Stop Killing Games Has Succeeded

The Stop Killing Games initiative was successful as it has collected over a million signatures from EU citizens concerned about the current state of triple-A video games. The organisers are now trying to collect 1.4 million signatures in total, to be on the safe side in case some of the signatures turn out to be from fake people (it being an online petition and all).

In reaction to this, the video games publisher lobby has chimed in with some propaganda:

Private servers are not always a viable alternative option for players as the protections we put in place to secure players’ data, remove illegal content, and combat unsafe community content would not exist and would leave rights holders liable.

How exactly one would be liable for a server one does have no control over beats me, though. I mean I’m not a lawyer, but everything I know about local laws here in Germany tells me that is bullshit. You’d just slap a disclaimer on the game that the publisher and/or developer isn’t responsible for community server content and that’d be it. I love that EU-mandated online censorship is now used to squash consumer rights, though. Another arrow in the quiver of people like myself who have been saying for ages that this kind of censorship makes everything worse.

Even more stupid bullshit coming up, though:

In addition, many titles are designed from the ground-up to be online-only; in effect, these proposals would curtail developer choice by making these video games prohibitively expensive to create.

How are offline games more expensive to design than online-only games? Wouldn’t it be cheaper? How stupid do these fucks think we are? We remember old games, dude. You were the ones who had the genius idea to make everything always online. You did that because you thought it would stop people from pirating games. And now you want you cake and you want to eat it, too? No. It’s time for us consumers to get some rights back, motherfuckers.

And even if it is more expensive to deliver to your customers what you promised them, I kind of doubt that it’ll kill ya. Let’s just have a look at the kind of money companies in this industry make, shall we? Based on most recent revenue statements:

• Sony Interactive Entertainment: $31.7 billion
• Tencent Interactive Entertainment: $27.1 billion
• Microsoft Gaming: $21.5 billion
• Nintendo: $13.9 billion
• Electronic Arts: $7.5 billion
• Epic Games: $6.0 billion
• Embracer Group: $2.35 billion
• Ubisoft: $2.07 billion

So, these companies, that are raking in multiple billions of dollars each year, can’t afford to keep a few servers online that their products need to function as advertised? Servers which are only needed by their products because these companies, a few years ago, had the genius idea that all of their products should be hooked up to servers so that they can make more money?

Guys, we remember a time when games didn’t need servers or, if they did, we ran those servers for you. We remember a time when games continued to function indefinitely. You, the publishers, were the ones who changed this equation. And since you’re obviously still getting rich off what you do, we’re not buying your bullshit excuses and we’re pushing back. Games are getting more expensive, you’re breaking sales records every year, so stop whinghing and do the decent thing!