Thank you for the answer! I just came back home to all the answers, yours strikes me as the best summary of the situation. I had signed the petition myself a while ago, but after that, never looked into further coverage, so all this whizzed right past me. Seems like, no matter if he genuinely misunderstood it or maliciously misrepresented it - he handled the situation pretty horribly overall. Explains the hate I have been seeing.

What did you really expect him to do, dude? He had no mana. What was he supposed to do?

Small note: For the end of life. They don't have to release all server binaries. Just the API documentation and some binaries (without the libraries that they can't share) would be more than enough. (Basically extremely minimal additional work for the developer)

Alternatively, there should be visible disclaimer next to the price (We promise the game is playable until xxx). So the consumer would be informed that what they are "buying" is temporary.

Leaving this here for other people who maybe could get a bad impression about putting extra work for developers that could discriminate against indies.

From an interview on HealthyGamerGG with Thor. I think he actually has inability to admit to any wrongdoing. He always needs to be right and will double down. He displays very narcissistic behaviour that keeps fueling the fire of hate.

Beyond rude and arrogant IMO. He misunderstood and misrepresented the SKG campaign and, when called out on this, refused to engage or discuss it further.

and also asserts that people who purchase games don't own them

Isn't that a large part of what the petition is aiming for though?

Especially if you live in Malta or Cyprus.

That doesn't matter at this point. The country threshold has been reached. Now it "only" needs to reach 1 million total signatures before the end of july, currently sitting at around 600k.

The latest pile-on against him is due to him having some reservations about the wording and intent of the petition/movement and, because we’re currently in a era where False Dichotomy is king: anything other than 100% unquestioning support is treated as 100% unequivocal opposition, and vice versa. 😒

His video's thumbnail is literally him throwing the petition into a dumpster. If we were not meant to see him as 100% in opposition, that's kind of on him TBH. He certainly communicates that way.

Of you’re going to legislate immortality on games, then you’re going to need to make your argument for it clear and robust, who has responsibility for what, how deprecating technology is handled, and so on.

Missing the point, as it's not a piece of legislation, it's a petition. Nobody expects it to be turned directly into law, but for the successful petition to start a process between various interest groups ultimately resulting in a law that's a compromise. Of course, if you tell people not to sign the petition, that process will never start in the first place.

Hmm, I would like to add on a couple of points to you reply (against your reply, now that I reread it):

1. I feel that he really was 100 percent in opposition against the movement, no?
2. About the movement, the creator of the movement also agrees that the movement can most probably not be applied to current games today, as it can be unfeasible for the exact same points you say, he wants it to be applied to future games being developed, by having the end of life of games be considered right from the beginning of games.
3. Moreover, about the legislative part of it, doesn't a petition not need to deal with the exact legal wording? I belived petitions to be more like "hey, this is what the idea is, and this many people support it". More like a letter to like actual law makers that this is a problem, and we need laws regarding this problem. Then the clear and robust arguments for each of the (very valid, of course!) problems and caveats you mention will need to be clearly articulated by them.

Only naive, entitled gamers would demand such a wild thing. It's not going to get past any courts

Which is why the SKG campaign is specifically not demanding that. Pirate Software has misrepresented the stance of the SKG campaign consistently in his videos. Seriously.

Lol, maybe learn about the movement, dork. This is absolutely not what's being demanded.

"Known game dev."

His "game" has been in limbo for what, a decade? And he "worked" at blizzard because of his daddy.

Dude doesn't know shit.

Thankyou for giving a perfect example as to why we hate pirate software. Because of his bullshit, this is what you think the Stop Killing Games movement is about.

Maybe try to not get your opinions on such things from narcissistic youtubers.

That's kind of the biggest problem with this whole ordeal. The people who are talking about it aren't capable of reading the petition, the petition isn't asking for that. Same problem we have with near every controversy.

The EU already mandates minimal service life for things like security updates. I don't see why it won't make it past courts. Hell, under EU laws regarding warranty, games publishers are probably already forced to either run game servers for a minimum of two years (or offer alternatives such as full refunds). This concept is just extending the mandated warranty in a sense. As for the software itself, manufacturers are under tons of regulation when it comes to support and availability of replacement parts in various industries. Entitlement does play a role, but that may very well be in the fact that consumers are simply entitled to access to the goods and services they purchased.

Also, there's nothing stopping companies from releasing alternative servers when their main servers turn off. Games used to come with dedicated servers for free. Companies just decided not to do it anymore because they can make more money with their current strategy. While the games are being sold, these companies make hundreds of millions or even billions of profit. The cost of their servers remaining available is just part of their profit forecast.

None of this will fail because it would be impossible to make happen. The real question is probably if consumers have more power than the video games lobby. I doubt they do. The proposal goes against the financial incentives of video game publishers, so they'll try to convince lawmakers not to bother. If their attempts fail, there's a chance certain games won't make it into the EU if such a law passes, or that certain content won't be available, but it's not like nobody will make games anymore.

A more realistic scenario of a law like this will have game publishers state an expiration date on their software. They already have to when it comes to security updates, but they'll probably have to put a sticker on it like "this game/DLC will stop working after 2026" and let consumers decide whether to buy the product or not.