This is self explanatory; to all who do not support the idea of ownership, there shall be no more funding, regardless of their game’s quality.
Advice:
buy from GOG, avoid single player games which require internet connection or 3 party launchers.
Repost from reddit:
https://www.reddit.com/r/StopKillingGames/comments/1ugzirg/stoppayinggames/
It is not self-explanatory. You needed to explain it. On its face, it sounds like it’s saying to just pirate. I can get behind the message, but these three words aren’t it. I know that coming up with effective, catchy slogans is hard, but this one’s not going to do well.
If you’re endorsing piracy as a political stance in any way, I don’t see it gaining traction. People need to be paid for their work; especially those who built a product for you that’s meant to last and can’t be taken away from you. I don’t know how you convey that in a three- or four-word slogan, but I don’t think this one does it.
People need to be paid for their work
The dogged insistence that piracy of a corporate product impacts the pay of it’s employees neglects how the wage system works.
The wages only appear if the thing they produce creates profits for the corporation. If they continually produce something that doesn’t sell, they won’t have a job anymore. And I’ll raise you another part of this equation. If you pirated Assassin’s Creed: Shadows because you hate Ubisoft or whatever, that game will take somewhere between 35 and 65 hours for most people to finish, according to How Long to Beat. That’s 35 to 65 hours that you weren’t spending in some other game, perhaps a game that respects your values enough that you’d part with your money to play. Maybe that’s Kingdom Come: Deliverance II or The Alters or Knights in Tight Spaces; whatever your preferences are, there’s some other game that also didn’t get your money because you were playing that pirated game instead, and I picked those three examples because they’re recent and run a range of different developer/publisher models while still being DRM-free.
What are you talking about? Game devs are constantly being laid off even after the product they create, creates profits for the corp.
That’s a different story entirely. That’s poor allocation of resources on large projects, when certain disciplines needed at the end of a project don’t necessarily have work to do at the beginning of another. The money that hired those people in the first place still came from selling the company’s previous video games.
Eh, there are enough news reports of record profit game sales followed by massive layoffs to say otherwise. The poor allocation of resources you’re talking about? Bonuses to upper management :/
I will 100% pay full price for an indie-published game, or for a game published by an honorable corp. If that company is fucking over its development team, layed off the development team after a successful launch, or is doing some unscrupulous shit, the black flag is raised.
If further projects by that big corp aren’t funded, oh no! That’s the point. Starve the bastards enough that they change their ways or give up the game.
The wages only appear if the thing they produce creates profits for the corporation.
Would you take a job that requires years to complete and forego wages until it retails?
Nobody actually works like that.
No, they typically don’t. That’s more what startups do. In the corporate world, the schedules are amortized, but the money has to come from somewhere.
You’re right. It often comes from the previous game but if that game doesn’t do well then the chances of there being another are greatly reduced.
And yet there are free indie games out there that are generally better than the corp funded crap. Creators will create, no matter what happens.
You’ll find far fewer of them creating when they need to spend more of their time at a job that will allow them to feed their families. And I don’t think the games I’ve found for free (actually free, not given away for free once as a promo) have tended to be better than the paid ones.
I’ve put more hours into Infiniminer, Minetest/Luanti, Industry, Dopewars, dnd, dopewars, and various Twine/Frotz games than any corporate games. When I do want an FPS (rare), I look at Doom sourceports and maybe Cube/Sauerbraten.
And there’s the real time-murderer: Nethack.
The wages only appear if the thing they produce creates profits for the corporation.
That’s entirely untrue. Plenty of people get paid to make games that flop.
Living in some fantasy land where never paying artists for their work magically results in them being compensated is pointless.
If you want to pirate, go ahead. I have. I don’t pretend it’s the “moral” thing to do.
never paying artists for their work
In a corporate setting, wages pay the artists prior to the games’ release. And the artists don’t see additional revenue after it’s release.
The dogged ignorance of gamers as to the financial reality of game devs neglects the fact that launch profitability bonuses are the only thing that lifts many of them out of a minimum wage bracket.
Well if single player game needs to connect to publisher sever to play then you don’t buy this game and piracy is just preservation. I’m not endorsing piracy, but not condemning it.
I agree with the first sentence, but that’s what I feel this slogan does a poor job of reinforcing.
I would argue in some ways piracy is a progressive form of demonstration against a systematic problem, and in this case the bigger studies that milk users and take advantage of those doing the work.
So telling people not to advocate with their form of protest is a bit unfair, it takes all tactics to get change. Its a bit like telling someone not to go out and march because you don’t like that approach. People should get paid, but fairly. and consumers shouldn’t be fleeced…So my sympathy for the studios involved is little theres been plenty of time to talk…they didnt listen, infact they stuck two fingers up.
It’s a convenient form of protest that just happens to get you stuff for free.
I’m not better than pirates, I am one at times. I don’t pretend like I’m doing something moral. I, like everyone else, do it so I can enjoy the content while saving the money for other things.
I have no qualms paying for products. I try make the right choices but bit by bit it becomes impossible as the tech around us becomes more authoritative, more greedy, more invasive, more enshitified, less fair.
Streaming is a great example. Nearly all of them don’t treat staff well, they use profits to lobby or abuse their positions. I am happy to pay for content. I am not happy to pay to perpetuate bad behavior. Hence I’d like have an offline collection…but if I simply can’t buy it…then it becomes a service problem.
People need to be paid for their work;
Then they need to quit fucking over their paying customers
I seriously don’t know how you’re this off mark about all of this. No one has said to pirate games from companies that doesn’t do what the thread is about. It’s literally only about either pirating or not playing the specific games from the companies who shut down games.
You’re on the verge of being like that Pirate Software dude who is against the SKG movement because he’s so fucking dumb that he doesn’t understand the extremely obvious and clearly communicated points.
Piracy of shitty AAA games sends a simple message: “These games aren’t shitty! They’re STUPENDOUS!!! But they just need to work a liiiitle harder on DRM systems to lock thieves out of it.”
Besides, I know very few pirates that draw a firm line between AAA/indie pirating. Many will shift excuses at will to play what they want.
My reaction is simple: Don’t play bad games. Piracy has no entry point to that equation.
Gabe Newell on Video Game Piracy (Full Version, HQ) (2009)
Basically, if they (publishers) want money, they should stop being cunts to their costumers.
I am going to be frank, most people don’t care about piracy. You making it the crux of this issue is a red hearing and disingenuous. It is something a corporate shill would bring up.
Being frank, nothing will come of a movement about consumer rights if it looks like you just want to get things for free.
Listen, as long as we allow corporations to ruin culture we will never be happy. There is no magical world where we respect copyright and corporate rule and get what we want.
Your opinion is simply wrong for multiple reasons. That is okay.
Picture a neutral voter reading two different headlines. Importantly, picture the voter’s reaction. How they show support in legislative bodies is important.
1: Purchases of newer video games have gone way down. Consumers are reportedly pirating them instead.
“God, the younger generation is so incredibly entitled. People slave away on these things and they just want to steal them? Makes me think that ballot question they had about ‘Stop Killing Games’ was just about making them easier to steal. What pathetic thieves.”
2: Purchases of newer video games have gone way down. Consumers are reportedly buying many indie games instead.
“Wow, I should look into some of these ‘indie’ games if they’re so good. Sounds like there’s a lot of money in them now! If they spend that much on the hobby, I guess it makes sense they’d push that legislation about consumer rights.”
Picture actual headlines.
Gaming is pricing people out of the hobby
You don’t own what you purchase
The major players are using their monopoly powers to drive up prices
All the major studios that make the games you love were bought up and now are being shuttered
AI is replacing programmers and artists
Also, we ain’t winning this battle by convincing the poors to care about video games preservation.
I’m going to guess he’ll say all of them. After all, Squirrel with a Gun devs are the only ones allowed to sell copies of Squirrel with a Gun.
Steam currently has a 75% market share and has been engaging in price fixing for years now.
I can’t dictate whether or not you pirate; I just think you can help influence the world in a more positive way if you don’t. There are games made by people who worked hard and aren’t employed by a corporation. I would encourage you to buy from them, because you can show that you value their hard work and want them to keep doing it. Games have the good fortune of being more democratized than other media, so even if they have the lion’s share of the market, you can go on enjoying video games, even paying for video games, without giving those corporations the time of day.
You don’t have to explain to me, I already know. I said you were wrong and I meant it. There is not going to be a corporation that is not enshitified. Did you miss all of the independent studious being bought up and now closed.
They are destroying our culture and the best you can muster is buy ethically? We are far beyond that rhetoric now. Like I said before it is okay. You have not really thought about what is going on and there is no shame in that.
No, I didn’t miss the independent studios being bought up, nor did I miss the countless others formed in their wake and free from corporate control. I’m not ashamed that I have a realistic view of the world, and I find yours to be childish.
More independent studios to be forced to use corporate stores to sell digital merchandise that can be revoked at any time. The only person acting childlike is you playing pretend that this is acceptable.
I totally get it, you want to ride your high horse into the sunset. Do a us all a favor and do this. You don’t have answers, you just want the status quo and we are all tired of it already.
You’re so fucking wrong and so fucking dumb it’s not even funny. Every single comment you’ve made here shows an immense inability to understand basic things and a major lack of knowledge about anything related to any of this.
It’s almost impressive, but in truth just sad and cringe.
“You’re…so fucking dumb”
Moderator here. Drop that kind of message please. Consider this a warning. You can make your point without resorting to this nonsense
Could not be more obvious you have no counterargument, this is flat out fucking pathetic.
It is something a corporate shill would bring up.
This is such a pathetic, thoughtless dismissal of an argument.
First thing that is brought up is piracy and you think it is something other than what a corporate shill would say? The only thing that is pathetic is another bootlicker showing up to muddy the water with garbage.
At this point I think it’s safe to assume all large companies are evil and so piracy of any software/media/etc created by a large company is the moral thing to do.
It really sucks but I think this is the case. I can’t even read an ebook half the time with proper ownership. It’s either Amazon exclusive and then I don’t own it, or it happens to go on kobo/humble bundle DRM free. Every now and again the author sells things direct DRM free and I’ll buy from them.
I’m not giving Amazon a penny for their ebook scam library where they can change anything on a whim. It’s some serious 1984 shit, they can change the contents of the ebook whenever they want.
You can de-DRM your kobo ebooks i think. They havent blocked pc downloads like amazon did.
I dont worry much about kobo, they havent tried to do anything egregiously anti-consumer to me
I don’t worry about kobo, but I can’t find everything on there. Since Dungeon Crawler Carl is only on Amazon it seems like he has a publishing deal with them or something. It just sucks I can’t actually buy to own those books without getting physical copies.
I think it’s weird that people are okay with libraries for books, but when it comes to video games I’m suddenly entitled and have a moral obligation to give artists my money.
This is a bad argument. Many libraries do have movies, and I’ve seen several with video games.
You have to elaborate on how it’s a bad argument. The existence of games at libraries doesn’t contradict what I’m saying at all.
People argue it’s immoral to pirate games because the artists must be compensated, but no one says that about buying used media or loaning from the library even though the artist still receives nothing.
Both loaning and used sales are shown to increase new book sales, so why wouldn’t the same be true for games?
You said that piracy is a moral imperative under these circumstances, and I’m going further to say it was never immoral in the first place.
Also of note is that libraries can’t loan out games for which there is no physical copy, which means big publishers are actively killing library availability as well.
Authors do get payed from libraries.
Source: am author, get yearly royalties from libraries.
To elaborate, how it worked for me is, when I published my book digitally, the store offered me to set a price for a “Library copy”. They recommend making this a higher price than the base copy, and then a digital library service will let people rent that copy out infinitely. Many authors take the default arrangement, since they’re just happy to have more people reading the work, BUT want to put a basic limiter on it (limited borrow copies) since we’re in the age of script kiddies, resellers, opportunistic collectors, etc.
This apparently varies by country. In countries where it’s not the case, the library system is not killing book sales or authorship.
People wouldn’t make movies or games if they didn’t get money for it.
What you seem to be after is called “slavery”.
Librarians don’t get dressed up in balaclavas and hit their nearest book store to get more books. No you’re not entitled to artist‘s work for free.
Just chiming in to recommend ZOOM-Platform games!
I just love what they provide. Their library is eclectic and the team truly cares about DRM-free gaming. Every game they have or will ever have is free of any DRM.
They really need to implement regional pricing, it’s just never going to take off in 80% of the world otherwise.
Piracy isn’t stealing either way, but this slogan is good. We need more people to pirate than ever before.
I’m going to be honest, this sounds like an astroturf campaign trying to reduce SKG into absurdity to harm it’s credibility.
Kinda telling that Valve aren’t on here. They also only sell a license to play a game, not the game.
Well technically and legally you always buy a license even with a game on physical media.
Any media you buy is a license because you’re only buying a copy, not the original.
Watch this by the guy who started Stop Killing Games. Then you can stop parroting the corporate wet dream that we don’t own stuff we buy.
Not a valve fan but they don’t shut down their online services since they let people run servers. TF2.and CSGO are good examples. Hell, you can even use all the skins for free on private servers.
that’s because it’s a company that’s mostly liked by people on lemmy (and presumably op), meanwhile those on their post are mostly hated. this post is just a way for people here to feel good about themselves for not buying the games they already didn’t care about by pretending it’s activism, but don’t you dare point out the shitty practices of the companies they like!!!
basically the entire video games industry* is based around the idea that you don’t own your games. this is obviously awful and needs to change, but i’m sorry, “just boycott the bad guys!!” won’t work when the bad guys is everyone, so to boycott them essentially means to stop engaging with gaming entirely. there’s a reason Stop Killing Games didn’t do a boycott, they did a campaign to get laws passed.
* except gog i guess, but they seem to like sending neonazi symbols to people’s inboxes so. pick your poison.
Most of those are ones i already hate.
My childhood friend and a common acquaintance work at Supercell. I once asked them what they think about the moral issue of putting paid loot boxes in games for children.
They had never heard of such a controversy and didn’t understand why a fun and profitable feature would be somehow wrong.
joke on you im playing retro games!!!
EDIT: but no seriously playing retro games is a great alternative then playing what’s new
Why ESL is bad ? They don’t make any games. They just do esports that promote gaming.
Why Sega is bad ? What did Bandai Namco ?
Only one Chinese company but no explicitly Tencent who owns Supercell and have 1/3 Epic Games, 1/3 Ubisoft it is just it’s brand name Level Infinite that means nothing.
No Scopely who owns Monopoly Go that alone makes $200M per month on gambling.
Any mobile gambling companies with micro transactions that are in fact casinos should be there instead of companies that just make AAA flops.
They’re members of a group which opposes the Stop Killing Games campaign.
https://www.videogameseurope.eu/our-membership/
https://www.videogameseurope.eu/news/statement-on-stop-killing-games/
I dont think its an “instead of” scenario, you can boycott all the peopoe that wont provide a decent product on reasonable terms at a fair price
Rockstar Games, Inc. is an American video game publisher based in New York City. The company was established in December 1998 as a subsidiary of Take-Two Interactive.
Take-Two is already on the list, and also covers 2K and Zynga.
So really the list should show all the subsidaries. Because there’s probably a decent number of people that don’t know.
You don’t need to list every company.
You know which ones are the big ones. If you see a “6” next to a game title, don’t pay for it. No indie game dev makes 5 sequels to a game.
Why not both? #StopPayingGames is awkward, why not #StopRentingGames or #StartOwningGames
Because “Stop Paying” is easier to twist into “See, they just want free stuff”
Should I feel bad for assuming any company’s name that ends in “group” probably do some heinous shit
I would like a law that says the publisher/owner/digital store has to remove any server pings and anti-cheat through a standalone update that can be shared and downloaded once they abandon support. This would go for games and any other digital media, alternatively they would have to offer a refund.
The closest I can think is turning CS:GO into CS:GO 2 and not making a separate game.
Its a separate game. I have both CS GO and CS2 in my library as separate entries. You have to manually re-add CS GO because it was added as a new entry when CS2 replaced it though.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/4465480/CounterStrikeGlobal_Offensive/
I thought that may have happened with Only Up!, but it may have only been temporally delisted for copyright violations by the developer.
Looks like it happens fairly often for bad G2A codes or other redeem code fraud, which seems fair. People report that you can get the money back as store credit.
I agree with the thrust of this, but I have no faith in the resolve of the average consumer to make a difference.
The average consumer has pirated a videogame. It’s not hard to do. We only not do it because steam is slightly easier, and you lose online/achievements, and because it’s not morally right. However, that one last barrier has fallen.
If buying is not owning, using without paying is not stealing. There is no moral issue on pirating videogames, just do it.
(All of this only applies to big companies ofc)
