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ESA Rebukes EFF's Request To Exempt Abandoned Games From Some DMCA Rules
eldavojohn writes It's 2015 and the EFF is still submitting requests to alter or exempt certain applications of the draconian DMCA. One such request concerns abandoned games that utilized or required online servers for matchmaking or play (PDF warning) and the attempts taken to archive those games. A given example is Madden '09, which had its servers shut down a mere one and a half years after release. Another is Gamespy and the EA & Nintendo titles that were not migrated to other servers. I'm sure everyone can come up with a once cherished game that required online play that is now abandoned and lost to the ages. While the EFF is asking for exemptions for museums and archivists, the ESA appears to take the stance that it's hacking and all hacking is bad. In prior comments (PDF warning), the ESA has called reverse engineering a proprietary game protocol "a classic wolf in sheep's clothing" as if allowing this evil hacking will loose Sodom & Gomorrah upon the industry. Fellow gamers, these years now that feel like the golden age of online gaming will be the dark ages of games as historians of the future try to recreate what online play was like now for many titles.
these years now that feel like the golden age of online gaming will be the dark ages of games as historians of the future try to recreate what online play was like now for many titles.
While I agree with your premise, you overlook the fact that many of us in the "first gen" of gamers already view this as a "dark age". Personally, I have a fairly impressive game library, spanning a dozen platforms and worth probably tens of thousands of dollars (at original retail price*) worth of games. And I basically stopped buying games about a decade ago, with a few notable exceptions.
Make no mistake, I still game regularly - Between the occasional non-obnoxious modern release, and the back catalog of once-great games that I still haven't played (just finished Fallout a few weeks ago, no idea how I never got into that when it first came out), I figure I have enough material to keep me content for the rest of my life. But I will not play any game that depends on any aspect of the game under the exclusive control of a third party. Open servers and a really viable single-player mode, or GTFO, simple as that.
* Not that I actually paid full retail, which counts as an entirely different problem with modern games - Reselling a game used to mean putting it back in the box (or putting everything you had left in a ziplock bag), and passing it along to someone else for a few bucks. Now, if you even have the option of reselling it, you usually need to do so with the "permission" of the publisher. Fuck that!
Perhaps the security technology in the abandoned games is the similar to that in the non-abandoned games.
If so, the game makers would really not want folks to know how to open the abandoned games.
That would explain the situation.
If so, seems the game makers dug the hole they are in.
You mean I only get to do this one thing for three years and after that the results of such an exemption are back to being illegal again? The DMCA is one bad idea after another.
The point is being missed entirely. If i buy a game that requires infrastructure from the manufacturer to play and the manufacturer decides to just stop providing that infrastructure, all bets are off. I should be free to do whatever I want/need to continue to be able to play that game. if the manufacturer feels like there is still some IP there, then continue to support it. If they feel like they can't afford to continue to support it, then what IP is remaining, really?
As soon as a good becomes "not fit for purpose" the manufacturer of the good should lose all rights associated with it and it should enter the public domain.
...but I recall some economist observing that against market demand, arbitrarily constraining supply will create black markets.
I'm not saying that's how it should be, just how it IS.
I understand that ESA want to control any and all access to products of their developers (on principle, if the developers no longer exist, etc), but I expect that ultimately this will be futile, and lead to their irrelevance sooner rather than later.
-Styopa
Well, that's the problem. With a few notable exceptions, the game industry doesn't give two figs about being taken seriously artistically. They just want to make as much money as possible.
I wonder how these people would react if they were told A: their cars needed to have a GPS connection to be allowed to drive, and then B: a few years after owning their cars, the GPS system they used was taken offline and they were told they were SOL and had to buy a new car.
Well, for what it's worth (which is probably about $100 a year) I stopped gaming when games started requiring Internet connectivity to play. We went from an era where the player could compete against a fairly well-implemented computer opponent to where the player only or mostly competes against other players. I had a lot of fun in games like Doom and Quake where it was just me, an agressive midi synth track, and a bunch of startled monsters screaming at me, and I didn't have to worry about having a connection or dealing with racial epithets from random strangers.
LAN parties were fun, but mostly fun because I was playing against my friends all in the same room, so our trash-talking was moderated by the fact that we had to look each other in the eye and wanted to continue being friends. Internet play can be fun too, but mandating it just to play a game, and at the will of the game publishing company's interest in keeping servers running doesn't do it for me.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Hit them where it counts then. Servers turn off? Give me the no-server patch or a refund. That should be the law.
I know if my lawnmower was intentionally bricked by the manufacturer 1 year after purchase (assuming I didn't but it on release day), they would be in-for-it.
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