this post was submitted on 06 Jul 2025
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[–] TwinTitans@lemmy.world 10 points 4 hours ago

Well when the choice is anti consumer, too fucking bad.

[–] vxx@lemmy.world 9 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago)

It needs way more people, because I guess a lot of people from all over the world used VPNs to sign the petition and will get nullified.

So if you planned to do it, don't, you will hurt your goals more than you're doing an good.

[–] Nalivai@discuss.tchncs.de 34 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

Anti-murder laws are cuttailing my choice! What if I someday would like to make a choice to murder someone?

[–] lemmy_outta_here@lemmy.world 7 points 5 hours ago

Yes! When I read that, I immediately thought "curtailing developer choice is exactly the point."

[–] dragonfucker@lemmy.nz 57 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

Copyright was invented so artists would be able to sell their art, and more art would be made.

When copyright is protected on a product that's no longer sold, less art is made.

When a copyright holder stops selling their art, copyright protections should immediately cease, and they should be responsible for copyright obligations - releasing the source code to the public. Use it or lose it!

[–] Couldbealeotard@lemmy.world 19 points 13 hours ago (2 children)

This is the most level headed approach to IP I've seen. If you're not willing to use the property you forfeit it. It's a common contact for licensing rights for movies that forces a studio to make a movie or lose rights. That way people can't squat on a licence to prevent others using it.

[–] MunkyNutts@lemmy.world 2 points 5 hours ago

A good book on this is: Free Culture: The Nature and Future of Creativity by Lawrence Lessig

[–] dragonfucker@lemmy.nz 7 points 12 hours ago

Sony has to make a Spiderman movie every few years even though DVDs of the old ones are still being sold, but Ubisoft can just delete games forever and they can never be played again.

[–] Thcdenton@lemmy.world 29 points 14 hours ago
[–] Almacca@aussie.zone 31 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

"... curtail developer choice" - This from a bunch of people for whom the term 'executive meddling' was created.

[–] WorldsDumbestMan@lemmy.today 3 points 14 hours ago

Sounds like they just put together a bunch of meaningful sounding words. I know what they want to say though: "Noooo! But mah freedumbs! NOOOO 😭 "

[–] JackbyDev@programming.dev 33 points 17 hours ago

Uh, yeah, that's the point of all regulations. To make you not pick bad things.

[–] moosetwin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 14 hours ago
[–] Doorbook@lemmy.world 13 points 17 hours ago

When you work hard to create a consumer economy, the first rule is, don't piss off the consumers!

[–] Shanmugha@lemmy.world 47 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago) (1 children)

Developer choice, ha-ha, very funny. I am not familiar with the industry and still feel safe to bet most of them (edit: actual software developers making games) just want to get enough money for doing what they can do without too much stress/disgust and also most of them don't have a desire to see their work die just because some manager decided it is time to make some other games instead

[–] echodot@feddit.uk 15 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

I bet they're really pissed off with ubisoft right now. They basically started this whole movement by being so egregious with The Crew. Less than a month before they shut the servers down the game was still on sale for the full price that it had launched with.

Granted it was shut down because it was the most mediocre game ever made but that still isn't an excuse.

[–] Nikls94@lemmy.world 6 points 15 hours ago (2 children)

Tbh when I read of it, being an open world driving game where you can just drive around a very large area, I kind of wanted it. Not as a game, but simply for driving around. MarioKart is too happy for that. I just want to get lost in thoughts while driving.

[–] baatliwala@lemmy.world 2 points 13 hours ago

Forza Horizon is good for that experience

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[–] AceFuzzLord@lemmy.zip 64 points 23 hours ago

Whenever a large games company talks about "developer choice" you know they're referring to one of a few things:

  1. Think of the shareholders!
  2. Think of the rich CEO who adds zero value to the company!
  3. The people don't know what they want and therefore we need to tell them exactly what they want and need!
[–] umbraroze@slrpnk.net 71 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

This initiative sure would make things more complicated for the game publishers, yes.

Because they're currently not doing the bare minimum.

If they weren't so accustomed to not doing the bare minimum, maybe they would have different opinions! Just saying.

Edit: Just signed the petition. Didn't think this was necessary before because, as soon as I heard of it, Finland was already top of the list percentage wise. But I did sign it, just for the hell yeah of it.

[–] Klear@lemmy.world 39 points 1 day ago (1 children)

It's not just for the hell of it!

Invalid votes will be removed when it's time for the final tally, so the initiative needs a solid buffer to still he over a million after.

There's been a talk of some people using bots to inflate the numbers in a misguided attempt to help the initiative, so every vote is still very welcome.

Also, I kinda want to see just how high Finland can go above the threshold.

Tell your friends!

[–] Duamerthrax@lemmy.world 3 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

I wouldn't be surprised if the game industry isn't also using bots to inflate the numbers to make people procrastinating not feel the need to contribute and make the petition look less valid.

[–] Klear@lemmy.world 1 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

Eh, doubtful. The initiative got a shitton of extra coverage as it was nearing/reached the goal. They would have preferred if it went a lot slower.

[–] Duamerthrax@lemmy.world 2 points 4 hours ago

Major game publishers aren't known for their good ideas.

[–] andxz@lemmy.world 17 points 21 hours ago

I agree wholeheartedly and I also signed late while being Finnish.

[–] TheGreenWizard@lemmy.zip 28 points 22 hours ago (1 children)
[–] SaharaMaleikuhm@feddit.org 5 points 15 hours ago

From the mind of the one Free Man

[–] qarbone@lemmy.world 90 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Why are publishers speaking for devs about how much choice devs would have? Why not get devs to speak?

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[–] bungle_in_the_jungle@lemmy.world 153 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Lol. We're gamers. We know that if we encounter enemies we're going in the right direction.

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[–] TabbsTheBat@pawb.social 337 points 1 day ago (16 children)

Companies would still be cutting flour with chalk if they had their way. "It's limiting blah blah blah" that's the point you corpos, consumer rights are about the consumer not the bottom line

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[–] Decq@lemmy.world 266 points 1 day ago (52 children)

This is just pure fabricated bullshit. They themselves started limiting options. Remember the old days where you could host your own server with basically any game? They took that away, not us. So they themselves are 100% responsible for this 'uprising'. Besides they could just provide/open-source the backend and disable drm. Hardly any work at all.

But of course it's not about that. They just try to hide behind this 'limits options' argument. But they simply don't want you to be able to play their old games. They want you to buy their latest CoD 42.

[–] FreeLikeGNU@lemmy.world 3 points 5 hours ago

I remember the "old days". That was when dialup internet was still popular and running a server usually meant it was on your 10Mb LAN. When we got DSL it was better and you could serve outside your LAN. This was also the time when games had dark red code booklets, required having a physical CD inserted or weirdly formatted floppies (sometimes a combination of these). You could get around these things and many groups of people worked hard at providing these workarounds. Today, many of these games are only playable and only still exist because of the thankless work these groups did. As it was and as it is has not changed. Many groups of people are still keeping games playable despite the "war" that corporations wage on them (and by proxy on us). Ironically, now that there is such a thing as "classic games" and people are nostalgic for what brought them joy in the past, business has leapt at this as a marketing opportunity. What makes that ironic? These business are re-selling the versions of games with the circumvention patches that the community made to make their games playable so long ago. The patches that publishers had such a big problem with and sought to eradicate. This is because the original code no longer exists and the un-patched games will not run at all on modern hardware and the copy-protections will not tolerate a virtual machine. Nothing has changed.

We can even go back as far as when people first started making books or maps that had deliberate errors so that they could track when their work was redistributed. Do the people referencing these books or maps benefit from these errors?

Why do some of us feel compelled to limit knowledge even at the cost of corrupting that knowledge for those we intend it for (and for those long after who wish to learn from historical knowledge)?

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[–] skisnow@lemmy.ca 120 points 1 day ago

"curtail developer choice" is such a weak argument because you could equally apply it to literally every piece of regulation ever passed. Of course it curtails choice, that's almost the dictionary definition of an industry regulation.

[–] Ulrich@feddit.org 19 points 22 hours ago (3 children)

I don't know why these companies think they can talk their way out of this. No one is buying your BS. Just STFU.

[–] daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 points 14 hours ago

They can and they will just lobby commission or EU Parliament if needed.

[–] creamlike504@jlai.lu 9 points 15 hours ago

It's to give talking points to the politicians they paid for.

[–] nucleative@lemmy.world 1 points 11 hours ago

Do you mean Buying = believing Or Buying = buying

Because I think the real problem here is that people actually are buying=buying and that's why they keep doing it.

[–] noxypaws@pawb.social 57 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Curtailing developer choice is rather the point, no?

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[–] Empricorn 57 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Giant corporations have proven no amount of profit is too much. There needs to be some guardrails. And some form of preservation of the games your loyal customers have enriched your company to access.

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