As the title suggests, over the last couple of days there’s been an influx of doomer comments over the SKG petition. While it’s fine to disagree, I’m finding it suspicious that there weren’t comments like this posted a week or 2 ago
I haven’t seen anyone here against it.
Ross got hit with some anonymous legal complaint so I wouldn’t be surprised with astroturfing.
I’m also an American so I can’t help.
The entire complaint was based on nothing too. They claimed he’s orchestrating some crazy financial scheme, and getting paid 6 digits from it, when he’s not only doing it for free, but can’t even participate in the initiative to begin with
If he helps bump the gaming industry in a better/healthier direction, he deserves 6 figures imo
Are people criticizing it? There is a certain critical mass that when something becomes popular enough a subset of the population will automatically oppose it.
There’s also a threshold where Industry Groups will start astroturfing. Especially when it comes to worker’s rights or consumer’s rights.
It seems like it’s a bit too late now to start astroturfing this though
It’s a fine line because if you do it too early you’ll just add more attention to it. They probably predicted it would stall out.
I don’t find the absence of criticism suspicious. The petition makes sense. It aims to solve a problem that affects many individuals and a significant part of human culture.
What I do find suspicious is the sudden emergence of criticism now that it looks like it might succeed. I smell astroturfing and media manipulation.
This is exactly my point for the post, though your take is better worded
As the petition got more successful it became a bigger topic on here. Bigger topics draw more opinions.
I don’t find it suspicious. Bring attention to it and it’ll get more votes. Ignore it and it’ll go away.
Now that it’s passed multiple thresholds and is gained a lot of support. They will not try and stop it.
Because it’s about to affect big money so they sic their bots on it to shape public opinion and stomp it, like everything else.
Welcome to the age of bots.
Enjoy your perpetual unavoidable and even undetectable bias and opinion influencing astroturfing.
Paid for by whoever doesn’t want the things that you want, to influence the people around you to bite at each other’s throats and work against their own interests.
This is one of the biggest reasons Reddit has turned to shit.
One year ago, right at the beginning of the petition, PirateSoftware came out misreading the initiative by suggesting the idea the petition was about forcing indie developer to host their server, at their expense, forever and other stupid idea on this line. A fabricated these narrative to act as the typical popular youtubers that say endlessly: “this is st0pid, they are st0pid”. The fabricated narrative confused other popular YouTubers with mixed feelings; and there was very little support. This assured PirateSoftware the first place on the youtube rankings when you search for “stop killing games”, plus had lot of kids brainwashed into thinking " this is st0pid". This kind of criticism never went away completely, the were partially silenced by the very recent roaring as people understood correctly what it was actually about. As SKG keep hitting its milestone the angered roar did lowered, so now you can ear again the “this is st0pid” team
There’s always been criticism but until now it’s been low level insiders and nobodies like pirate software. And the reasons the publishers and big names that would be affected did SKGs didn’t say or do anything until now because they didn’t want to give it any oxygen. They were smart enough to ignore it because they knew if they said anything it’d rile up a shift storm. Which is exactly what Pirate Software did so he’s probably got a lot of people on both sides pissed at him for being too narcissistic to shut up and let the movement die.
Now that it has enough signatures to be taken seriously you’re going to see the fire hoses open up and a lot of misinformation spread about how the movement would make the gaming industry unviable for the current model. Now is the point where if you are an EU citizen that you write and call your representatives who would consider this issue and help write the law if it did pass on how important it would be to you personally to not allow game companies to revoke your ability to utilize a game you paid for.
pissed at him for being too narcissistic to shut up and let the movement die.
You’ve got a typo there. What you meant to write was “pissed at him for struggling with managing the symptoms from his narcissistic personality disorder diagnosis too much to shut up and let the movement die.”
You know that someone can act like something without being that thing right? You can say someone is narcissistic without them being an actual narcissist.
Like me saying that you’re stupid shouldn’t imply that you’ve had a traumatic brain injury or were born without a frontal lobe.
That’s a false equivalence. “Stupid” isn’t the same as any of the words in the diagnosis “mental retardation” (recently updated to intellectual disability). Your example would work better if you did it like this:
Like me saying that you’re retarded shouldn’t imply that you have mental retardation.
There, that’s a much closer analogy. Do you still stand by your point if we use a proper equivalence?
Are you trying to roleplay as your username?
Excuse the ignorance, what’s the difference?
Putting the focus on the personal struggle of managing the symptoms is more empathetic, and using the full name of the diagnosis instead of contracted nouns helps avoid using slurs and/or dehumanising the patent.
and using the full name of the diagnosis instead of contracted nouns helps avoid using slurs and/or dehumanising the patent.
You’ve got a typo there. Unless you can prove that said person was indeed diagnosed with such disability by an appropriate medical authority, let’s not use such term that could either be considered defamation, or at least medical disinformation. (/i)
People say what they intend to say, not what you wish them to. If you believe they are incorrect, no need to be pedantic about it. Just argue why, you’d find out people are way more open to arguments when they do not feel like you are condidering them as idiots.
I don’t think he has NPD at all, I think Rakonat is mistaken to randomly accuse him of mental illness just because they don’t like him.
Narcissists are literally destroying our planet and our way of life, but let’s make sure we don’t offend anyone when we mention them.
Your comment has a typo. You meant to write “human beings who developed narcissistic personality disorder due to childhood trauma and now struggle with identity and empathy to the detriment of their own wellbeing as described in the DSM 5 are literally destroying our planet and our way of life”
Your username has a typo
Fucking lmao
I cant tell what youre doing
Assuming good intentions from others, fully aware that doing so turns their messages into nonsense.
Oh go Piss off, Elon
You’re saying Elon Musk is an ally to disabled people?? Are you part of the Nazi cult?
Does he actually have a diagnosis or are you making that up or assuming things?
He probably doesn’t, and Rakonat shouldn’t have assumed
You know hes using a figure of speech right? Are you protesting the usage of narcissism as an unofficial negative descriptor?
Yes. Just like “retard” and “gay”.
While I am against using illnesses as slurs, I am 99% sure Elon Musk has NPD even if was never officially diagnosed, which he would avoid for obvious reasons. So I wouldnt count this instance as using an illness as a slur.
If he does have NPD, then we’re back to the issue that the general population needs to start referring to mental disorders with respectful and empathetic language, because this creates a culture of tolerance that will be visible to other people with the disorder.
There was criticism about it every time it’s been brought up. But it’s only been like 5 or 6 people just parroting what some AAA studio’s CEO (or the son of the ultimate WoW neckbeard) said about it.
Yeah bit he worked at blizzard, so he knows way more about assaulting co workers than you. Wait what are we talking about?
I believe all that “I worked at blizzard” and “my dad worked at blizzard” turned out to be lies. Even his claims about being a current game dev were based on some vaporware looking shit.
he also used to work for the US Government hacking nuclear sites.
what right do you have to stop me from killling your games?
Right
Attention work both ways.
People who were not aware, now are. From all sides.
Well certain EU politicians support SKG, so yeah it’s making a lot of corpos uncomfy
I have posts being critical of it from over a year ago. I’d assume most people who have criticism don’t leave a comment because it’ll get you massively downvoted and your inbox will be flooded with angry replies.
I have posts being critical of it from over a year ago.
Not on this account…
Maybe an issue with federation? Heres the link https://lemmy.ca/comment/10932620
I can’t see comments there, but I can see there are 16 comments. So yeah, probably.
To be fair, I only checked your posts, not your comments
Your apparent argument is based off (wilful?) ignorance as to which publishers other than Ubisoft take part in this sort of practice and suggesting a boycott, which fixes nothing…
I’ve made some comments critical of how relentlessly PirateSoftware is being harassed and how annoying it is and how distracting from the actual movement it is.
Nothing wrong with the petition itself, and I haven’t noticed any negative astroturfing about it.
PirateSoftware is being harassed for a whole lot more than just his SKG misinformation campaign.
Perhaps, but the most I’ve seen are some tenuous “evidence” about him being a little selfish in WoW, not finishing games, or using his dad’s influence to land a job at Blizzard. Neither of those are particularly bad, and certainly don’t warrant the negative attention he got. It really seems like people are looking for dirt just because they don’t like his position on SKG.
Then again, I didn’t hear about him until he came out against it, and I saw he defended Godot, which is pretty rad. That’s the extent of my knowledge about him, other than the handful of hit pieces against him people posted here once he got negative attention.
I support SKG and don’t think PirateSoftware is a bad dude. I say just let him be, and don’t watch his content if you don’t like it.
The SKG thing was just the latest L in the series he’s been collecting for a while now. Similar to his wow raid there was another MMO when his party wiped due to someone accidentally aggro’ing a mob. He did the usually “that was moronic, whoever did that is kicked from the raid, etc”. Then he reviews the footage showing it was him that aggro’d and completely 180s, saying the wipe wasn’t on him. As evidenced in his SKG video, guy is super happy saying nasty shit about people but cries toxicity when it’s reciprocated. Guy just can’t help himself. Has to be right on everything and when it’s proven he isn’t, either doubles down or just simply denies being wrong.
Even the wow roaching thing, it isn’t so much the raid but the demanding everyone listen to his side before talking over others when it’s their turn and then leaving before they can have there say and tripling down. I used to appreciate some of his content but given his pattern of behaviour, including bullying, the negative attention he’s gotten is pretty deserved.
Has to be right on everything and when it’s proven he isn’t, either doubles down or just simply denies being wrong.
That sounds like a lot of people here on Lemmy honestly, and I think that’s pretty common.
I used to appreciate some of his content but given his pattern of behaviour, including bullying, the negative attention he’s gotten is pretty deserved.
I think this is the issue. He had a lot of fans and they were let down. I think the real issue is people looking up to random streamers/influencers. It’s not unique to YT/Twitch, but politicians and celebrities aa well.
I don’t like it. If you don’t like someone’s content, don’t watch it, and don’t burn the place down on your way out.
deleted by creator
Screwing over and generally being a major asshole in eve online that screwed a lot of people out of very real money.
Ok but… That’s the correct way to play EVE online.
Really? From the 5-10 min of his videos that I watched over the last 2 weeks when trying to figure out why people dislike him, I didn’t see any of that nonsense. That’s really too bad if true, because he seemed like a pretty level-headed guy who was a pretty laid-back gamer (no yelling or other form of aggression, which is unfortunately common among streamers). I watched some clips of:
- take on Godot - defended Godot despite some missteps and (IMO) correctly pointed out that their PR person probably got overrun after a somewhat controversial comment that was apparently intended to be a joke (the “woke” post)
- take on SKG - got a little unhinged in his follow-up video, but I hear there were swatting attempts after the first, so I understand the frustration
- an “infamous” clip of WoW where he allegedly left his teammate to die (but he was clearly following other orders to run)
That’s about it. He didn’t seem like a toxic person who routinely trolls and screws people in games, just kind of your average, run-of-the-mill streamer who’s a little low-key but still out there to create content to get people to watch.
Then again, he could totally be the jerk you make him out to be. It’s really hard to tell what’s a legitimate explanation of things and what’s people looking for a reason to slander him because they don’t like his take on SKG. The couple of articles I read seemed to mostly be the latter, but they also didn’t mention most of what you did here. So idk, I guess I haven’t made up my mind about him, but honestly, I don’t think it’s really worth digging into because I’m not into his content anyway.
You watched 5 minutes of his own verbal diarrhea and formed a full opinion on him?
No, I explicitly said I don’t have a strong opinion on him. I’m not going to knee-jerk follow the hate train just because of a bad take on SKG and a couple of emotional videos where he said some moderately offensive things. Maybe he’s really a bad dude, idk, but I’m not going to jump on the bandwagon.
Fair enough, by the way, valid point. But it does seems like you jumped on a bandwagon, my friend.
The WoW thing wasn’t about being selfish, it’s just one of a dozen or more incidents of him being a narcissistic bully who screws other people over and can’t take accountability for anything.
And nobody is giving him too much shit for simply being a nepo baby. The Blizzard thing is about him being a fraud who’s been caught repeatedly lying and misleading people about his credentials and work experience in order to appear like an expert. He uses his time at Blizzard like a magic wand to expel criticism, going so far as to misrepresent what he even did at Blizzard to appear like an authority when people criticize him.
The backlash against him has been well earned by bad behavior over a long period of time, most of which involves him treating other people poorly for his own benefit.
misrepresent what he even did at Blizzard to appear like an authority
Isn’t that par for the course for streamers/youtubers though? I’ve seen people claim to be “indie game devs” when they’ve never actually released a game, or if they did, it made so few sales as to be little more than a hobby.
After some very quick research about him, it seems his dad helped him get a job as a QA at Blizzard, and then he worked his way up to doing something cybersecurity related. That doesn’t scream “nepo baby” to me, that’s just a dad being awesome helping their kid get their foot in the door, and my dad would do the same for me if I expressed any interest in his career. If he was given a project lead role or something right out of school, then I’d agree w/ your assessment, but a QA a not a very glamorous job, he’s probably testing some boring component of their stack. Likewise, cybersecurity also isn’t very glamorous, he probably ran pen-tests or something on their servers (maybe not even game servers), it’s a decent job, but not something that would give him any authority since he’s not making important gaming-related decisions.
That said, having worked with important people probably gives him some valuable insight, and I’d like to see him expound on why he thinks things are problematic. All I saw in the videos I watched is some hand-waving and inaccurate statements (i.e. studios would need to release code or some nonsense), which tells me he didn’t actually read the petition. I didn’t watch the full thing, but apparently he read the FAQ where Ross explains what the petition is not about, and he probably just skimmed that. I think that’s unfortunate, since he actually has industry experience and might have something valuable to add to the conversation.
narcissistic bully
Again, I haven’t watched much of his content, but I did watch what I think was a relevant part of the original VOD. Here’s how I saw the WoW thing (I have never played WoW, so I’m probably missing something):
- they’re all working their way to the boss together
- they start getting wrecked, so some (all?) decide to bail
- he casts some spell to help his team get out, using up the rest of his mana
- his teammate is about to die and asks for help
- he keeps running, as was the plan
- he gets roasted for not helping out, and explains that we has out of mana and couldn’t do anything even if he wanted to
That sounds pretty reasonable. Maybe he could’ve said it better (seemed to be playing the “cool and collected streamer” role), but I think his actual actions were reasonable.
But maybe there’s something he could have done. I don’t know WoW well enough to know what options he would have had, but from my perspective, returning to help would’ve just meant he’d die too. And my understanding is that in this game mode, that represents a lot of investment, since the character would be deleted upon death, so it makes sense to be careful. I hear they worked it out after the stream, so his team apparently didn’t think his behavior was all that bad.
And then I look at the reaction. I see several articles slamming him for his behavior in that VOD, and a lot of the backlash citing that as justification for hating him. That seems way over the top, so I think the only rational takeaway is that other streamers are making a big deal out of very little, and people are latching onto it w/o actually looking at the facts and taking what they read for granted.
That’s why I hesitate to jump on the bandwagon. Maybe he’s as bad as everyone says, but I haven’t seen enough actual evidence of that. Each time someone has provided some evidence, I looked at it and didn’t see anything damning, just normal streamer behavior. I think people are making a big deal about it because they strongly disagree w/ his take on something else (say, SKG) and are digging for dirt.
So yeah, that’s my take.
Isn’t that par for the course for streamers/youtubers though?
No.
I’ve seen people claim to be “indie game devs” when they’ve never actually released a game, or if they did, it made so few sales as to be little more than a hobby.
That would in fact make those people indie game devs. Thats not a high bar to meet. Pirate likes to word it as if he was a game dev in the industry, and often leaves the context of him just working in QA out. As for the cybersecurity role, his role dealt mostly with the human aspect of the business. Compliance, awareness training, etc. the most active things he did were social engineering phone calls. Yet he has explicitly calls himself “a hacker”.
- they’re all working their way to the boss together
- they start getting wrecked, so some (all?) decide to bail
- he casts some spell to help his team get out, using up the rest of his mana
- his teammate is about to die and asks for help he keeps running, as was the plan
- he gets roasted for not helping out, and explains that we has out of mana and couldn’t do anything even if he wanted to
You’re missing a step here. 3.5. He chooses not to use the items he has that would have restored his mana. Which changes number 5 a bit as a consequence.
he gets roasted for not helping out, and
explainslies that we has out of mana and couldn’t do anything even if he wanted to (Even though he could have. He just didn’t want to)Maybe he’s as bad as everyone says, but I haven’t seen enough actual evidence of that.
Well you have done a pretty good job of focusing on just two of the things he’s been in hot water over, and avoiding all the other evidence that’s out there you haven’t seen. So yeah I wouldn’t want you to jump on a bandwagon without any evidence, but at the same time you’ve explained that you haven’t seen most of the evidence. So I’m not sure what the point of you weighing in here against the people who have seen all the evidence, from a perspective that hasn’t seen the evidence is.
There are hours and hours of video, photo, and written accounts of other events so I’m not just going to recap it all here for you, but it’s all out there for you to find. One of my favorites is when he’s playing another MMO on stream and a dungeon run his party does is ruined by someone accidentally pulling an extra mob. Pirate proceeds to be a huge dick about it. He doesn’t give the person who pulled it the benefit of the doubt like you have to Pirate. At the end of his rant it’s pointed out to him by his own chat that he himself was the one who pulled the mob lol. After which instead of apologizing, he then says he’s not sorry about what he did. He’s so unabashed about his view that only other people make mistakes.
You’re missing a step here. 3.5. He chooses not to use the items he has that would have restored his mana
That does change things a bit.
I’ve never played WoW and generally avoid MMOs, so I don’t know how everything works. I just assumed mana items are a time effect thing, so he would’ve needed to plan ahead. If they were already bailing, there’s no reason to use them on the way out.
and avoiding all the other evidence that’s out there you haven’t seen
Well yeah, I can’t know what I don’t know.
Those were the best examples provided to me, and they didn’t seem as bad as people made them out to be. I just have to assume the rest is more of the same.
I’m happy to look at more though. But honestly, I don’t know what you’d gain from that, I already don’t watch his content and support SKG. I guess I might repost some links for others to check out if they’re also confused by the backlash.
playing another MMO on stream
Someone else mentioned that here (today?), and that’s certainly enough for me to not want to watch his streams. I already avoid a lot of the popular streamers for being disrespectful to random opponents, and doing that to someone on your team is absolutely unacceptable.
I still don’t think that warrants the response he got, from calls for resignation to swatting.
I don’t think he’s been swatted. In fact, a lot of the “backlash” that Pirate has complained about has also been debunked.He said he had to step away from his role at a game publisher because people were “Reviewing bombing all of the company’s games”. Somehow he didn’t realize that game reviews are public and in the case of Steam reviews very detailed. People went right to the Steam reviews and found that literally none of the games had been review-bombed.
On the contrary, since the backlash started he’s been calling for his fans to brigade and mass report anyone who criticizes him, live on stream. He filed a lawsuit against a guy who made a game and put a cameo of Pirate in his game as a cockroach wearing Pirates signature wizards hat. (A cockroach is the wow term for people who do what Pirate did)
As for the resignation, generally companies don’t like to have people who are ongoing, unapologetic public menaces to be the faces of their company. Any consequences Pirate faces are all of his own doing. If you’re going to be a public figure, you have to understand that you’re going to be held accountable for your behavior by somebody.
The WoW things is the most well known, be he had a similar behavior in another game, Ashes of Creation i think. Doesn’t take accountability for anything. Cannot say sorry.
There’s also stuff coming out here cheated on his former wife. And then was a massive manipulative dick towards the person that he was cheating on with.
Or that all his previous credentials are fabricated. Like he doesn’t like giving details what he’s actually done in previous jobs. He’ll just state that he works somewhere and then let you fill in the blank. Or passing off what someone else did at the job as his own.
In his own channel he purposely misrepresent the recent things about him. And coding Jesus actually put out a video showing that, when he tries to reach out immediately gets filtered and banned. But meanwhile Thor is telling people that all he had to do was try to reach out…
Doesn’t take accountability for anything. Cannot say sorry.
Have you seen a popular streamer that does? If they do, it’s more like “sorry you feel that way.” To get a decent sized following, you need other people to see you as some kind of authority, and most authorities don’t apologize, they do some amount of damage control and move on.
That’s a big part of why I generally avoid popular streamers/youtubers. Most of my favorite YT channels have like 100-500k subs (and several well below 100k), and I only sub to a few w/ over 1M, and most of those are on the more humble end of the spectrum (e.g. Gamers Nexus). I don’t jive well with wannabe authority figures, so I’m not surprised PirateSoftware didn’t appeal to me. In fact, most of those talking head channels aren’t interesting, I want facts, not opinions, and I do validate the more important facts.
Or that all his previous credentials are fabricated
Why would he? From what I gather (from a random wiki), his dad helped him get a QA job at Blizzard, and then he moved up the ranks to cybersecurity. I don’t think anyone would lie about that, since those aren’t “glamorous” jobs, but they are solid jobs. So my level in trust in what he says takes that into account, whatever he learned about the AAA gaming industry he learned by being present, not by being in any impactful role.
coding Jesus
That guy rubs me the wrong way too (assuming you’re talking about Cr1TiKaL/penguinz0). I’ve gotten through maybe 2 min of one of his videos.
Have you seen a popular streamer that does?
Yes. I think a lot of people would reference the MatPat apology.
Why would he? don’t think anyone would lie about that, since those aren’t “glamorous” jobs
That’s your personal bias. He lets people believe what they want. He used it for clout, and while you might not care about game development or cybersecurity, there are many who do. When he did security, he did social engineering. Which is just as valid, but if people are more impressed because they think he’s looking at source code and whatnot… he doesn’t correct them and leans into those stories. Since you kinda hipster-esque view of YouTubers… here’s a guy with less than 1000 subs talking about it, https://youtu.be/oKadi1zy8fQ and he didn’t really do that much at Blizzard either, not in game development either, but again, he doesn’t say what he actually did and has a lot of stories that don’t connect. That’s like if I said, “Yeah, I worked at the White House for 7 years” and just left it at that. But then it comes to light, I was the one mowing the grass, and that’s it. If I don’t specify what I did, nor correct people, and telling stories that I overhear that belong to someone else (and I don’t specify that) or talk about things that happen that I wasn’t involved with… then I’m lying by omission.
That guy rubs me the wrong way too (assuming you’re talking about Cr1TiKaL/penguinz0).
Not even close. https://www.youtube.com/@CodingJesus He’s a C++ developer who got his name because in some older photos of him people said he looked like Jesus. That’s the whole “lore”.
MatPat
Hmm, never watched him. Looks like he has tens of millions of subs, which is probably why I’ve avoided him (I generally like smaller channels).
When he did security, he did social engineering.
Maybe I just have more industry insight, because when I think of cyber security, I think of people auditing computers (do you have the corporate spyware installed?), running automated pen test suites, etc. Most of it isn’t particularly technical, and most security audits I’ve been a part of (and we do them every year) are black box testing, meaning they don’t have the code. Even in the one or two audits we did that involved the code (needed a higher tier audit for government contracts), most of what they checked was just dependency versions, they didn’t look too closely at the actual code.
Outside of high profile security researchers, I see most cyber security jobs as the security guards of software dev, they make sure you keep the doors locked, but they don’t force you to use reinforced doors or whatever, they’re just there to tell you what the obvious weak points are.
then I’m lying by omission
Which pretty much everyone does. If someone doesn’t go into detail, it’s pretty safe to assume there’s nothing to brag about.
That said, even if you only mowed the grass at the White House, you’d pick up on a lot of stuff about politics. You’d notice who the regulars are, important peoples’ routines, etc, not to mention what you pick up on through random small talk with people there. There’s a reason spys target people like janitors and landscapers, they don’t realize how much they know so their guard is down. That’s social engineering 101.
The janitors at Blizzard know more about AAA software development than the average gamer. A QA would know even more since they have more direct access to the devs and designers.
Whether you’re telling the whole truth or not about your credentials is irrelevant if you can prove what you claim. That’s why I’d like to see PS and Ross talk, so it would be easier to tell what’s accurate from what’s BS.
C++ developer
Ah, ok. I assumed the other guy because was pretty public with his criticism of PS and has long hair.
I haven’t heard of that guy either, probably because I’m more into Rust than C++, and actually avoid C++ like the plague (I much prefer C).
I think suspicious is the wrong word. Suspicious seems to suggest doubt or a lack of certainty, but the criticism is pretty predictable. Industry forces could afford to ignore it when it looked impossible to get the signatures, but now that the signatures are in the bag they’re having to take a different tactic.
SOME of the criticism is certainly genuine and exactly what it appears to be at face value, but it was inevitable that those doubts would be artificially boosted now.
No, there was definitely some criticism before. Prior to this month, it wouldn’t be unusual to hear people complain about how it would destroy the live service market and was therefore Bad Actually for games and game preservation
The topic getting much more mainstream just brought all those people with.
The implication that “games as a service” is somehow a positive for game preservation is its own kind of illiteracy.
It makes sense if you are completely consumer-brained and only see it as “companies will make less (live service) games if they are forced to support them/let them be community supported”
Isn’t that a win win tho? Less live service games?
The industry is already horrible to work in.
No, remember, it only makes sense if you are consumer-brained
Less live service games = less consooming. Some people literally don’t care about things that are in their best interest, they will happily pay $120 for a game that has pay2win microtransactions and requires a monthly subscription and will also shutdown after 18 months, as long as there is a new one to buy after it.
Well with the support that’s come from mainstream gaming influencers, I hope the opinion has swayed in the opposite direction.
There are a handful of concerns from insiders are that somewhat valid, more or less things to be careful about when trying to sort out how to make this fair and reasonable to both sides.
You can ponder how long from shutdown of an online server until the companies IP is no longer worth anything because they have to give up keys to playing it without subs. Same goes for anti-piracy. If A goes under and is bought up by B, how long is that timer before the assets aren’t worth anything anymore.
But all those concepts get thrown the hell out the window when CEOS stick their fingers in their ears and start stamping their feet and shouting “nothing is written in stone” “at some point the service may be discontinued” “Nothing is eternal” when in fact all those problems can be solved. Fucking tone-deaf asshats. Costs you money, sorry nothing is eternal. Costs them money, ohhh noooo can’t do that it might cost money.
When you launch a title with online requirements, you have to escrow or insure the servers for X months and escrow code. When you sell or fold, you then have X months to work out a new buyer or maintainer. At the end of X months. you either keep the game online through other means (sales) or provide server binaries, serverless binaries, or details/code to keep the game running indefinitely.
so far the only legit critique I’ve seen is the uncertainty of what this will mean to indie devs - will they be forced to sign with publishers who can assist with compliance etc., what will compliance actually look like to small shops, etc.
I will say this: the vast majority of game devs feel the same way and want to be able to play the games we paid for as well. there’s just a bit of fear of the unknown for small devs.
