Asmongold TV - He won't stop killing games.. | Asmongold TV

Episode Date: June 26, 2025

He won't stop killing games.. Asmongold show for all of his stream highlights, competitions, reactions & more. -------------- ------------- Keywords: gaming news, streaming highlights, streamer podcast, gaming reactions, gaming takes, twitch clips Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

And there is an initiative that has been aiming to fight back against a lot of these practices that I think really need some big overhaul. It's consumer protection laws. This is effectively what this initiative is at its very core is consumer rights advocacy. It's not about video games. It's not about Ubisoft. It's not about what's in a terms of service of a video game or not. It's really about consumer rights and people having the ability to choose what's going to happen with their own stuff. Initiative that I think a lot of you are probably very familiar with. It's called Stop Killing Games.

And I've followed it since its inception. I've talked about it on stream quite a few times. So have I? No, this is my first video going over it. And I regret that now because I see it wasn't going as well as I thought it was. Admittedly, I didn't follow. I think it's gone very well. I'll be real. Like almost half a million. signatures is a tremendous success. But for those that don't know anything about Stop Killing Games,

I'm going to let him explain it in his own words. That way you can get an actual correct informed explanation of what the initiative is. And the reason I say it like that, kind of fucking all, you know, pinky out, you know, snooty is because a lot of people don't even really know what this is because of people like pirate software completely misrepar... Oh! Oh! Oh, geez.

They bringing them up. Uh-oh. Presenting what the initiative was. As a refresher, stop killing games is a consumer movement to stop publishers from effectively destroying video games they have already sold to customers. Yeah. I'll pause right there.

The simplest bare bones birthday suit, but-ass-naked explanation for what this is. Stop destroying things. The initiative for stop. killing games is to serve the purpose of stopping companies from killing games. Okay, I can see that. Yeah, that makes sense. That people have paid money to own.

Yeah. Okay. I think that is a very understandable, very reasonable take, very agreeable. Now, I want to quickly jump to a different spot in this video, because I think it's important to have this in the beginning, because it's something a lot of people have heard that comes from someone that is just wrong about it. It's the pirate software portion. Ross is addressing the video

Pirate Software made many months ago. I remember watching this. Ross even says that he didn't plan on doing that because he didn't want to be seen as using this for drama farming because it would start to make the movement look less of like a legitimate initiative and more of just like drama slop content type thing.

But he finally starts talking about pirate software here because it's at the end of the life cycle of this initiative and it's not looking promising. So he's willing to do anything to try and set the record straight and hopefully start getting more momentum back to the movement because the damage pirate software did to it through his video was substantial. I remember this video was actually one of the first points where pirate software's audience. I have that.

I have that. What the fuck? What the fuck? Bro, I have that same one. Holy fuck. I didn't even know that. Same room. Yeah, what the fuck?

That's kind of stress. Damn. Is he in your house? I guess so. Same per, I guess so. Okay, so anyway, I forgot even what I was saying. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So this video was very polarizing with Pirate Software's audience.

And it was one of the big points where, like, I mean, now people don't like Thor. But like back then, people were very positive about him. and that video was one of the first points of difference that he had with his audience. You guys remember this? Not understand what Stop Killing Games is. Here it is in his words. Okay, that's fine. So for those who understand, the Stop Killing Games initiatives...

SKG. Is basically we don't want single player games. No. To have DRM that the developers can turn off and thus render the single player games inactive anymore. that's the this is what they want to change they need to be specific that they're talking about single player games that do not need a server to support them no and as much as they want it to be about specifically games where it is a single player game that has always online functionality it would impact every live service game that exists instead of just targeting single player

always online games no that's not what it is no stop killing games in includes single player games, but nothing about it is specific to them. He completely made that up. And I have no idea where he got that impression. It's the first line on the website. Stop Killing Games as a consumer movement started to challenge the legality of publishers destroying video games they have sold to customers. But the movement includes all this stuff from earlier, and he was mostly talking about the initiative. Yes.

He didn't even get the Cliff Notes summary right. Ross is correct. This has nothing to do with just single player, only games that require an online connection that when the online connection is severed you lose access to the game they need to be more specific in their language about it being single player always online connectivity games when that's just not what it's about like they're not being specific about that because that is not what they are specifically targeting it's the most it is about the whole practice of destroying games that consumers have already purchased and having no end-of-life plans

for games that are being sunset so for example The crew. The crew is an example. Everyone is going to reference and talk about because Ubisoft is still currently in a lawsuit battling against it for what happened with this game. I've yapped about it quite a bit, so I'm not just going to regurgitate that. I'm sure a lot of you already know this story about it. But basically, you buy the crew. Ubisoft pulls the plug on the servers. You can't play the crew anymore. Now it's just an old wet dream of what once was. And they are facing a lawsuit. And while this is in the umbrella of Stop Killing Games, it is not the only thing stop killing games is referencing when it comes to this practice. Pirate software is so hung up on it being single player games that people lose access to when that is a component of it, but not the entire focus. Yeah. Yeah, of course, right? I mean, obviously that's it. Well, the short version is the initiative is about requiring publishers to have end-of-life plans for games they've sold to

customers in the future. So when they shut them down, customers could continue running them without their support. So that's one thing. And this is something that affects online games and also offline games or single player games. Thor doesn't understand. But he also seems to think this is about converting multiplayer games to single player. Transitioning an entire multiplayer server side game into a single player, which means rebalancing the entire experience around single player, rebuilding everything in the entire game. How are you going to do that with Final Fantasy 14? You're just going to make all the raids soloable, imagine the day that World of Warcraft shuts down, and suddenly you have to make it a single player game for every individual that ever bought

the game. That's what they're asking for. No. Because they would have to sunset live service games as a single player experience. The idea that suddenly you need to make... I don't think that it was ever stated that it needed to be sunset as a single player experience. I don't think anybody ever said that. Like, I mean, again, like the publisher maintaining the server seems like that would be like a logical question that you would ask.

But making every game single player, I don't really see why you'd need to think about that, considering there's so many locally run servers for all kinds of games, including, wow. Every single live service game, playable single player offline? No, dude. Uh, correct. No. This part is more confusing than Finnegan's wake. Because nowhere in anything on Stop Killing Games has this even been like a talking point from anyone besides pirate software.

I don't know where he pieced this puzzle together. Like, I don't get it. Like, if I'm going to try and, like, really reach here and give, like, a charitable explanation for this take, maybe he's extrapolating based on the idea that if publishers have to have end-of-life plans for their games, that includes MMOs, where once the game is getting sunset, you're pulling the plug on it. Yeah, that's what he means. You didn't need to turn the game over to the community in a playable state and accessible state, like, give the come. code to them. Thus, it turned it into a single-player experience. So the developer, the onus would be on the

developers to rebalance their game to be a single-player experience for them. I guess. I have no idea that still just doesn't make it. I think also another reason why that discussion was happening is that a lot of the conversation around the stop-killing games devolved into single-player versus multiplayer and who can host servers and how. Like, it wasn't actually in the initiative, but after the initiative was presented, people were talking about those topics. Any sense, but maybe that's the tree he's barking up with that thought process. I really don't know, because stop killing games at no point ever says any of these multiplayer games need to be converted to single player. Yeah, nobody said that.

That really is outlandish. And the more I think about it, like, the more nonsensical becomes, because even in pirate software's hypothetical fanfic there, why would, would the developers need to rebalance the game? They would just turn over the code to the community and just, it'd be in that state. They're no longer responsible for balancing the game. That's the whole point. They're not indefinitely supporting it. They would just be responsible of leaving the game in an accessible state to the community while they would shut down the servers on their end. They would need to go back through with a whole development team and like, you know, tweak the game to be single player compatible. It just doesn't make sense. Well, if the thing is, if you had a community

server, then the community server could do that themselves. Like, you have all kinds of, like, wow, private servers that have solo raids and all kinds of weird bullshit in them now. So really, it's not something that the developer would really need to do, because as long as people were able to host and run their own servers, this could be done by the community for the community. I don't, I really do not understand that one. But apparently a lot of people watched on to that talking point from pirate software.

is something that Stop Killing Games was asking for and how unreasonable it was. Which, if that's what Stop Killing Games was asking for, it would be unreasonable. Yeah. But that's not what it's asking for. Nowhere in there does it say that it's directly targeting always online single player games. Oh, he's so close. He's so close to getting it. It is vague.

And because of that, it will impact. Uh-oh. He never has that light bulb moment. Well, he is correct in that state. It's almost as if that's not what the initiative is asking for. I know this part is once again. And this is, this was a, this was an outcome of the dialogue around it whenever it came out. Because like whenever this video came out, I watched the same video myself.

And a lot of people were drawing a distinction between how would this apply to single player games versus multiplayer games? I think that's probably why he was talking about it. But like, Ross is right that. it applies to all games. And it was a dichotomy that was never actually, it was created by the community and not by the actual initiative, if that makes sense.

So there was a community conversation about that difference, but the initiative never stated or explained the difference themselves. And just reinforcing that he doesn't know what the Stop Killing Games movement is about. But I have to just show you this because it is so fascinating, because he himself literally calls out that Stop Killing Games at no point explicitly mentions single player always online games or anything like that.

And for some reason, instead of following the breadcrumbs that would naturally lead him to the conclusion of, oh, maybe I misunderstood, maybe because it's absent here, that's not what this is actually about. Instead, he uses it as a criticism against the Stop Killing Games initiative entirely, saying it's just too vague, it's way too vague.

The reason it is not explicitly stated there, is because that is not what the whole initiative is about. It is not specifically. It's also because an initiative like that doesn't, like, that is a, that is legally defined by a governing body. Like, basically, we're not, like, this initiative is not legal text. This, the initiative is something that we are effectively trying to communicate to developers

or, sorry, to the government, in order for them to translate this initiative into legal. text. And so it's really not about the specific wording. It's about what the essence of the wording is and what the goal is trying, what the goal they're trying to achieve is. Like very clearly this wasn't written by a lawyer and it would be debated between probably dozens of lawyers whenever it would be discussed. It's not a law. Yeah, exactly. Like the reason why it's not hyper-precise is because it's not a law. It's to start the conversation. Yes, yes, clearly. We're targeting that thing that you keep saying that it is.

I don't know how that never clicked. But those were his streams with a smaller audience. What does he say in his big YouTube video with over a million views that he had time to research? If we're trying to kill off the practice of developers putting together a live service game, pitching it as a single player experience, and then taking away support in the future. Yeah.

Now he's changed it again and is making up how it's about single player games are advertised. What is he doing? It needs to be specific about the business practice it's trying to defeat, which is specifically companies that are doing this under the guise of it being a single player game, but adding online only functionality that is not necessary and doesn't add any gameplay elements. That's the problem. No, that's not it at all. This is a really strong section from Ross here because the clips that you saw moments ago were from his stream. when he took... Yeah, I mean, I'm sure that's a component to it,

but it's not the entire thing. I mean, again, like, there's... And there would be, like, for example, the way that you would run a single-player game would be different than the way that you would run a multiplayer game. Like, for example, like, giving players the code for a game would be less necessary and less important

if you're just running a game like Dark Souls 1 or Hades or something like that. So, like, it's just simply, one permutation of it, but there's really about probably four or five of different types of games. More time to watch it and digest it, he still came back in that video misrepresenting it. Like it never dawned on him. Like on stream he could write it off as like, oh, he didn't grasp it at the moment, maybe later on he did. Well, then he made the video where he still was talking

about things that are just not what stop killing games was about. And this was the one, that really blew up and really started to kind of dismantle the stop killing games momentum. If we don't like the idea of live service games as a whole, I get it. Don't play live service games then. Don't agree to those terms. No, he's getting a new thing wrong now. I think that the idea of not agreeing to certain terms is I don't like that mindset. And the reason why I don't like the mindset is because you could make that argumentation to justify any type of consumer unfriendly practice that's ever existed.

The fact is that certain things consumers should not be able to consent to because they're just simply not in the consumer's best interest. And that's why you need government and you need to have regulations. And I know some people act like regulation is some kind of evil fucking, you know, evil spirit word. But the reality is that the computer you're using, the monitor that you're looking at, the phone that you're on, everything that you're using is a product of infinitely many Russian nesting dolls of regulations

between distribution, merchandising, electricity, wattage, functionality, like everything. So everything like this is regulated. So the entire concept about this is about, you know, regulation being bad, completely untrue. People, again, it's like a fish complaining about water. Live service games then don't agree to those terms. No, he's getting a new thing wrong now. We're not against them existing. We're against them being destroyed with no records for the customer.

Pirate software then goes on to talk about like the business practice of misleading consumers into thinking that what they're buying is a product as opposed to a license to a product, which is a totally separate thing. And then he criticizes just because they rename something doesn't mean that it's. a good idea or that's good for a consumer. Maybe this is like a fucking socialism take, but if a business practice has no if it has no upside for the customer, then

I don't really think it should exist. Why should a business practice exist at all if it has no upside for the customer? Killing games for not being specific about that thing that he is bringing up as opposed to what stop killing games is talking.

about, so he's using that against them for some reason. And then Ross goes into like the license talk. Our problem is not with licenses failing to inform people. Blizzard says they can take away your purchase for no reason. Yeah, I think that's bullshit. They shouldn't be able to do that. If they do, they should have to give you your money back. There's somebody saying they don't have to acknowledge to understand a problem. This is about giving away the code. So this is one thing that a lot of people might like might not understand is that you don't need to be an expert in coding to realize that you're getting scammed. Just because somebody knows a lot about coding and they understand it better, I think Pirate Software probably understands coding better than me, Ross, or Charlie. I would assume

that to be the case. But again, think about how many other things like, you know, we don't know a lot about. Like, we don't know how to make a car. We don't know how to make an airplane. We don't know how to do any of this, but does that mean that we can't ask for safer cars and safer airplanes at better prices that are reasonable? No. Or medicine or something like that. So the reality is that yes, while somebody might have more knowledge in the topic, that doesn't necessarily mean that that knowledge overrides other people's desire to be treated fairly. And I think if you applied this logic to other situations where people don't have that knowledge in, it would become immediately true that that's the case.

Sounds pretty clear to me. Our problem is those terms are so hostile to consumers and the medium that they should be... That's the thing, is that just because you put something in your terms of service, the terms of service does not override the law. Taking off the table entirely. Yeah, it's not like you can just all that cancels it out. Forget video games. That's not how it works.

If you look at basic commerce for... hundreds of years. When you paid money, you either got to keep what you paid for, or if it was a service, you were told when your access ends. The vast majority of online-only games do neither of those. He's exactly right. That is a huge problem. Now, pirate software is correct here about these companies that will mislead consumers. I don't think that Ross's solution to that would be sufficient because the developer could say that the game will be live for at least one year and then that could give them an out later on and it would create the same problem you'd need to have more inclusive language to avoid situations like that where companies create dishonest

time frames in order to avoid this responsibility and this is again this is this is something that the lawyers would figure out but but again this is something that you derive from an initiative a specific end date yeah just through this from Advertising on what you're actually buying because in a lot of cases you don't own any of the shit that you are buying It is pretty much a rental you get a permission slip to access the content that is an issue and not making it abundantly clear to consumers I think that that entire practice is something that should be re-evaluated a license is a construct This is a legal construct that's created by people This is different than ownership.

Like owning something is having it in your hand. A license is something that is theoretical. It doesn't exist in any sort of physical sense. And because of that, I think that we should really reevaluate what a license means. Why is it okay that we've turned every single product into a license that can be revoked, removed, or taken away from you with really no recourse to the customer? like that seems like a very imbalanced relationship in my mind what about a driver's license a driver's license affects other people's lives there's a higher standard of conduct that you would require that from and also that's with the government and the government can't just take your driver's license away for no reason as far as i know like you have to violate certain laws that what's your that that that Jesus that is what you are buying is a problem

and so too is the actual agreements as Ross demonstrates with Blizzard where it says they can just completely terminate it for no reason at all it really does go against the basic idea of commerce entirely video games are a totally different ball game and so are movies now too

because half the time you don't realize that you're just buying an admission ticket to a game. You're not actually buying the game. You also don't know how long that's going to last. Again, to go back to Concord, that shit lasted less than the fucking, you know,

fucking rainstorm basically. Like, there is just so many problems. So I don't know why Pirate Software would be so harsh on stop killing games for not addressing specific things that he himself is bringing up. I think the reason

why Thor was so hostile towards it is because he thought that it was unfair towards developers. And Thor is a developer, and so he's taking that perspective. Like, I don't think he looked at it from the perspective of a consumer, but he looked at it instead from the perspective of a developer, which, again, that's going to be an unpopular opinion to have because most people that consume content about video games aren't developers, they're players.

The quote developer? Well, I mean, he's still assuming that perspective. right? I mean, like that, I mean, we all know that. I try to be fair, guys. I do. I try to be fair. Compute. It really is a video that did significant damage to an actually positive initiative that aim to help consumers in the video game space, all based on his complete mess, misrepresentation of it, which was a complete mess. People said his perspective was wrong, even if it's from the developer.

I didn't say that it was right. The majority of what he said, I disagreed with even back then. You can go back and watch the video. And so this is something that I've been completely consistent with the entire time. Also, like, again, I think if a product doesn't exist in a way that's beneficial for a customer, then it shouldn't exist. Like, there are a lot of parasitic types of like contracts. Like, for example, like credit cards are a great example of this. Like, is it, is it in the best interest of the public that the government will legally force you to pay MasterCard or Visa 30% interest. Because again, you've got to keep in mind that all of these companies and all of these rules

can only really be enforced by the government. Like the government are the ones that really make this decision, not the company. The company says this is against our terms of service, but if the government says we're just not going to enforce that, then it effectively doesn't matter. You see what I'm saying? So the issue really is about the government enforcing it. It's kind of like when Nintendo sends somebody a DMCA,

the DMCA doesn't come through Nintendo. It comes through the government or the patent office or copyright office of the government. So the government are really the ones that make these decisions. The, uh, or choose not to make these decisions. The companies are simply asking them to make the decisions. I did tell me that every studio needs to run their live service game indefinitely or not one run run at all. Then no one's going to run them. Oh no.

Yeah. He wheeled out that line about publishers. having to support the game forever. He was literally watching the video. A lot of people talked about that when it came out. Video earlier where it says it won't do that in big letters. That wasn't enough. We just can't stop gamers from going there, even when we spell it out.

That's the last clip I want to show from this section on the pirate software video. It is very simply asking that when the game has reached the end of its life cycle, the publishers, developers don't want to work on it any longer. The vagueness is key for the initiative. over to the community to still be in a playable accessible state so the product can still exist. There is some more nuance, obviously, to how that works, given like publisher, developer licensing and a lot of like the code, the binary, that kind of thing. There is a lot at play. I'm not sure if I agree that the company should have to relinquish the code.

I'm not sure if I agree with that. I think that might go too far. I'd really have to think about that more because there's a lot of proprietary code. and things like that, that would make no sense. Yeah, I think that would be too much. As mentioned in the beginning, most of Stop Killing Games hasn't been successful in getting change. And Ross has dedicated so much of his life to this, and it's clearly taken a big toll. It's been a lot. Now he's doing everything he can for this last ditch, the last ditch push to try and help. And there are two big things coming up that can do so.

What are they? It's what I linked at the very beginning of the stream, or stream, at the very beginning of the video about the resources in the description. It's in regards to this. One is for the UK to sign a government petition to bring this issue before Parliament. Though keeping it real, I'm not terribly optimistic about this one, since the government response has been a mess by every definition. But the one that has a lot of power, so much so I think it could change the course of gaming history, is the European Citizens Initiative. Now, I said I'm approaching this like a time traveler because with the trajectory we're on, these are both going to fail. Again, this one is crazy powerful, but the hurdle we just couldn't get past was that it requires one million signatures from citizens of EU countries.

And we've only made it just under halfway. What a lot of people don't realize is that in the EU especially, it's almost a state of lawlessness regarding the practice of game destruction. Is that the vast majority of games with an online... I feel like this is the case everywhere. Like it's kind of like an uncharted territory Because like we're just now entering into the phase of live service products going into service Or things that you buy through a license on the internet that disappear Like really this it's kind of a new phenomenon

Because like in in 1995 for example you would rent You know a VHS tape of fucking I don't know been her from what do you call it i i don't know like i'm trying to think a blockbuster that's the one and like you would just take it and you'd take it back right it's very simple it's easy to understand or you would buy the movie and then you could just simply watch the movie when you would want and so now you have all these complexities and i don't think that the law has caught up to the culture around these complexities that's that's fundamentally what the problem is is that the technology has advanced way faster than the law

law has. The environment, say they can be terminated at any time for any reason. Or Blizzard likes to say any or no reason. But uh-oh, according to the EU Commission, that might be a violation of directive 9313 EEC, which protects consumers against unfair terms and consumer contracts. Yes. So this is again what I was saying. The idea that, oh, you signed up for this, so it's okay, that's bullshit.

That's not how it works. If that term is unfair, that means that part of the contract is null and void. He goes on to explain how powerful that can be because of what a mess that is. Because there is so much gray area with how the video games currently operate in regards to those protections, it would be a legal headache that would require an analysis of the laws or implementation of new laws that could lead to hopefully an improvement. And that's the goal. But that's not something that anybody in this video would be able to do.

This would have to be defined by people that have extensive understanding of copyright and IP law. And basically lawyers and politicians would have to come to this conclusion. The initiative is just simply to being awareness to the issue. It's basically saying we have a problem, but it's not giving a solution. comes to gaming. So the big hurdle was the signatures, needing a million, and currently it's at like 460,000, so it doesn't reach the threshold. I've been very vocal from the very beginning about how little faith I have in petitions,

but that's just from the perspective of an American. In America, petitions are more worthless than toilet paper. You're better off just writing what you want on a note to Santa Claus and shipping it to the North Pole, than you are doing anything with a petition in this country. Is there tariffs? I don't know how different it is in the EU. Maybe it really is this powerful there that could lead to subsist. I think it's very obvious that the European Union is more progressive about creating digital consumer protections.

And I think that they are about probably 10 years ahead of the United States. And that's a good thing. So if it's going to happen anywhere, it will happen in the EU. substantial change and improvement. And by the way, this is something that makes things better for everybody, too. Because as soon as this is made available and made evident to everyone, then we can all see, hey, yeah, by the way, this is actually something that's very beneficial. This is something that's great.

And also the companies, if enough countries have laws against these types of practices, then those types of practices become non-commercial. viable. And as soon as that happens, that's whenever games change for everybody. The games and preservation and all of what we've already talked about. I think EUW does a really good job on this. I mean, that's really all that's left for the Stop Killing Games initiative, which sucks, but that's the position that it's in, unfortunately. And I wanted to talk about it because I really want to see something change with the games industry. I've said that so many times

recently, but it's just, it's in such a sorry state. I mean, I'm talking big budget AAA space. Indies, I think, are absolutely crushing it. I think big budget AAA games right now are in a transitionary period. And it seems like also one of the big reasons why I think AAA gaming right now is suffering is because it's subjected to something that's very upsetting to someone who has a monopoly, which is competition. When you have Chinese developers, Korean developers and now Indian developers. And of course, obviously, you have some European developers.

European is the West, but like, again, like I'm talking primarily about America. You have people like, you know, War Horse Studios that made Kingdom come deliverance to, or you have sand, it's not sandbox, it's sand something interactive that made Expedition 33. So that's really what I think is happening, is that you're having more of these companies come in and compete against the sandfall yeah there you go uh sandfall interactive uh you're having them compete against these traditional studios and the traditional studios are just simply too big or too too large to compete that's what's happening right now in the golden age of indie games but overall in the big budget games and the way the industry keeps pushing things it sucks so i wanted

to talk about stop killing games here hopefully things can turn around and maybe a huge W's around the corner for the Stop Killing Games initiative. We'll see. But anyway, I want to commend Ross for his hard work spearheading all of this for so long. Ross has done a great job. And that's really about it. See ya. Yeah, no, I think this is definitely true. And I'm very glad to see this. I think this is a, it's a great thing. And I'll also link the petition so you guys can take a look at it as well. And we can get an idea of how many people are actually signing this. And so where is it right here. There it is. 50. Wow. So now it's actually,

I guess it's achieved a second wind with this new conversation about it. And there's the thing right there. If you're a European citizen and you care about this issue, again, the solutions provided by stop killing games might not necessarily be what the most reasonable and the best solutions could be. But at the same time, it's something that, you know, at least is a good start. Well, anyway, thanks to the time for telling people. And obviously, you know, Ross responded. It takes a time for telling people about this.

Everyone didn't want to watch the video about it. We require EU publishers to having end-of-life plans for the company. And I think Pirate Software responded to this on Twitter, didn't he? But reading through all the posts against me in my stance against Top Killing Games Initiative, of times people calling me a liar that I misrepresented the initiative. Also, lots of content creators dogpiling to get their pound of flesh. Let's stick into what I said. I put out two videos.

Modicization on these videos is disabled, so it's not a ploy to increase revenue. in the first video, I go through what an initiative is, how it's not a law, and how it's starting the entire process. We have the crew, okay? So I also harshly critique Rosh Scott's wording in the videos because they disparage the lawmaking process and the lawmakers, which doesn't benefit players or movement in any way. Sure, that's fine. Now, I think this is all kind of beside the point, but sure. I mean, you're going to have a million debates and arguments about, like, what the right way to say things is.

I can see why Pirate Software said this. Other people could see it as tone policing. It's really not relevant. And so let's just move past this. I talk about potential scenarios where studio could be abused if it was implemented as written. Yeah, sure, right? And again, right, it's not a law, like you said earlier. So that's the case.

To recap, my main issue with this initiative is that it's broad and its approach to change the industry and the exact language of the initiative, not the FAQ. Request that all games stay in a functional playable state. this is not feasible for all games at a technical level and could potentially restrict developers for making online-only games like MMOs. Well, I don't know if it would restrict them, right? I mean, I don't know how it would really restrict them. As long as they had an end-of-life plan that people could just run their own server of the game,

then I don't really see the problem with that. Yeah, I'm not really sure about that. Then don't make games. And also, like, by the way, I mean, maybe there are some things that shouldn't exist in a certain way because, you know, it's just not something that's good for the consumer, right? I mean, I think that's the main thing. And let's go back over here. Thorac ignores private servers, the irony.

Well, private servers, and here's the thing with private servers, is that how do you handle, like, in my opinion, this is just, this is the way that I see things, okay? And I'm talking about this ideologically, is that when somebody, when you make a game and you cease to provide service for that game, that game is now effectively abandonware. There's no way that a consumer can produce or play this game themselves. And I think in the case of abandonware, I think it's totally morally and ethically justified to recreate abandonware on your own.

Because again, you're not taking money away from the publisher or the developer. The IP still applies. I don't care about that. I'm talking about the way I think it should be. Like, I don't think, I think IP law in the U.S. is overly restrictive. I think it's way too restrictive. So I'm talking about the way that I think that it should be. I don't care how it is.

I'm thinking about what is ethical in my view. I think that if you sell somebody something and you are selling this as like a product, and then the product ceases to function, the person should either receive their money back, or they should have a tool to continue gaining the value out of that product. I think that's just fair. That's it.

And like, again, like, you don't need to, like, it's not about the law, it's not about copyright, it's not about anything else. It's just simply about very, very simple ethics and what is fair. And that's the way I see it. That's what I think is fair. and obviously I think that really kind of depends on like you know who you ask or whatever but that's generally what my viewpoint on it is that's called a guarantee policy yeah exactly copyright's long you should lose copyright if you don't provide the service anymore it's ethical yeah I think so too and you could even have like I would be willing to compromise with a grace period I would be willing to compromise with them you know ensuring that the service will be back up within a period of time if they're maybe making a remaster of it or something like that. Like, there are, and again, this is something that they have to figure out legally

because this is very complicated and very prickly legally. Of course it is. But I think that at its core essence, this is something that I support. For this, the game's been publishing are all playable offline anyway because they're game bloops and only based on the interplay interaction. Oh, this is about, this is about Thor and what he's doing. He's working. I didn't like Blizzard.

I was working at Blizzard, okay. I've been working with a discourse about it on stream. I never took my videos down, and I have not discussed the initiative in the 10 months and spent since they released the videos. So yeah, for those those scream, he's doubling down. Yes, I damn well I am. I don't give a shit about this initiative

and what it means for games, developers, and players in the future. I, sorry, to finish out, sorry, I do give a shit. I miss red, excuse me. Just because I don't support this, doesn't mean you should blindly follow me. and the pretty words on the internet. Yeah, just look it up and figure it out for yourself.

And so requires publishers to sell a licensed video games, customers, European Union, to leave said video games in a functional playable state. Yeah, I mean, there's obviously a lot of extrapolation that's going to go into this and a lot of assumptions that need to go into this. Either turn the IP over,

a customer shouldn't be able to make, sells the product. Like, this is, like, I would say this for sure. Not for sure, but I'm, pretty confident about it. I think that if you are, if you're selling a game and you stop providing that game and then somebody recreates that game from, not from your code, but they just reverse engineer it and they recreate it on their own, I don't really see that as a problem. Now, but there's a lot of complexities to this. Like, for example, like let's say it's Super Mario. Okay,

like there's a Super Mario game. It's not, well, like, let's say it is. It's still IP theft, right? And so if you have a game and it's using certain IP, and then that IP is still held by the developer because of different games that they have that they're currently doing, that makes things, like, do you see how this make things complicated? This does, it does very much make things complicated.

And this is why you need a bunch of lawyers and people to, like, really figure out, like, what the right option. for this is. And in my opinion, I think the first step is doing this for single-player games, right? And I know people are like, oh, that's what Thor said. That's not what it's about. I understand that. But I think that the first cleanest, easiest, you know, like, you know, basically bottom of the totem pole, easiest solution is games that can be playable offline should be made to be playable offline. Like, MMOs, that's like the last boss. Let's worry about the trash mobs first. That's what makes sense to me.

That's the first hurdle. Yeah, exactly. That's why you need to be specific. Well, the problem is that an initiative like this is not about being specific. It's about identifying a problem, and then it's presented to lawmakers, and then lawmakers are specific in how they address the problem. It's not up to the initiative to be hyper-specific and use legal terms in order to explain this. Basically, they're not responsible for solving the problem, but they are responsible for

identifying it. And that's basically it. Suck to Charlie and Joseph Hayes. You're mad at me for being a dick to Ross. I'm sorry for that. Developer side has been constant battle people online to a decade. Online only. Movements like this showcase how little the general public understands about game development, modern gaming architecture, and learning games as a whole.

Functional, playable state. I'm sunsetting has already meant with responses diminishing the effort needed to do that. It's not a simple hurdle to overcome, which is why I don't like the initiative. Yeah, it's complicated. I mean, and this is the thing is that it's very obvious that this is a problem that video games have right now. And I think that this problem isn't really exclusive to

video games. I think that it's true with all types of digital media. And right now we're in a very weird transitionary period where the world at large doesn't know what owning digital meters, what the world doesn't know what digital ownership means yet. People think that they have the solution with blockchain. Other people think that they have the solution with just regular licenses and other people think that they have the solution with physical media. But right now, the idea of what is ownership in the digital age is up for debate. And nobody has a definitive answer for this. Now, this is a problem that I think everybody agrees with, but that's it.

You have to admit pirate was misrepresenting? He was. Undoubtedly, he was misrepresenting it. Pirate of tactic guys initiative based on points Ross never made, then double down on it. that's the issue. Yeah, I think it's fair to criticize that. I mean, sure. Yeah, and I support the initiative. So, I mean, obviously there's disagreements and differences, but obviously those differences and those disagreements are stated, right? So it's like, that's, yeah, for sure, definitely. I'm more personally concerned about user authentication. There has to be a source of

truth for who owns the account. Do they continue to host the user database in the authentication server or should everybody lose their data? It's not impossible. It's just not super simple. I think that the solution to that would probably be that at the end of service, the data would be transferred to a local account and then it could be uploaded to a community server. So basically at end of service, all of that user data is then communicated to the player. Like that, that in my mind, like, so how would you solve that problem? That would be my first draft of how to do it. Now, maybe that's not the right option. But like that, that would be like, if you're asking me, right off the top of my head.

Like, how would you solve it? That would be how I'd solve it. How is digital ownership up for debate? Wouldn't the logic of physical ownership applied to digital ownership? I think so. No, because of what, because digital ownership is oftentimes not ownership,

it's licensing, which is what the difference is. It's like Photoshop or something like that. That's right. I'm actually how's your dad doing? I'm actually going to go check in just a little bit, actually. Yesterday, I called earlier today, and, you know, they said there was,

you know, quote, minimal improvement with his lung and so that's a I mean that's that's better than nothing right and so uh I'll probably go up there actually pretty soon here and uh and go do that I mean obviously like it's been kind of a pretty uh it's been

really stressful uh but yeah uh that's that's where things stand right now and so uh they're like they told him that they thought that he might be there for five days I mean in my opinion as long as there's a number

of days that he's there, I'm happy. Like, not that, you know, assuming he doesn't die there, right? I mean, I'm just going to say it. Like, that's, that's what I'm worried about because that's what happened to my mom. So that's what's in the back of my mind. That's what's stressing me out a lot. And so, hopefully that's not what happens. I think the chances of that happening are low.

They definitely exist, but they are low. Has he been checked for COPD? He does have COP. he does. And he's 78. He's not a hundred and eight, right? Like he's not super young, and he is old, but he's not

a hundred years old. And so, you know, hopefully they'll be able to do whatever they can. I know you're not religious, bro, but I'm praying for your dad. I appreciate all of it, right? I mean, like, the way I look at it is, I pray for my mom all the time, and I'm not religious. But I say, hey, bro, if there's a 1% chance,

I've got how many 1% mounts? So, yeah, no, I do. do the same thing. I mean, you got to do something, right? I mean, how else do you do? Like, what do you do? You leaving early today? Yeah, I'll be leaving early today and probably also tomorrow. And I don't know how long this is going to take, but, you know, like he doesn't have a lot of other family here. And so, you know, it's like I've got to go over there and, you know, help him and everything. And that's just what it has to be. It's got to be me. And so that's all there is to it. and so I'm going to keep trying to do my best and be online every day

and that's really what the plan is. So thank you guys all very much for watching. I really appreciate it. We had a great day today. I guess I can chill out for like 10 more minutes or so. And then I'll head out. Please check for endocrinitis. My mom died as a complication treating pneumonia.

Endo cathartis. Yeah. I'll have to look and see that. Are you opposed to therapy to talk through some of this stuff? I mean, I don't think that this is a really, I don't think this is really a therapy situation. It's just simply a really stressful, hard situation. I mean, like having, like, one parent in the hospital, that's really stressful. It is, especially whenever you don't have, like, a large family around the support.

Like, I have family members, I do, but, like, they're all in Florida and other places in the country. It's just a shitty situation, really. that's it this definition of therapy situation it's not a weak thing or anything yeah is home care possible we'll see what happens

I think that in the future I'm probably going to look to to make sure that I mean because the odds are I mean he's if he gets out of the hospital from this one he'll probably have to go back eventually right and so how to approach that

in a better way next time I don't know. Yeah, so one day at a time, yeah, I'll have to figure it out. So, yeah, that's, is your dad's spirit high? Whenever I first came over yesterday, like, not really. But then, you know, I think things kind of improved as I was there for a while and everything. But it's, you know, it's a lot of pressure on me. And, you know, I didn't even get home yesterday until 2 a.m.

So I'm, you know, I'm really kind of spread pretty thin right now. but that's just the way it is and still try and go live and do everything that I can so thank you guys all very much for watching I really appreciate it and I will be back on tomorrow all right boys peace see ya