Stop Killing Games: New option available to get law passed!

[Erasmus Roterodamnsus]

Sorry for the few hours delay. Formatted WebVTT positioning applied to jump out of the way when needed! (like for the last point on the Xbox slide).

WEBVTT

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Hey everyone, I'm surprised how
often I'm saying this these days,

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but I have big news on the
Stop Killing Games campaign.

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This is not an exaggeration.

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We have a new option that
could get new law introduced

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to start protecting games
you've already paid for.

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Though, it's only for Europeans.

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Again.

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Sorry, what can I say?

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Europeans seem to have
all the options on consumer rights.

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I'll cut to the chase.

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The Digital Fairness Act in the EU
has opened up for public commentary.

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Now, the Digital Fairness Act

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currently does <i>not</i> cover the problem
of games being destroyed,

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but it covers a few
issues adjacent to it.

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I'll get to them in a minute.

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So, the strategy here,

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which has been suggested by the BEUC

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<i>and</i> some political
insiders I've talked to,

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is to politely suggest

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"Hey, maybe the Digital Fairness Act
could swing a little to the left,

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and protect video games
while it's at it."

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As of the time of me recording this,

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there are 17 comments on its page.

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So, if we had, say,
a few thousand polite suggestions

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to include protecting
video games from being destroyed,

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that might get the EU's attention.

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From everything I've heard,

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this strategy has a
real chance of working.

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I would not call this a long shot.

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I would say it's another one with
maybe coin toss odds of being successful.

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And best of all,

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this is an additional option

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on <i>top</i> of everything
else we've been doing.

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So, the consumer protection agency
investigations in multiple countries?

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Still happening.

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The European Citizens' Initiative?

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Still happening.

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Though, seriously,

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hurry up if you haven't signed it
and you're eligible.

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It ends in just a couple days.

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So, let's go overkill
and open up this new option.

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Though, again,

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it's only for Europeans, sorry.

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But more people
can participate in this

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than the Citizens' Initiative.

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For example, some European
countries aren't part of the EU,

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but they're EU adjacent.

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Like, they'll share some
policies with the EU,

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or are actively trying to join it.

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So, this is for all EU citizens,

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but if you're a citizen of
Norway, Iceland, Türkiye,

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or countries that are EU-ish,

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I've been told it's okay if you want to go
and leave a comment on this also.

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Unfortunately, due to Brexit,

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that does not mean the UK.

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So, UK commentary
isn't going to help here.

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Sorry.

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So, what should you say?

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Well, that's up to you.

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This isn't meant to be
a template letter.

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In fact, if everybody
writes the same thing,

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that could get flagged as spam,

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so you really do have to
put this in your own words.

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However, I've been
given some guidelines.

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First, be polite.

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The EU is under no obligation to add
our issue to the Digital Fairness Act.

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This is us making a request.

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So if you grouch at them,
they'll probably ignore you.

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Second, ask if they can add

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protections against video
games being destroyed

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that have already been
sold to customers.

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If you have a personal experience
with this, that's even better.

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If there was a game you like
that was destroyed,

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or if you're worried about
a current game being destroyed,

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due to it being online only
with no end of life plan,

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you can tell them.

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Or you could bring up
how hundreds of games

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have been destroyed already,

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and hundreds more
are at risk of being destroyed.

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There's been a community-made
index of them here

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if you want to take a look.

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And of course, feel free to mention
that the Citizens' Initiative

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already has over a
million EU citizens

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expressing support for protecting
video games from being destroyed.

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That might give this
a little more weight.

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Maybe avoid URLs though,

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since that might
trigger spam filtering.

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You can just leave a sentence or two,

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or you can write a short essay.

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You have up to 4,000
characters to work with.

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Now, you do have to register
in order to give a comment,

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but they give a few options here.

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Electronic ID,
even Facebook and Google.

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Huh.

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Also, select "EU citizen"

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or "Non-EU citizen" if you're
Norwegian or something.

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Do <i>not</i> select
"consumer organisation."

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Stop Killing Games is not
an official organization.

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It's just a grassroots movement.

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Anyway, if you leave
a comment on this,

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you could be opening up a whole
new avenue to protect games.

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Let's make the topic of game destruction
impossible for the EU to ignore.

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The whole world has
been ignoring this problem

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for 15 or so years,

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so we're making up
for lost time here.

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Speaking of time, some good news.

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Unlike the European Citizens' Initiative,
which ends in a couple days,

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this is open until October 9th.

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So, if you're watching this late,

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you can still leave a comment
and help protect games.

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In fact,

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I have no idea if the EU's website
can handle a flood of people or not.

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So on the off chance it goes down,
just come back later.

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So, that's the main news.

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You can stop watching here if you want.

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But some of you may be wondering,

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"What is the Digital Fairness Act,

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and why is this a good option
for protecting games?"

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A very relevant question.

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Well, the Digital Fairness Act

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is a kind of hodgepodge of
protections the EU is trying to push

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to rein in some bad practices
occurring in the digital space.

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The big ones they mention

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are "dark patterns
in online interfaces,"

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which is kind of weaponizing the GUI
to do things customers don't want,

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"addictive design of digital services
that pushes users to spend more money,"

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or, hey, look at that!

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"Gambling-like features
in video games"!

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See? This is what I mean!

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That's not the issue
of Stop Killing Games,

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but it's totally in
the same neighborhood.

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"Personalized targeting,"

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like if they were to push gambling ads
on someone who's a gambling addict,

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I imagine something like that.

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Making it hard to unsubscribe
from digital subscriptions,

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and "problematic commercial practices
of social media influencers."

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So what we're trying to do
is add a number six here:

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"Publishers permanently disabling
video games they have already sold."

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I'm sure they'll word it differently,
but you get the idea.

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We're trying to invite
ourselves to the party here.

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Now, I know what some
of you are thinking,

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and that's, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, Ross."

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"I'm someone who thinks we shouldn't
have a lot of government interference,

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and this looks like a lot
of government interference."

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"I don't want games being destroyed,

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but I don't trust the EU not to
go too far on this other stuff."

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"They could screw it all up."

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Well, guess what?

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You could be completely right,

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and I'm not trying to
tell you otherwise.

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Stop Killing Games is single issue.

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We are <i>only</i> trying to stop publishers

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from destroying
video games you paid for.

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That's it.

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If we get that, then it's
mission accomplished.

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All of this other stuff here
is outside of our scope.

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So, if you have strong opinions
on all this other stuff,

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feel free to tell
that to the EU also.

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See, the thing to realize is this
stuff here is already set to happen.

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We had nothing to do with
any of these proposals.

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But if there's a chance
we can piggyback our issue

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onto legislation that's already
happening with or without us,

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oh, yeah, we'll take it.

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I mean, we're trying to keep
Stop Killing Games

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contained to just the core issue,

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but with the industry
lobbying against us,

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and taking a potshot at us
behind the scenes,

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we'll take almost
any help we can get.

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Anyway, I want to end this saying

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concern for government
overreach is a valid concern,

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but only up to a point.

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For example, the issues in
the Digital Fairness Act

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sound like good
practices to reign in,

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but I could also imagine scenarios
where that backfires.

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But saying that about Stop Killing Games
has always rung hollow to me,

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because I think the worst possible
thing that can happen to gaming

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is games you like or want to play
being destroyed forever.

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Well, that's already happened
to the tune of hundreds of titles,

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and the industry is
promising to put resources

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into killing many, many more.

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I mean, live service games
don't <i>have</i> to be synonymous

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with titles that are
destroyed forever,

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but that's what the industry does
the vast majority of the time.

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Now, of course gaming
could get worse than it is now.

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But I don't think it could be
on a worse trajectory.

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I brought this up before,
but I'll never let my audience forget it.

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If you want to know what the
video game industry as a whole

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wants for us in the future,

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look no further than
the original Xbox One reveal.

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Some highlights of that

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were no game sharing,

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needing to connect to the
publisher every 24 hours

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or all your games would stop working,

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having every game you
own on the platform

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be at risk of being completely
destroyed when support ends,

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even if you have physical copies,

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and having a mandatory surveillance camera

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that could detect biometric data

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like your facial expressions or heart rate

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and would upload that
data to the publisher.

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Now, they ended up backing off
of <i>some</i> of that due to competition,

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but the industry tipped its hand there.

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<i>This</i> is the trajectory we're currently on.

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It's just slower now.

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It's the whole boiling frog metaphor.

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Microsoft's mistake was
they turned the heat up too fast.

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And it's not just them.

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Stadia had streaming-only exclusives.

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How do you get less
ownership than that?

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Ubisoft has its infamous quote about

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players needing to get used
to not owning their games.

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And Blizzard killed a game
they sold over 50 million copies of,

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which made them billions of dollars,

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and they kept everyone's money.

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So, they were rewarded for that.

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And that's the path
we're on right now,

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<i>without</i> regulation on this issue.

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So if we don't get regulation,

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the industry is promising
to kill more of our games.

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But if the regulation backfires,

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uh-oh, what's going to happen?

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The industry will
still kill our games?

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So yeah,

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I'm not scared of the government
making gaming worse than <i>this</i>.

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What the industry wants here

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already scares me more.

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All right, that's it.

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Last call to go sign
the EU initiative

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and first call to go comment
on the Digital Fairness Act.

00:10:09.220 --> 00:10:10.220
Let's get it done!

00:10:10.220 --> 00:10:12.574
[Subtitles by Erasmus Magnus]

 

[danielsangeo]

Subs up!