the first step. The US will do this in baby-steps, but at least now they've actually managed to agree that persecuting people for Abandonware single player games is illogical.

 

Plus, not that I don't agree that this is an issue, but it's really a downright tiny issue compared to you-know-what in the gaming industry. I fear that you-know-what will actually cause the death of single player gaming period, like it has in China. Or like what it's doing to the music industry.

Edited October 30, 2015 by Guest (see edit history)

[Forgot_My_Account]

I don't think either view is wrong. "Taking baby steps" and "not a significant improvement" are synonymous - as Ross said both here and in his Battleforge RGD, crack sites have been operating pretty much in the open and nothing stops them. In practice, single player games have always been playable, with the biggest case of "uncrackable game" was, as far as I know, Splinter Cell 3 for a year and a half. So that's a non-issue - it's the online component that's suffering the most.

 

And while it still outlaws the online component, the law has never been enforced about it. Still, it acknowledges it, and I think it's a step in the right direction and shows potential for a change, but currently it's just another law for company lawyers to wield and for us to change - like it has always been. Ross has summed this up pretty well, I think.

[Ross Scott]

A fair solution to all parties would be to require game publishers to somehow let someone else take over the responsibility of running the server, either by opening the server end (not necessarily releasing the code or unencrypted assets) or by handing over control to a third-party to run at no additional cost to the end user. If they cannot provide for this hand off, the source code and all assets must be released to all people who purchased the product, with exceptions for privacy of end user data stored on servers. Privacy of end user data shall not include any intellectual property, to protect IP the operator of servers much ensure that some party is keeping the server only.

I wouldn't even propose anything especially problematic for companies, I would leave it as nebulous as a "best effort" by the parent company to allow others to get the server running. So they could release as much source code as possible (and as someone else mentioned, they would NOT be releasing commercial rights to it), or a patched client. Whatever worked best for them and gave people that bought the game a respectable chance at getting the game running. That would so infinitely better than the "do absolutely nothing, you're screwed" approach we have now.

[Alyxx Thorne]

The problem remains that games become entirely unplayable and worthless once the server shuts down. If publishers allowed dedicated servers or even had a LAN mode, it wouldn't be a problem, but the fact remains that nowadays, more and more games are given a temporary lifespan...

[Vapymid]

nowadays, more and more games are given a temporary lifespan...

 

To me it is clear that it is being done on purpose. To remove from the market place an old product that potentially competes with your new product. Basically, to force you to buy a new game by killing off the old one. Especially, if the old one happened to be good.

 

These people who run these corporations should be chained in irons and sent... I don't know... to fight ISIS in Syria?

 

Regards