Ross Scott

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I forgot to mention in the last videochat the date of the next one. In general I'm doing it on the first Sunday of each month, so the next will be in about a week on May 1st, at 4pm EST at twitch.tv/rossbroadcast. You can leave additional questions or topics you'd like me to try to cover here in the comments below. I plan on discussing the Nostalrius server incident some in the beginning also.

 

In other news, the Planetside 2 recruitment video is getting close to being finished, I'm guessing 2 days maximum. I was hoping to have it done by now, but the tutorial got more involved than I planned and I wanted to make sure people won't be lost. After that, my time will be split multiple ways between catching up on emails, getting other projects slowly prepared, working on the movie, and VERY slowly working on the next Game Dungeon. I'm staying busy one way or another!

 

COMMENTS

After watching this video and you mentioning Super Metroid I thought you should try a recent game which perfectly captures the exploration (and massive exploration when finding hints and dealing with alien languages and such), it's called Environmental Station Alpha http://store.steampowered.com/app/350070/

 

I think it's worth every penny after playing through it multiple times, even if you don't make a game dungeon out of it I think you should give it a shot at playing. The pure alien atmosphere and setting is well worth it in my opinion (also good music as well).

I did not know about that :V I just hope you get on terms with the horrible eldritch secrets

Yeah I just watched playthroughs for the later endings that required a skill cliff dropoff. I beat it with two of the endings though.

After watching this video and you mentioning Super Metroid I thought you should try a recent game which perfectly captures the exploration (and massive exploration when finding hints and dealing with alien languages and such), it's called Environmental Station Alpha http://store.steampowered.com/app/350070/

 

I think it's worth every penny after playing through it multiple times, even if you don't make a game dungeon out of it I think you should give it a shot at playing. The pure alien atmosphere and setting is well worth it in my opinion (also good music as well).

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New game dungeon! This has been one I've been wanting to make for a while, I think it came out pretty well. In the last videochat, I predicted it would come out in 3 days. I honestly believed that, since I thought it was "mostly" done. Here it is a week and a half later, with me working most of the time on it, with it FINALLY being finished. It honestly astounds me how much time the small simple things end up taking. I run into so many things that should conceptually only take about 10 minutes that end up taking 1.5 hours for one reason or another. Or else they will take 10 minutes, but then I realize I'm forgetting 10 other small parts also.

 

On that note, after the next video, I plan to really catch up on email and help offers so I can be more efficient on future videos, but I have lots of stuff planned. For the immediate future, expect the next video to be a Planetside 2 "recruitment" video for a hopefully monthly play session with fans I hope to get started sometime this month. In the meantime, enjoy Rama!

 

COMMENTS

Windflow: I'll bring this up for the next videochat. I think it's a complicated situation, though of course I like players having the option to play the game how they want.

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Here's the latest videochat, many topics discussed! Also in this video is a followup to the Ross Rants: Robot Jobs video from not long ago if you want to hear more about that (it starts at 6:07). As for the highlights, the next Game Dungeon will hopefully be out in a few days, then I'll be working on the Planetside 2 Recruitment video. I also hope to make a huge dent in emails and getting other projects underway this month. It's possible I'll have an additional Game Dungeon this month, but I can't say for certain yet. More stuff coming either way!

 

COMMENTS

So the series IS a reference to Moon, I thought so when watching the first episode but I guess this one confirms it.

I promise it's actually just a coincidence.

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Back by popular demand! Moon Gaming returns in another episode. You may want to check this one out, even if you weren't a fan of the original, as this one happened to deal with many of the criticisms of the previous one. Also, the next videochat is at 4pm EST on April 3rd at twitch.tv/rossbroadcast

 

COMMENTS

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I was on the GOGcast a couple weeks ago where we talked about various topics, but games dying in particular. For those that don't know, GOG.com is an online store that sells games without any DRM. They're also known for getting a lot of older titles runnable again on modern systems. Anyway, the format is structured a lot like the Co-Optional podcast I was on earlier. I think there was a lot of good discussion, although we may have gone in circles a little too much talking about games being killed, but it's obviously something I can get carried away on. More videos coming before too long!

 

COMMENTS

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Well I have some minor bad news. First, I ran into some complications with the next Game Dungeon and it's going to have to be delayed several days. My plan is to get it released shortly after the next videochat. Second, I received so many varied comments on the Robot Jobs video, I was going to create a followup video to that. Unfortunately the footage to that got screwed up, so I decided to scrap it. I'll try and address some of the bigger followup comments I had when I do the videochat on April 3, however.

 

Speaking of the videochat, if you have questions for the next videochat, you can post them in the comments below.

 

COMMENTS

What is wrong with the thumbnail of the Robot Jobs video? Ross is pink and Mike Rowe is yellow. Ross looks slightly blurred as well.

The blurring is on my end, the coloring is Youtube's doing.

 

I expect ever increasing automation will help all the wrong people, but even so the only possible hope of a post-scarcity society relies on it.

Well the upside is if a problem is severe enough, it can't be ignored. In a way, that's less dangerous than chipping away at rights, livelihood, working conditions, etc. small bits at a time.

Besides that, China has been cutting down on pollution in the past few years, passing a landmark green house emissions limit back in November 2014 (it promises to increase its use of energy from zero-emission sources to 20% in the next 15 years, and is currently investing heavily in wind and nuclear power). Given their current economic problems, you're not going to bully them into enforcing stricter regulations and cutting down their pollution even more by cutting off trade; if anything you'll get the opposite of your intended result since now everyone in the country just lost a shitload of money. It's also fairly unethical to reduce 1.4 billion people to abject poverty (which ending trade with China would result in, see the average Chinese wages before and after the implementation of free trade) because you care more about the environment than 1.4 billion people.

 

If you're so concerned about the environment, your average Western uses many times as many resources as the average Chinese person while producing two to five times the pollution per capita. I don't see any of these people volunteering to swap places with Chinese peasants.

 

That article is over a year old. Since then we've seen levels of air pollution in Beijing 40x the safe limit:

 

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/dec/07/beijing-pollution-red-alert-smog-engulfs-capital

 

According to this one, air pollution is killing 4000 people a day in China, accounting for 17% of all deaths:

 

http://www.cnbc.com/2015/08/18/china-air-pollution-far-worse-than-thought-study.html

 

To me, that's a totally unacceptable cost of doing business and means we should rethink how we're doing everything. It actually HAS improved overall in 2015, but only by about 6% since 2014, which I still think is insane for what's essentially a state of emergency.

 

China is a massive country, of course it won't be all polluted. But pollution levels in key industrial areas are simply atrocious. I think it's largely the result of our manufacturing base being moved there. We had godawful pollution in the Rust Belt previously, and LA was known for very bad levels as well. I think it has less to do with us cleaning it up, and more with us outsourcing it. I am very aware that Western demand contributes to this. I would scale down everything I did if I thought that would impact things, but I'm just an individual, this would have to be a macro-level effort. I think the only sane way to reduce pollution will be to reduce resource use across the board, though that's not something our culture is accustomed to.

 

I also think you're framing the situation in a dishonest manner. I don't consider trade restrictions based on practices that would be illegal in our country because of how harmful they are to the environment to be "bullying." Furthermore, you're implying that 1.4 billion Chinese living in poverty is entirely the USA's responsibility with signing a trade agreement with them. Why is the fate of that many Chinese suddenly the USA's responsibility? Furthermore, calling it unethical, feels more like a blackmail tactic in discussing this. It reminds me of Congress calling awful legislation something positive. Like the Patriot Act taking away a massive amount of rights. Surely, you're a patriot and not anti-American, regardless of what's written in that act? I see this tactic as the same thing.

 

I feel that entire framing is disingenuous. It's looking at one single element to a very complex problem and taking a "you're either part of the help, or part of the problem" attitude and is a way to shut down discussion and is not a process that leads to finding better solutions. If a modification was made to the agreement that we would agree to trade IF more stringent environmental laws were enforced, would that suddenly jeopardize the entire population of China, or more likely, would they still agree, but then the companies running these would make less profits because they would have to invest more money in cleanup and pollution control? Now your point about how other countries would move in is certainly a possibility, however, I think that's saying the environment is screwed either way, and better to make money off and be part of the problem than not. I think leading by example would be the better approach, even if that doesn't maximize profit. The economy would have to be shored up in other ways, which again, why this is a very complex problem.

 

The thing is, implying that not moving forward with trade that I believe will exacerbate the pollution situation I feel is extremely short sighted. You framed what I said as caring more about the environment than the people, which again, I find disingenuous and it's trying to make me look like the villain, when in reality I think what we're doing would not be a "solution" at all, except for the short term and would make things worse in the long term. Say we sign it and see prosperity among the Chinese people for a few years. How many are going to die from cancer because of the increased industry? How many will be dead 20, or 40 years from now because of long-term damage to environment? Furthermore, does this establish a precedent that it's just okay to pollute for profit, making laws in the future more lax, leading to even more deaths from it? Of course I don't want the Chinese people to suffer from it, but I think we're borrowing against the future if environmental factors aren't considered. I care about humanity as a whole, not just for today. Taking out a payday loan to pay for groceries and rent today is great for the short term, but creates far more problems in the long term, I see a lack of concern for the environment to be the same thing.

 

Anyway, I feel like this could go on for ages and you likely have many varied points, but I can't debate this sort of thing any further with the tactics you're using, sorry. Specifically, presenting what I consider 2 flawed approaches to a complex situation, then saying I'm unethical and don't care about people if I'm against option A. I think it's ironic that you're calling me being wary of legislation that I think will harm the environment as "bullying", all things considered. Anyway, you're free to discuss this more of course, but I think I'm done with discussing this with you, since I need more of a rational discourse to finding out the truth of the matter. Your accusatory approach is not how to win me over on anything.

If the relatively expensive humans will be replaced with relatively cheap machines, that means that the production costs will drop. The goods will become cheaper, and there'll be more of them. That alone should ensure that nobody dies of starvation. More products means more GDP, more money.

Somebody emailed me this with the same argument. I'm just going to copy / paste my response here:

 

If the bottom line for a company drops, that's no guarantee that leads to price savings passed on to the consumer. That typically only happens in highly competitive markets. Sometimes that is the case, in other oligopoly situations, it's clearly not. ISPs are an easy target. Here in Europe, I can get 5Mbps internet for $5 as there is lots of competition. In the USA, I've never lived anywhere I could get broadband for less than $40, despite massive subsidies from the government to fund it. While Google fiber has disrupted this somewhat, for many years (and still in many other places), companies have essentially agreed to keep prices at a set range in order to optimize profits. Competition, while good for the consumer, isn't good for profits. Large corporations prefer not to compete when they have that option. The music industry is another example. CDs were initially more expensive than cassettes when they came out because they involved initial increased production costs and a more attractive product. Eventually production costs collapsed (CDs are far cheaper to produce than cassettes once outfitted), however, the prices never came down. Also, digital copies of new videogames tend to cost the exact same price as physical copies, despite lower costs. Printer ink cartridges cost far, far more to purchase than they do to produce, but again, companies have collectively agreed to keep them higher in order to maximize profits. No one is undercutting one another.

 

While it's certainly a possibility, I think there's no reason to ASSUME prices will drop if the fast food industry switched over to robotic cooks. Not only will the companies be eager to recoup their initial investment costs, but if similar deals are struck across fast food companies (or the first one to automate establishes the standards), they could remain the same. Maybe more attention could be paid to packaging and presentation (or nicer building furnishings) of the meal to try justify it in the minds of the consumer. After all, the public is already used to the current prices. Why rock the boat? Alternately, say if McDonald's automates first. Burger King might see the opportunity to undercut them by 10% once they automate later, however, they're unlikely to do so. Price wars are often not in corporations' best interests if agreements can be struck instead. It could be far more profitable for BK to continue competing with McDonald's charging similarly inflated prices than it would be to try and undercut them. It could be a losing strategy in the long term and lower profits in the short term. Either way, it means a lot of risk, another thing corporations don't like.

 

 

Billionaires are generally not bath in their money like some uncle scrooge, they invest it. Which means they give it back to economy, and in this perspective, it doesn't really matter in which wallet money end up, they will always work for society by opening new projects with new jobs.

That's sometimes true, however, money velocity in the USA is currently at an all time low (or close to it). In scenarios like that, the money is not getting invested as much as it being hoarded.

You mean besides the fact that the Justice Department didn't have enough evidence to even indict HSBC on money laundering charges? No one ever proved that it shifted around money for the cartels or Al-Qaeda-linked banks. Rather, they proved that its internal documentation processes were inadequate to show that it had not been doing so.

 

Do you know what HSBC's violation was and why they got away with a fine? They failed to follow anti-money laundering regulations. That's not the same thing as intentionally laundering money. A $2 billion fine is also far from a slap on the wrist. As a civil charge, rather than a criminal charge, they couldn't send anyone to jail. Though, you'll never hear me object on HSBC being an incredibly shitty company; it was literally founded so drug dealers could put their profits somewhere.

See this is a good example of "one side of the story." It's long, but I recommend reading this article. HSBC had a whistleblower against it, a long trail of evidence spanning a decade, and a DOJ scared to bring criminal charges.

 

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/gangster-bankers-too-big-to-jail-20130214?page=4

 

Here's a few highlights:

 

"They violated every goddamn law in the book," says Jack Blum, an attorney and former Senate investigator who headed a major bribery investigation against Lockheed in the 1970s that led to the passage of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. "They took every imaginable form of illegal and illicit business."

 

 

 

 

 

 

Anyway, this goes on and on and your article doesn't address half of what's mentioned. This is at the core of why I sometimes need multiple sources on some topics.

 

 

As for the TPP, I'll let someone else tackle that. I will say though that you said every economist thinks free-trade is great, but it also treats the environment as an externality. China's current pollution would currently be criminal in the USA. I personally think we should reduce trade as much as possible with countries that don't enforce environmental laws, otherwise they have no profit incentive to reduce the pollution. My understanding is while there are a few weak provisions, the TPP would in reality curb pollution no more than something like NAFTA did.

So? This doesn't at all support your assertion that people are not getting paid more than they were 40 years ago.

That was more in response to this quote:

 

The problem isn't that rich people are eating up money, the problem is much of the growth in compensation has been eaten up by non-wage benefits like pensions and healthcare for retired workers and by supervisory personnel.

It was an attempt to show they ARE eating up more money.

 

As for the rest of your points, you probably won't like this, but I'll make this as simple as I can:

 

I think it IS fair to look at median wages (and benefits) over average since that gives a clearer picture as to what's happening. Similarly, looking at the bottom 70% represents the majority of people. There was a headline not long ago about the middle class shrinking as more people are being pushed towards lower or upper class, so we're seeing an increased stratification of society. Increased benefits for those who are already middle-upper or upper class doesn't stabilize a society.

 

I'm not an expert on this. It could be all this is wrong and you're 100% right, however, as a layman, I'm seeing both sides present good-SOUNDING information and it's difficult for me to discern the difference for who has legitimate points and who doesn't (or if it's a mixture of both). Typically in situations like this I try to look at competing experts and see who seems to have the more well-reasoned argument. We currently don't have that here, so I'm kind of lost. As such, I'm unable to properly debate this with you. I think I might be able to get a firmer grasp of it, but it would take me many hours and I have to make more videos. Again, even if the points raised by that article are completely bogus, they're presented in such a way that I can tell the difference between valid information v. misinformation (this is going to get its own rant topic later on). So I hope I'm clear here: I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm saying both sides of this debate are arguing at a level above me, so I can't tell the truth from the myth. In these situations, just seeing the argument from one side isn't enough for me, I need to have it distilled down from both to something I can understand. To put in another way, pretend you want to know what flavor jelly donuts are:

 

Person 1: They're clearly raspberry, the manufacturer states it, plus it's the sensible solution under the Law of Brookerberg.

 

Person 2: It's orange, the raspberry data is manufactured, orange has been supported by the Quantuf theory.

 

(I look up law of brookerberg and it talks about using raspberries more efficiently in pastry use. The Quantuf theory talks about the number of oranges in relation to the amount of donuts in circulation. I leave still not knowing what the fuck is going on).

 

That's where I am with this. I will say though, I have LOADS of personal anecdotes about people being harder pressed financially (though that's hardly quantifiable), however I am seeing other trends to suggest that there is wealth extraction occurring (besides the stuff I mentioned):

 

-HSBC (too big to jail) got off with a slap on the wrist for laundering money for Al Qaeda and other criminal organizations for over a decade. The DOJ let them off the hook, NOBODY goes to jail. To me this screams of regulatory capture.

-Our biggest employers are places like Wal-Mart, McDonald's, Kroger, Home Depot, Target; not places known for their amazing wages.

-We bailed out the banks and other companies, despite protest to congress from the American people. The vote initially didn't pass, but Henry Paulson and friends managed to get it through anyway.

-Areas in the rust belt are almost 3rd world status in terms of poverty, with Detroit having water cut off to people, the water recent scandal in Flint, etc.

-Lobbying has grown to the tens of millions. This suggest policies that favor those with a lot of money to spend, as opposed to average workers.

-The TPP appears absolutely monstrous and is not something that would benefit average workers. I think this is another indicator of the power shift we're seeing.

-My understanding is our money velocity is at a current low, which is not something associated with average workers having discretionary income.

-I mentioned earlier how we need about 3.6 trillion to maintain current infrastructure. That level of neglect also does not suggest a healthy economy where there is plenty of money to take care of these things.

 

Anyway, I tend to notice small trends like that which add up to a picture in my brain, and on a personal level, prior to the beg-a-thon, I would have been in trouble myself, despite my output remaining semi-constant over the years. Anyway, if things are getting better, I think I need a lot more evidence of that than what I've seen and I apologize I'm not on a level to fully grasp your arguments regarding the benefit wages. But hey, good news! The next Game Dungeon won't be on economics at all.

 

An odd topic for a rant... Sorry Ross, but I'm afraid the european leftist propaganda got into your brains. The idea that the government SHOULD provide people with jobs, or that it SHOULD pay them just for being people is dubious. Government does not have it's own money, only taxes. If government is paying someone for not having any job, that money goes right out of the wallet of the people who do have a job. Even the most advanced robots will not have an income of their own, and will not pay taxes, people will. I don't think that the strategy of encouraging the unemployed people at the expense of employed is good in the long term.

You know, I said "I don't know the answer", in the video, but I think some people hear what they want to. Anyway, as for it being overly-leftist, my answer to everyone is the same on this: If you don't like those ideas, fine, suggest an ALTERNATE solution. That's kind of the point of this, I don't know the solution, but I can predict where we're going if we do NOTHING. I'm going to disagree and say "this is not happening" is not a solution. Even if you don't believe it, pretend it IS happening, what would you suggest then?

 

and the precise machinery operates only in very VERY clean environment.

I have to correct you here. As someone who has worked on hundreds of systems before, I think what you mean is precise machinery (specifically integrated circuits) is MANUFACTURED only in a very clean environment. Once it's made, it can operate in any number of conditions, depending on its design.

 

As for your points:

 

1. I have less data on this, but I think it will vary a lot from field to field. My understanding is the amount of people getting displaced will greatly outnumber the new opportunties, creating a negative net effect.

2. This will start step by step. Robots are unlikely to replace sweatshop tier labor anytime soon, but a fast food cook? I can EASILY see how they could be gone.

3. Fast food jobs and trucking jobs are both service occupations. That's 15 million jobs right there. Again, I was never suggesting ALL jobs will be replaced, but a large enough number to cause a disruption,

4. I always assumed there would be some overseeing. Say a McDonald's has 12 people working a shift. If you had a fully automated kitchen, you could cut that number down to 3-4. So again, not ALL jobs being lost, but enough that it causes big waves.

The thing is, the media don't really report the numbers you're looking for but the government does. It's just oftentimes buried under the official numbers.

It could be I'm wrong then on that point. Wouldn't the articles about the new jobs we're getting paying less still hold up however?

 

I may respond to the rest of this later, but right now I just really want to point this out, because this misconception bugs the heck out of me whenever it gets brought up:

I'm kind of tired and I sense this is something that could go on for pages with no real resolution, so I'll try and keep it simple:

 

-I'm not trying to intentionally misrepresent anything (unless it's obvious and funny), I'm just working with the best data I could find. I'm not an expert on this.

-Even if your graph is accurate, I think there are MANY other indicators that a lot of wealth is flowing towards the top, way too many for a video not focused on that. Here's a sample one:

http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2013/09/10/some-95-of-2009-2012-income-gains-went-to-wealthiest-1/

-There's a direct rebuttal to the data you're mentioning:

http://www.epi.org/blog/compensationproductivity-link-broken-vast/

 

It might sound cruel, but if the height of your abilities is to work at Mcdonalds and you cannot survive by yourself, its your own fault.

I think this is the point that stands out for me. I operate under the assumption that anyone willing to work who has their survival threatened by not being able to (either through circumstance or ability) is exposing a problem in our whole system, not the individual.

How many dams, bridges and sewer systems globally are now potentially hazardous due to lack of maintenance?

About 3.6 Trillion worth.

 

http://www.infrastructurereportcard.org/

 

 

Ross, I must fervently disagree with something you said in this video. You advised us to look up the "real unemployment rate" and then showed a chart showing the Civilian Employment-Population Ratio beginning around 1990. I feel both of these are misleading in the extreme.

 

First, the "real unemployment rate" is a misnomer because it includes people 16 years old or older who are just not working for whatever reason. This includes retirees, students going back to school, the disabled and other reasons that might not have anything to do with the current employment situation. Which brings me to the second part. The chart you provided.

 

If you expand the "Civilian Employment-Population" chart out to its furthest extreme (beginning in 1948), you will see that the ratio was much lower back in the 1950s and 1960s. The reason for the increase starting in the early-1960s is the Baby Boomers entering the workforce. The drop-off starting around the year 2000, in the meanwhile, represents the beginning of the Baby Boomers retiring and leaving the workforce. It is my contention that, beyond the severe drop during the financial crisis, the numbers are still above normal and going back up, despite the retiring Baby Boomers. Maybe we're recovering until all the Baby Boomers retire and/or die out* in which case, we return to the levels we had in the 1950s.

 

Just wanted to inject some context into that.

 

* Sorry for being morbid there. My father is a Baby Boomer and he's been retired and I don't think you can really count him as being unemployed because he's getting a large enough pension from being a federal worker to keep him in money for the rest of his life, but that's not the case for others, but they're retiring as well so they might be in a similar situation, or they may not be. Just saying, I don't think you can count retirees as unemployed.

I received so many comments regarding this video, I may make a short follow-up video next month covering all the stuff needing clarification or unaddressed points.

 

Sorry about the real unemployment thing, the main thing I was after is we normally don't count the following:

-People underemployed (who want to work full time, but can only get part time)

-People who are looking, but haven't been hired in over 6 months

-Discouraged workers (who want to work, but have essentially given up)

 

I wasn't thinking of people age 16, nor retirees.

 

 

EDIT: Feel free to help me out with some data covering a more realistic scenario of the employment situation based on that. The point is the official rate isn't very representative.

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Here's a video I meant to have out this time last month! This one got delayed for various reasons. I almost had to scrap all of it due to an error with the camera while recording. For whatever reason, my camera likes to re-enable auto-focus in between shots after setting in manually. There is no way to permanently turn it off. I forgot to triple-check that it was still off, and thus a whole lot of the footage ended up too blurry to use. I ended up being able to salvage enough of it to complete the video. I cleaned it up the best I could, but it does mean the visual quality on this is definitely lower than average. I figured people would rather see a lower-definition video rather than none at all, so here it is.

 

As for the topic, I don't plan on restricting Ross Rants to just gaming topics, I'm thinking I may alternate back and forth. This is one that's been on my mind for a while, it's certainly a litmus test for how humanity will deal with its approaching problems. In retrospect, it's not very rant-y, but I think I'll more than make that up on the next one I have planned. Also I can't tell you how badly I wanted to use the

to Short Circuit in this video (which I consider the best robot-themed music ever made), but I was concerned it would trip up the copyright police and something that would probably cost thousands to license.

 

Anyway, expect some more videos soon, it will be a few days, but I'm going try and get the next Game Dungeon out ASAP!

 

COMMENTS

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This is short notice, but I've been invited to the GOGCast, a podcast hosted by GOG.com. It will be live tomorrow (March 17th) at 5PM EST at http://www.twitch.tv/gogcom. It will get hosted on Youtube later, I'll make another post when that happens. Also expect a new video in a couple days!

 

EDIT:

For those in Europe, this will be 10PM CET due to daylight savings time in America.

 

COMMENTS

I already said this in the youtube video for Darkspore, but maybe the forum is a better place.

I think that the best people to ask for help on this issue is the EFF.

They already make a victory one or two years ago for legally removing the online verification when the game servers have been shut down.

 

I'm sure that if they can't help activelly, at least they can guide the actions on a legal way.

When I do a dedicated video to this topic in a few months, I hope to be able to contact the EFF, plus I'll reach out to every popular Youtuber I'm able to in hopes that I can spread the message. I also hope to set up a homepage where people can get data on just how many games have been killed and which ones are currently at risk.

 

 

About the idea of being illegal to "kill" games in Europe and other places:

 

"We may, at any time, and at our sole discretion, modify these Terms and Conditions of Use, including our Privacy Policy, with or without notice to the User. Any such modification will be effective immediately upon public posting. Your continued use of our Service following any such modification constitutes your acceptance of these modified Terms."

 

I bet that all those games have this little paragraph attached to their terms of service. As i understand, almost every software and service uses this little piece of magic and rainbows to get away with anything they might want to get away with. Wound't this be a problem?

What if the terms of service are changed after the game was killed?

 

Maybe i'm just writing nonsense here.I'm no lawyer and i don't care about laws enough to know, but a fool can always hope that his actions have some meaning.

I'm going to be lazy and copy / paste what I wrote on Youtube:

 

"

I think what you may not realize is that EULAs are not legal documents. They can say anything. They are attempts of the parent company to protect themselves in the event of a dispute, but they don't supersede the law. In Europe, it's entirely possible they are in violation of consumer laws in many countries, and perhaps simply no one has bothered to call attention to it. Raising awareness about EULAs won't stop companies from continuing to write draconian ones, nor will it stop the average gamer from ignoring them. Companies like EA need incentive to change anything. That has to either come from relentless complaints from their fanbase, or actual legal action. In the USA, I think there is no legal protection for consumers in this manner, but in some European countries, there could be. If not having an end-of-life plan for their games means EA has to give up their entire European market, that could be enough of an incentive for them to stop killing games.

"

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Back from the world of offline! Here's the monthly videochat from Sunday. I would have had this out sooner, but my internet went down while I was doing the chat and I didn't have any internet for 3 days afterward. My ISP got bought out by another provider and that caused a disruption to the service. Normally my internet connection is pretty good, at least the timing wasn't so bad as I was trying to wrap up the chat when I got disconnected.

 

I think I rambled in this chat more than usual, but it's mostly like the others. Some announcements worth reading about are that I do intend to have an online meetup with fans in Planetside 2 and will have details on that later (hopefully this month), also more is discussed about companies killing games. I had the thought that this practice might actually be illegal in Europe, depending on the consumer protection laws in place for the various countries. If so, maybe some action could be taken to make EA feel actual legal or financial ramifications as what they're doing may actually violate consumer law in some countries, but no one has actually called them out on it yet. If that's the case, maybe we can do something on that front. If anyone knows more about consumer law in any European countries, you're welcome to email me about it.

 

That's all for now, I'm running behind, but more videos coming this month!

 

COMMENTS

Hey Ross!

 

How about leaving up the recordings of the live-chats on Twitch? Sometimes I don't get the chance to get there and see it live, and then I have to wait all the time it takes to upload it to youtube.

 

Looking forward to your next rant, the 3D one was really insightful, on the mark, and helped me rediscover my hype for VR.

Because I'm not sure where that option is

 

do you own some old consoles ? like the NES or something ?

No, I don't. I had to jettison most of what I owned when I moved to Europe. I even gave away almost all my discs and just made disc images of them instead since I had to cut down the weight on the plane.

So, is this thing still going?

Any reply from EA yet?

No replies, but don't worry, it's still going. I have plans for some more stuff I'll discuss in the next videochat also.

Ross said that EA employees ignore/delete emails everyday so emailing them to stop killing games would be futile.

Guys, sending letters is still the priority. Sending emails or using other contact info is a secondary measure, especially for people who can't afford to send letters. I do think online petitions are a waste of time however, since I've never heard of those changing anything. The idea is to find some avenue of getting attention of either EA or some sort of press. Anything else is likely wasted effort.

 

Since you're looking for ideas, how about mailing EA empty game cases of games they've killed, or are about to kill? Combined with an obituary, and a note asking them to stop killing games, I think it might have an impact. If the game was never distributed physically, maybe a printed out promotional image, or paraphernalia?

I'm not against the idea, but I basically have no intel as to who it would be effective to send it to, or if it would reach the intended recipient. Maybe see if there's an official customer service mailing address? While that's normally a bad place to send messages because they're designed to suppress them, it might work for physical objects.

 

On the note of contact information, here's all I could find.

This looks very promising, however I'm not fully comfortable with using these emails until we can confirm these are actually managers or executives, and not just some employee with a similar name. For example "awilson" could be an Alan Wilson in accounting. Let me know if you can verify any of these.

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Here's some news with what's going on. First, the next Ross Rants and Game Dungeon are running late, I hope to have a video out in a few days though. The Ross Rants episode almost got scrapped since the camera screwed up with the focus and left most of the footage blurry, but I think I can somewhat salvage it. It can be pretty demoralizing to have to throw out hours of footage. So the visual quality on the next one may not be the best, but it probably won't be noticeable at resolutions 480 and below.

 

Second, lots of people have sent Darkspore letters, though I haven't received any contact info for other means, like business emails. This is something I'm going to keep going, I plan on making a video dedicated to killing games probably in a couple months, with a more planned out campaign behind it. In the meantime, any ideas for how to contact EA would be appreciated.

 

Finally, as a reminder, the next videochat will be 4pm EST on Mar. 6th. Additionally, my girlfriend Magda has expressed interest in appearing for a short time on the next chat and can answer some questions if you're interested in asking her something. More videos coming and more news on the 6th!

 

EDIT:

Magda has postponed her appearance on the next videochat, but might still appear in a future one. Also, there will be more Planetside 2 news this month.

 

COMMENTS