European game publisher group responds to Stop Killing Games, claims 'These proposals would curtail developer choice"

I mean, it's true. Killing game services in a way which ensures people have absolutely no way to use the games they bought is... a choice.

And now a million Europeans have just officially expressed that they don't agree with "developers" (really, publisher higher-ups) being free to choose that.

So tone deaf, and clearly they're just trying to steer the narrative.

They call out that it's never taken lightly and it has to happen. We know. Stop killing games just says you have to do something when you turn off the servers. Either release the server source code so it can be engineered by the community, release a self hostage server alternative, even just documents or guides on how to get started.

But they're going to try to make it about the mean old gamers want them to go broke

This entire argument is nonsense. With enough advance notification, all future games can be built with these rules in mind. If you are developing it in that way to begin with it’s not going to require any extra work.

I hate that they tried to blame the developers here. I feel like they are just as exploited as the consumers. Many times have I tried to be passionate about my own work only to have it crushed and expunged by greedy upper management. I'd hate to be them working years on a passion project only to have it degraded by corporate grifters sending it into microtransaction hell

curtail developer choice

Yeah no shit. When developers choose to be anti-consumer, that must be curtailed. That’s precisely what regulations are for.

Wtf

"Private servers are not always a viable alternative option for players as the protections we put in place to secure players’ data, remove illegal content, and combat unsafe community content would not exist and would leave rights holders liable. In addition, many titles are designed from the ground-up to be online-only; in effect, these proposals would curtail developer choice by making these video games prohibitively expensive to create."

What the f kind of statement is that?
Software in this way is provided with a licensen, and the very first thing it will say is 'provided on an "as is" basis and no libility is taken regarding its function or purpose'
If a private server runs a gitlab instance and someone has the brilliant idea to upload Something illegal on it; gitlab is not liable because that would be insane.

The entire statement reeks of copy paste slob and minor legal jargon but is full of holes.

'Not financially viable' is the only truth here, if we asse there is work required to make.it available.
You already MADE the software, which is most of the work. Just let us revere engineer it

Oh no, I feel so bad that it would remove their choice to steal from their customers. Moving on.

In other news, thieves hate regulation against theft.

Yes, reducing choice is what the laws are made for. This is not necessarily a bad thing.