The industry filed false claims against the "Stop Killing Games" initiative

[Ross Scott]

The "Stop Destroying Videogames" initiative has received official accusations of it (and myself) of violating EU rules!  These would be serious charges, except that they're false, using made up evidence.  This industry is playing hardball now!

This is a blog post. To read the original post, please click here »

[Deep Dive Devin]

Okay, @daisekihan, granted: I didn't expect yesterday when I said Ross need not worry about his image that we were going to see serious false allegations the very next day. I'm still not convinced that interviews and the occasional retweet from people with shithead beliefs will be the main problem, but damn, this is sobering. Stay safe Ross, get 2FA going on your accounts (your wife's too). I don't know what to expect now.

Edited July 21 by Deep Dive Devin (see edit history)

[daisekihan]

Yeah, they are only going to up the attack, I think. Luckily, I think you could go over every fan stream with Ross and the only political opinions you would find is slightly left-of-center pragmatism mixed with cynicism about the US government at least.

This attack was made through the legal channels of the EU, but I don’t think they will only take that approach. The petition will only put the movement before the legislative body, meaning it needs MPs willing to support it; the industry will probably try to sap the political will that will pressure them to actually do something. And careless retweets of toxic supporters will make that more difficult. So I hope that even if Ross has no control over that account, he might consider giving the account runner a little friendly advice about exercising caution if he is on good terms with them.

 

[BTGBullseye]

My guess is it's a blind fan of the idiot game "dev" that was spreading misinformation about the initiative. (I refuse to say his name, that gives him more respect than is due) Really, a nothingburger of a complaint.

 

What you need to watch out for is when the entrenched powers of the gaming publishers start coming after you. That is likely to happen sometime after the initiative succeeds. They have actual power, and million dollar lawyers with which to try to bleed you dry using frivolous lawsuits. These are the real threat.

[probablygonna]

There is some profitability lost by having to have end of life build states in games, namely, if people keep playing the old game, they won't have as much time or interest available for the new one by the same publisher.

But FOMO is a pretty strong motivator, especially for multiplayer stuff. 

But since that's not even mandatory under the proposed legislation (I...think you said that, right?), if they just tell you when you buy the game when it'll no longer be playable. 

So in that case the only real reason is fear that they'll sell less copies if people see the expiration date, especially as that approaches. And then they might find they have to promise an end of life build...sometimes, to meet sales goals.

So, while I couldn't possibly calculate the point at which it stops being worth it for the industry to push back, there would be some financial incentive in pushing back against this. Some. Hopefully, not a lot.