ESA rejects proposal to allow the revival of dead online games

[Ilsyde]

Doesn't affect Skylords Reborn since the acquisition, but is worth a quick read regardless. Link below.

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2018/02/21/the-esa-rejects-proposed-dmca-exceptions-to-allow-the-non-profit-and-unofficial-revival-of-dead-online-games

snippet from the article:

Quote

Recently, several groups including the Museum Of Art & Digital Entertainment put forward the argument to the US Copyright Office that existing game preservation exceptions in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) be widened as part of regularly scheduled legal revisions. This would allow for ‘dead’ online games to be more easily revived by entities other than their rights-holders.

Unsurprisingly, the ESA, representing a great number of major gaming publishers has spoken out against this.

(...) the short version is simply their belief that any loosening of the law that would allow fans to attempt to repair or revive defunct games would cause quantifiable damage to the industry.

 

[Ultrakool]

That is pretty strange decision imo and seems to have been made because of lobbyists and not putting the consumers’ best interest at heart.

[NeokOnline]

 meh

Edited March 4, 2018 by NeokOnline

[Ilsyde]

Yeah, large companies tend to be like that... ignorant and uncaring.

Here is a video from Ross (who made a great video/rant about the shutdown of Battleforge a good while ago) discussing this subject in more detail:
(Battleforge is briefly mentioned in this)

 

[sanyavok9]

1 hour ago, Ilsyde said:

Yeah, large companies tend to be like that... ignorant and uncaring.

Here is a video from Ross (who made a great video/rant about the shutdown of Battleforge a good while ago) discussing this subject in more detail:
(Battleforge is briefly mentioned in this)

 

you should post the battle forge video he made. Its fantastic and true in every way... all of his videos are good actually

[Ilsyde]

That video was posted by Strek0za for the first time in this forum, therefore I'm just going to leave a link to his thread:

Agreed, Ross's videos have care and depth to them, reminding me of the good ol' quality content that's so lacking from digital media nowadays with all the juvenile twitch streamers and youtube clickbaits trying to make a quick buck.

[roxila]

Didn't EA get rid of every free to play game? Because "Wasn't making enough money"? As far as I remember BFH and EA were one of their best games IMO. Also Rock Hippo Games* got rid of BrawlBusters, which also was one of the best games I've played. They only get rid of good games, keep the bad ones coming.

Obviously not everybody has the same taste, but when a game has servers constantly filled with people, with most of them with pay to get cosmetics I don't see how "bad" it's going for the companies. RHP closes Brawl Busters but not MicroVolts which was and is still filled with cheaters and now they're making a MOBA, bruh.

Edited March 10, 2018 by roxila

[Asraiel]

even if i dont go wth their desicion i understand wy they did decide that way. 

every humans day has 24 h and if those who play onlinegame playing in free games that reduces the costumers stock on other games even if we talk here in big numbres. but most requests are made in the begin to hard. (i didnt read the official report) but as far i know was the request more that the copy rigth drops if a onlinegame was shut down or never made it in to release. and then the copyright instandly get out of order but that is to harsh in my opinion to get ever passed. better would be after shut down or not releasing the game keeps the copy right for 5 years so the producer have time to revive or bring out simular title. 

but even then it would be hard to get aproval cause arts ar considered to have a way longer copy right like a painting for exampla has the natural copy right that no copys are allowed to make from it until 70 years after the death of the creator. and tecnicly are games since the have a lot of grafic in them partly in this category. 

for me i would say it would be nice or best that is a game gets shut down the content is under copyright for 5 more years and then the copyright gets lowered so that everyone can release a non profit version of the game if the title wasent sold befor so that after shut down the company can sold the title for money and the new owner then have a new copyright if the game is online.ö if set in contract with the allowence to make money or not in advance. that way fan comunitys would have the natural legal way to get their beloved game back online.

[Ilsyde]

What puts it in perspective is when he talks about that timeline, how a move like this from a publisher would've been perceived let's say 15 years ago, in the golden age of gaming.
Whereas now this is the industry standard, more and more people accepting DRM as always-on and lack of dedicated public servers as the norm.

To be fair you could argue the fact that yes, you have paid for the game/product/service. However you also got your money's worth at the end of the day, and there is nothing to complain about. Especially if you played for free. On the other hand, gaming has sunk so low that people defend lootboxes nowadays.

I can sort of get with that, though at the same time it's a damn shame to see good games disappear with no accepted way of retaining them. Copy protection got really out of hand back in the day (remember starforce?) and now always-on DRM has taken over which is a lot worse and we can't do a lot about it. Cloud gaming is the next step, and the final nail in the coffin 

[Asraiel]

time changes a lot. if i remember back to my starting age on pc gaming i did live in my parrents home and we only had a modem for internet even after 4 years (arround 2004) we upgraded to permanent internet but even then onlinegameing wasnt as it is today i remember the first online game i played was Ogame. but on 3d grafic games the market wasnt big back then u mostly bouth a game and could then use multyplayer. but today or even 8 years ago the mmorpgs started to pop up which holds a big piece of the gamers today and offline started to disapear. i do play old games from time to time to get me back in my teens, but there are only a few still playing them. but even if old titles would be still online today they might getting a decreasing community cause no new players coming to play a game that may looks cancer compaired to the todays grafic. but for bf i must make an exception cause i tested many TCG OG in the time and for me the concept on BF was unique to fuse a TCG OG with a RTS. 

but in general are most games that got shut down allredy replaced with newer versions in end it may look diffrent, have a diffrent story, diffrent look but the gameplay is the same, the object to win is the same. kinda like if u take age of empires 2 there it had diffrent versions and even aoe3 is the same but diffrent look. or take sport games for example like fifa 2000 compaired to fifa 2017 or 2018 the object to win is still the same the round thing must go in the edged thing. only grafic has changed. and there i realy understand that if a old version got shut down and the copy right blocks to revive it.

the weekening of the copyright must focus more on unique style games (unique in gameplay not apearence)

Edited March 11, 2018 by Asraiel