kebabStop Killing Games is facing a complaint in the EU that uses nonsense logic to accuse the movement's founder of failing to disclose financial contributions he never made: 'It's not paranoia if they re
FrostyPolicyWhen you run out of even decent logical arguments you attack the people. This really tells that the industry is afraid of this movement and will use all the dirty tricks they know to oppose it.
“Run out”? They never had any arguments.
It was pure unchecked greed and they’re panicking since the movement has a real chance of succeeding now.
Very true. Was just trying to give them the benefit of the doubt.
What about “I worked at Blizzard!”. Is that an argument?
Rachel: There’s no way we can link the gun to Maroni, so we won’t be able to charge him with anything, but the fact that they’re trying to kill you means that we’re getting to them.
exuLove the headline. Great to see publications directly call out bullshit
RobotZap10000In short:
The complaint accuses the initiative of “systemic concealment of major contribution,” violating EU stipulations requiring citizens to report any sponsor contributions over €500.
The complaint cites PC Gamer’s interview with Scott from June, in which he said “there have been many weeks on the campaign where I’ve been working 12 to 14 hours a day to keep things moving to get signatures.” That promotional work, the complaint argues, amounts to “€63,000-147,000 in professional contribution” if he’d charged a “market rate” of “€50-75/hour.”
It’s also not how the EU’s disclosure requirements work. As Scott notes in the video, the EU’s citizens’ initiative rules say that “individuals providing non-financial support, such as volunteering, are not considered sponsors under the ECI Regulation and do not need to be reported.”
If the petition heads to the Commission after its petition deadline on July 31, we can expect to see even more exciting rhetorical maneuvers.
I sure hope that the EU can withstand these 4D chess 900 IQ rhetorical maneuvers.
fushuan [he/him]Wait wait they are guesstimating how much would Scott have had to earn from the movement via his volunteer work, and pose that Labor as a donation????? They are a joke. I'm sure they know what volunteer means, with the amount of volunteer overtime that strongly suggest (or else) their workers to do.
Pretty sure that‘s what Money told them to do.
By the way, anyone found the corespondent law? When it comes to things like that ChatGPT is worse than bing
I also love this part:
Earlier this month, game publishing trade association Video Games Europe said the initiative’s proposals “would curtail developer choice”
Well, yes, that’s the point of pretty much any regulation about anything. Curtailing the choice of people abusing the system.
You know who else curtails developer choice by setting arbitrary deadlines and pushing for aggressive monetization? Game publishers. Pretty sure the devs don’t want their game to be universally hated for lootboxes and bugs.
ampersandrewDevelopers often make the same decisions about monetization as publishers do when they have the same incentives.
Except developers don't have the same incentives. Publishers are incentivized by profits. Developers are usually incentivized by wanting the world to see their artistic output.
Of course some of them will do it for money because some people are just like that, but overall the industry would probably be in better hands if the developers got the long end of the stick and the publishers got the short end. Right now in the AAA market it's the opposite and it shows.
Developers are also incentivized by profit when they’re entitled to keep it rather than a publisher, and this is the case regardless of being AAA or not.
Can you give me 3 examples where the developer is monetizing the game like EA or Ubisoft would?
Destiny after the Activision split and before the Sony acquisition. Warframe. Basically the entire mobile market.
Destiny after the Activision split
And who was the CEO of Bungie during that period? Pete Parsons who had a senior marketing job at Microsoft before joining Bungie. Parsons also had no problem laying off hundreds of people at Bungie while continuing to expand his classic car collection. Dude has big publisher energy all over him. In fact he was the person I was thinking of when I said some people will do it for the money.
Warframe
First of all, Warframe is a F2P game which means they need SOME sort of a revenue stream. And from what I've heard Warframe monetization is one the best on the gaming market. It doesn't feel like you have to pay to have good time. And they actually removed an accidental slot machine from their game because they didn't want to incentivize whale behavior.
Basically the entire mobile market.
Which is a very different market. Mobile game developers couldn't even ask $20 for their game let along $60-$70. It's not comparable to the traditional computer gaming market.
Digital Extremes removed a Warframe microtransaction because it was too lucrative
It was revealed in a recent Warframe documentary that Digital Extremes turned out to be the exact opposite of today's gaming industry giants such as EA or Ubisoft. They literally removed a microtransaction that was raining money.
Then yes, developers have nothing but the best intentions with monetization compared to publishers when you say that the counter examples don’t count.
I didn't say that. I agree that the first one counts and that's an exception to the rule. The second you better bring out point by point examples of how DE does monetization as horribly as EA or Ubisoft because I've heard otherwise. And I think with the third the vast majority of people would agree it doesn't count.
Any free to play game operates on the same principles that are as “horrible” as EA or Ubisoft, which honestly feels like a dated point of reference when your phrasing was “feels like you have to pay to have a good time”. First, it’s highly subjective. I came away from my time with Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey feeling like I had a bad time because I didn’t buy their XP boosters, but fans of the game said they never bought one and had a great time, perhaps because they had more fun with the game’s side activities than I did, so they got more XP from content that I was more than happy to skip. I haven’t bought sports games in a long time, but if I still did, I wouldn’t touch Ultimate Team with a ten foot pole; not just because of the business model, but because the fantasy to me would be playing with the real teams as they actually exist; and the parts that I would want to engage with don’t ask any more spending of me. And for as much as you associate predatory monetization with those companies, they also put out the likes of Dragon Age: The Veilguard and Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, and work with partners on Split Fiction and The Rogue Prince of Persia, which use very normal and ethical monetization strategies.
For as much as mobile games often can be a different market, plenty of times they’re not. Thatgamecompany may be known for Journey in our circles, but their big hit is Sky: Children of Light, which started on mobile and came to platforms you and I are more likely to play games on. Uma Musume is blowing up regardless of platform, but it’s a gacha that’s typically found on mobile, and Cygames expanded from their mobile market to putting out console and PC GranBlue games. Mihoyo’s games are in both places and found success using gacha. My point in all of this being these companies, all self-published successes, operate in both spaces, because building a game in either place requires much the same skillset, and they’ve found an audience in both, often with the same exact games.
The last thing I’ll say about this being developer vs. publisher is that if you’re successful enough as the former, you often become the latter, like with Cygames or Epic. These kinds of monetization methods are very feast or famine, so you’ll get survivorship bias of some games getting so big that they’re a publisher now, like Riot, for instance, or they get bought by a bigger fish like Microsoft.
There’s even an argument that SKG is a good financial motive for studios. Consumer electronics/entertainment spending is down, and it’s not hard to connect the idea that people are less enthused about video games when they aren’t sure they get to keep them. Which are you more likely to buy: Snake oil from a merchant on a turbo-driven truck ready to leave town? Or multiple panel-certified medicine from an extremely tightly-regulated industry.
Lem JukesJust look at Battlefront 2, arguably one of the best star wars games ever made and its reputation was irrevocably tanked because the publishers pushed the lootbox model on the game.
In here to argue
Let’s see. Mr. Debakey’s free, but he’s a bit conciliatory. Try Mr. Barnard, Room Twelve.
Not only did they push for it, but they also made the game extremely predatory by requiring players to grind for an excessively long time 40 hours for just one character. It’s nasty work.
Fucking luke cost 60k credits gtfo with that.
Dogiedog64"A sense of Pride™️ and Accomplishment™️."
- The singularly most downvoted reddit comment in history, at over -680 THOUSAND downvotes.
“Look at all this paid labour he’s been doing, if he’d been getting paid!”
I took it as "Look at all this labour he's been doing. He must be getting paid". They can't fathom someone working on their dream for free.
It's more of a "he's getting paid from the movement and then donating all that pay right back!!!!" Stupidity.
Does the argument work both ways? If effort is the same as being paid for. Does that mean pirating a game is the same as buying it? After all it’s basically the same effort these days.
Of course the argument doesn’t fly, as you cant actually buy a game anymore, just a temporary license for an undisclosed amount of time.
Well it’s crazy that they’re accusing him of giving too much of his own time.
I really hope the Stop Killing Games initiative changes something as I want to own my (single player) games forever on every store (not only GOG as it’s not so Linux friendly despite the heroic games launcher).
paraphrandRoss isnt the movements founder.
I believe he is the founder of “Stop Killing Games” however the EU petition is by “Stop Destroying Videogames” a different, but aligned org. They often just get lumped together as “Stop Killing Games”, hence the confusion.
Right, but the complaint is wrong. They are filing against the citizens initiative, which Ross is not the founder of.
SharkAttakIt's the equivalent of "you spelled one word wrong, your entire argument is invalid!"
But the decorum!
Tells you that the guy behind it causing some folks in the halls of power to get some uncomfortable questions.
[…] violating EU stipulations requiring citizens to report any sponsor contributions over €500. If the initiative failed to disclose any such funding, that would be bad! However, the complaint argues that the initiative didn’t receive any monetary contribution; rather, it claims Scott simply volunteered too much of his own time to promote the movement, which—if you’ve decided words no longer mean anything—is basically the same thing.
🤣
DasusSo… Theyre complaining that his own time he put in was a donation worth over 500€ and he failing to disclose that, he’s made a mistake that can result in… dismissing the whole movement?
Seriously. How is it possible every fucking day there’s something that just steps over the line, despite the line moving every day.
It’s beyond impossible to do any sort of political satire currently ffs
I’m pirating any game made by any producer that oppose SKG.
If they want to antagonize consumers. Consumers will be their enemies.
This is just someone in the industry trying to buy time and throw gunk in the works of the initiative. Unless they are aggressively retarded they knew this challenge would fail, they just want to buy time.
Chaotic EntropyOh wow… an anonymous complaint that is complete nonsense… whatever will they do. I at least expect the EU to correctly dismiss this pathetic attempt.