"Games as a service" is fraud

"Games as a service" is fraud

Postby Wuzzy » 17 Jul 2019, 16:20

There's an excellent video published in April 2019 on YouTube on the topic of so-called “games as a service”.

It's over 1 hour long and completely obliterates the whole idea that is “games as a service”. He uses both legal and conceptual arguments.
This is an absolute must-watch / must-hear (it's mostly a “talking head” video). Can definitely recommend.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUAX0gnZ3Nw

HINT: Use youtube-dl to download videos from YouTube. It's libre. ^_^
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Re: "Games as a service" is fraud

Postby Lyberta » 17 Jul 2019, 21:10

Obligatory actual lawyer's response. 2 hours 30 mins.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUxnnMPxEu4

They may violate other laws but not a fraud.
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Re: "Games as a service" is fraud

Postby drummyfish » 18 Jul 2019, 07:07

Service as a software substitute, it's been known these are highly malicious and abusive.

It doesn't matter much whether or what kinds of actual laws are violated as laws are ever-changing, arbitrary, unjust and can be easily manipulated, sold and bought. If there is a fraud but it's a good business for someone in power, laws will be changed. We need to talk about these issues mainly in terms of ethics, not law.
socialist anarcho-pacifist
Abolish all IP laws. Use CC0. Let's write less retarded software.
http://www.tastyfish.cz
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Re: "Games as a service" is fraud

Postby Julius » 18 Jul 2019, 18:06

Are you using these services? I mostly don't and for the most part no one is forced to use these services. People choose to use them... there is a market for them.

It's a bit like plumbing services... of course doing it yourself is in nearly all cases much higher quality and you don't have to deal with unethical plumbers that do shoddy work on purpose to make sure it needs to be "fixed" again soon... but that would also mean you have to deal with your literal own shit and bother actually learning how to do it.

Lets try to not lose sleep over people willingly using these shoddy services and rather focus on making it easier for everyone to not use them if they chose to do so :)
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Re: "Games as a service" is fraud

Postby Wuzzy » 18 Jul 2019, 19:30

Typical Julius response … Always downplaying everything …
Julius, did you even watch the video? It seems you are basically ignoring, like, ALL of the arguments brought up. If you don't have time for the whole video, just jump to 1:10:10 of the video then.
GaaS can certainly NOT be compared with plumbing.

“People choose to use them …”. Well, that's exactly the problem! People use it, not knowing about the problems or not expecting the sudden death of the game. If these companies get their way, it will only spread and become worse.
“There is a market for them …”. How? GaaS is completely artificial that is just to serve business/monopoly interests. If there is a market, its only because people are tricked into thinking they need this.
“ rather focus on making it easier for everyone to not use them if they chose to do so”. That sounds a lot like “voting with your wallet”. Well, if this is our only defense, then we're doomed. People NEED to be educated about the dangers of GaaS.

Another very important point was preservation of games. This is much bigger than just a consumer rights issue.

I could go on and on but that's already explained in the video.

You just literally ignored every argument that was made. I cannot take you serious at all, sorry.


Anyhow, I have now seen the very long response video. I didn't really like the video, it was much less fun to watch as its a recorded livestream and unstructured … It was only about the US legal side anyway and tbh I don't even care much about the legal. As has been said, even if the legal arguments are wrong, then the law is wrong. The title kind of suggests a complete rebuttal but it actually was not and the lawyer actually agreed with many points. Just not with the “fraud”. Oh well. Overall, the video was still OK because they had a good discussion. But the content could have been condensed more.

Yeah, the “fraud” discussion is indeed debatable but that was not actually the key point. Let's call it “scam” or “deception” instead.
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Re: "Games as a service" is fraud

Postby Julius » 18 Jul 2019, 21:01

Yeah, I get annoyed by YouTube videos like that, which are just ranting with little substance that could have been put in 3 paragraphs of text at most. I went back to the 1:10 timestamp, but I still don't really see the point.

This is just a new variant of the same old argument against closed source games. The old games this guy talks about are not in any way better, they just degrade into a non-usable state a bit slower (or require extensive reverse engineering in the form of emulators like dosbox).

Of course I don't disagree in general (as a strong supporter of Free Software), but maybe I am too old to get worked up on the same old issue but this time painted in a slightly different color.

Last but not least, I feel this discussion is to a large extend a distraction from working on the issues that are really important. Going back to the old closed source model (or a slightly improved version of it) as this guy is demanding isn't solving anything, in fact it is probably making things worse.

Edit: to further clarify, except for some children, I don't believe people are tricked into anything nor need education about the dangers, they simply don't care. And if they learn a valuable life lesson by being outraged about their favourite game being shut down, then that's probably in the favour of everyone.
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Re: "Games as a service" is fraud

Postby dulsi » 18 Jul 2019, 23:58

I don't see it as fraud. I think it should be pointed out more clearly that you are paying for the service not the software and that it can be shut off without warning. I would agree with adding laws to support the end of life plan that he suggests. I think it would be better if they passed a law to do that over using the courts. But that does seem unlikely.
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Re: "Games as a service" is fraud

Postby Jastiv » 19 Jul 2019, 05:21

It would be better if gaming companies simply released the source code to both the client and the server and allowed limitless modification of the assets, basically, if the game is free culture and free software, so what if they charge for the tedious task of server hosting. If they do a good job, it is money well spent, if not, then they don't have vendor lock in so someone else can do it, for free or for pay. AGPL v3 was invented to fix it so you could just license your server source code as that and then you can't run it without allowing users to receive a copy of the source.
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