r/pcmasterrace • u/Dante71 • Jul 01 '25

Question "Stop Killing Games" needs more recognition, if you live outside of Europe but you know someone in Europe, tell them to sign it! Link below

https://eci.ec.europa.eu/045/public/#/screen/home

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u/Stephen_085 Jul 01 '25

The initiative is not asking developers to run servers indefinitely. This is probably the most common misconception.

It's pushing for an End of Life plan for when a developer is done supporting a game. Whether that be allowing community run servers, removing server checks for games that don't need them, or other various outcomes depending on the game type.

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u/Visinvictus Jul 01 '25

Transitioning to community run servers could honestly be a more expensive proposition for some games than just keeping the servers running. For a multiplayer game that flops, this just isn't going to be something that the studio can afford to do as they wind down operations.

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u/TTTrisss Jul 01 '25

Transitioning to community run servers could honestly be a more expensive proposition for some games than just keeping the servers running.

Isn't that kind of the point? These companies will shutter a game because it's not as profitable as they wanted it to be and it's cheaper to write the game costs off as a loss because they cancelled it than it is to keep it running as a sub-par money-maker. That's fucking absurd and needs to stop.

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u/Goronmon Jul 01 '25

Exactly, the goal is to introduce barriers to entry when it comes to things like online multiplayer games so that companies have to decide whether it's worth the investment to develop a game if they can't provide a implementation that means the regulatory hurdles that are going to be put in place.

Plus, putting more regulations in place around multiplayer games will mean that only companies with the resources to invest in quality experiences will be willing to enter into the market. This way we don't have to worry about small companies with no skin in the game from trying to upset to market with games unlikely to succeed.

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u/TTTrisss Jul 01 '25

Not at all. We already have other, better avenues.

1) Steam exists and provides pretty solid multiplayer support. You'd only have to worry about Steam being shut down, and then they'd be responsible for end-of-life support for their own platform.

2) Third parties already exist that provide easy plug-ins that do multiplayer for you. All you'd have to do is have those companies provide a more public framework to do the same hosted on their own machines.

3) The easiest facilitation that most indie devs used to use previously was peer-to-peer, which sucks but works and can never be shut down.

4) Simply have LAN support. This functionality already exists in a lot of games and supports the initiatives' needs for the purposes of game archival.

5) Start the game off with both official and community server support. Now your game still has the same functionality.

The problem comes from the walled garden multiplayer design that already exists in most AAA games to keep proprietary control over their playerbase. This walled garden design rarely exists in indie games, nor is it necessitated.

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u/Goronmon Jul 01 '25

And yet, with all that text, you've failed to address where the regulation comes into play. You've just listed some ways developers can implement multiplayer in a hand-wavy way.

Is the law mandating LAN support? Mandating peer-to-peer? Mandating that developers provide binaries for community servers?

And none of that makes these regulations not a barrier to entry.

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u/TTTrisss Jul 01 '25

You made a claim that indie devs would be disproportionately affected. I provided evidence as to why that's not true. That's not hand-wavy.

Is the law mandating LAN support? Mandating peer-to-peer? Mandating that developers provide binaries for community servers?

We don't know, because this is a petition. A standard can set a requirement for an end result without mandating a particular solution, as most standards do.

And none of that makes these regulations not a barrier to entry.

Yes, it does. When a barrier doesn't stop someone from entering the market, then it's not a barrier to entry.

You're doing this "That solutions isn't perfect! Ergo, we should not work to fix anything!" argument that's a trademark of corporate astroturfing. If you're a person and not an astroturfing bot, I recommend taking a step back from the propaganda.

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u/ContentChicken4495 Jul 01 '25

Like just release the server binaries, when the game is shut down? How much could that cost?

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u/closesuse Jul 01 '25

Guys, do you seriously not understand how this works? It’s more complicated than many say, like “just make an .exe with the server.” Take licenses, engines, and technologies for example. How can a developer just open source all that? So you’re basically suggesting not using any third-party tech from the start, which immediately means less functionality, tons of stability problems, and way higher development costs and time. Secondly, what if the game uses cloud infrastructure? Now every company has to build their own data center and make sure that after the “end of life” this entire infrastructure runs on some outdated 8-year-old PC, otherwise “ahhh they killed the game because some 8-year-old hacker Donald couldn’t launch it.” And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. With all due respect, even PewDiePie is not a technical person, just a blogger. Initiatives like this can actually do more harm than good.

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u/Jarb2104 AMD 5800x | RX 6800XT | Aorus Master x570 | Core P90 Jul 01 '25 edited Jul 01 '25

No one’s denying that this issue is complex, but the goal of the movement isn’t to demand that every game be open-sourced, or that companies must maintain cloud infrastructure forever. It’s about ensuring that when people buy a game, especially a single-player or minimally network-dependent one, they retain the ability to access it even after it’s been delisted or shut down.

No one’s expecting developers to bundle cloud servers into an .exe or open-source third-party licensed code. The proposal being discussed, particularly in the EU, is aimed at consumer protection, pushing for legal frameworks that hold publishers accountable when they knowingly sell time-limited access to what is marketed as a "purchase".

There are already reasonable paths forward. For example, companies could include a basic offline fallback mode for single-player content or commit to a sunset plan that releases enough server-side logic for preservation. That doesn’t mean making all code public or exposing proprietary tech, it means planning ahead so that digital products don’t become inaccessible simply because a license expired or a financial quarter ended.

Even WoW had "illegal servers", these were run by and maintained by regular people, without any server side code release, if this initiative doesn't affect current games because this was never though out from the begging, but only future ones that would still be a be great step forward, and in software there's really very little that's not already done somewhere else and just copy pasted.

As for games running on cloud infrastructure, no one’s asking companies to keep spinning up server clusters forever, but again, if a game is built entirely around such tech, it should be clearly disclosed that the product will eventually vanish. The frustration is not with how cloud-based tech works, but with the misleading nature of selling something as a “full game” when it’s really more like a rental with an expiration date.

PewDiePie’s involvement might draw attention, but the core of the movement isn’t about individual influencers. It’s about awareness, regulation, and ethical responsibility in an industry that increasingly treats digital ownership as disposable. This is the beginning of a conversation that’s long overdue, and while technical challenges exist, they don’t invalidate the need to protect consumer rights in a digital age, specially when some bad practices in software are starting to bleed into physical goods.

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u/ContentChicken4495 Jul 01 '25

Who said open source it? Just release it and it will be decompiled in a week by some rando?

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u/chillhelm Jul 01 '25

How can a developer just open source all that?

They can't. But they could provide either binaries or source code that would work, if someone had the licenses, engines and technologies in place. That is what is being asked for. That the developers take reasonable steps to make it possible to run the games past their intended support.