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.

Comments

ESA?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't understand why the European Space Agency would be involved in this.

ESA

[internerdj]

I am on the EFF's side here, but isn't it the game industry's job? If the game industry wants to be taken seriously artistically, it is ultimately the industry's duty to set up ways to preserve the art. If the industry won't take itself seriously, then individuals attempting preservation are going to end up being blocked over and over again by whatever form our trademark and copyright laws take.

Re:ESA

[Pi1grim]

Fun fact, but in some countries it is actually 100% legal to reverce engineer and patch a game to restore it's functionality to original level in case the game was legally obtained and for research purposes. So whoever ESA is, they can go and cry a corner, while other countries enjoy the functionality lost to US. Also, their arguments reek of manure - reverse engineering should be made legal (as any type of research) and "hacking, closely asosiated to piracy" - that's a gem, how about we ban ESA, RIAA, MPAA because they condone "DRM, closely associated with scams, illegal spying, privacy and customer rights violations"? What's really needed is a law, that would allow people to get a refund on multiplayer games in case official servers go down and there is no way to start your own, then ESA would make a quick 180 on their stance.

Re:ESA

[Chris Mattern]

If the game industry wants to be taken seriously artistically

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.

Re:ESA

[TWX]

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.

Re:ESA

[snadrus]

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.

20 years too late

[pla]

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!

Re:20 years too late

[orlanz]

I don't think its the dark ages. The gaming world has just been redefined and left us old timers out. From my view, the average game is now an interactive movie. The old school definition of "fun" has long ago died. Its all about graphics and "showing" a story or a cool suit or a cool weapon design. In some ways its just playing dress up with dolls, or action figures, but now they call them "video games" and the accessories are DLCs.

Gone are the complex paper,rock,scissor strategies or couch coops and personal connections. Now its very anonymous and the player is the key content in the game without which other players would stop playing. Its up to the player to create the micro stories like kids used to with dolls/action figures with their imagination. The game itself is just a catalyst to bring the faceless masses in for the movie watching and of each other.

As for us old school gamers, we are pretty much irrelevant. The current set of gamers are on mobile phones and only online. They need instant gratification and once the next one comes out or the trophies are achieved, they forget the last. No significant number of them care about replay or nostalgia. And they will pay up front and months in advance based on the cover or press release. Whether it meets their expectations or value is irrelevant, because that money is spent and the next press release just came out. Not much different than the IT stock buyers in the last 90s.

I miss the old days but .. damn-it those kids are on my lawn again!

Re:20 years too late

[Nemyst]

The gaming world hasn't left you old farts out, you just need to go beyond watching the latest Call of Duty ad, huffing and puffing a bit about it and declaring gaming dead.

If you care as much as you imply, look for new games. No, you won't find them in TV ads. You didn't find them on TV way back when anyway. There are dozens, even hundreds of new games that come out that have amazing gameplay, depth and breadth and everything in between. Yes, some of them even look pretty while doing it, *gasp* you don't have to look ugly to be engaging!

You want strategic depth? Beyond the obvious choices like Starcraft 2 (which has more strategic layers than most RTS of yore), you can find stuff like Cities: Skylines (amazing, in-depth city builder, released less than a month ago), Endless Legend (amazing and beautiful 4X), Homeworld Remastered (yes it's an old game but it plays like a modern one with the remaster), Crusader Kings 2 (you want complex interactions? this goes way beyond rock/paper/scissors), Europa Universalis IV (it's Crusader Kings but with a scope 10x larger), Kerbal Space Program (make rockets, send things to space, all physically-driven), Invisible, Inc. (early access turn-based spy game, extremely well crafted and difficult), Planetary Annihilation (spiritual successor to Total Annihilation, but set on multiple planets in the same match, with all that that entails), Civilization V (the pinnacle of the series with both expansions), Wargame: Red Dragon (latest in a series of highly accurate historical RTS games, focus on realism and scale, very detailed), Frozen Cortex/Synapse (turn-based duel games where you give orders to a squad and watch your orders and the enemy's unfold simultaneously, very high skill ceiling)... need I go on? I've barely checked 10% of my own library here.

Then there's the stuff outside of the more strategic/planning. Let's only name a few examples: Transistor (amazingly beautiful and atmospheric isometric brawler with unique pause planning combat set in a cyberpunk setting), Bayonnetta (probably the best spectacle fighter ever made, easy to learn, hard to master, incredible depth), The Stanley Parable (very funny, very enjoyable interactive fiction with a lot of branching paths), Antichamber (really really novel puzzler, lots of interesting brain teasers), Portal 1 and 2 (if you don't know about them, where the hell were you?), Gunpoint (excellent noir-style 2D hacking game) and more besides.

So I'm sorry if I'm not partaking in the Slashdot tradition of bashing on modern gaming as though it lacked substance and depth, but unlike most people here I seem to have actually followed gaming's development instead of merely going "get off my lawn."

Perhaps

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

The Library of Congress

[Bonzoli]

Just have the Library of Congress step in and ask to have a copy of every game and its backend supporting software for the archives. Have a game assignement number for tracking like a book. We have an institution, it just needs a storage and process upgrade.

The answer to the problem

[reboot246]

Just refuse to buy any game that can't be played in standalone mode. If it requires an online server, just say no.

If enough people do this, the companies will have to change their perverted business model.

Can you live without your online gaming habit for a year or two?

Not sure who said it

[argStyopa]

...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.

Do they not grasp the concept here?

[Vermonter]

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.

Re:Do they not grasp the concept here?

[mark-t]

Except the EFF isn't arguing that.... nice strawman you did there.

The EFF is only arguing that the DMCA should not apply.... ordinary copyright law is still entirely applicable. If somebody else makes a server for your software by reverse engineering the protocol so that that the game could connect to it, then they haven't necessarily actually copied any of your work at all, but the DMCA would still apply. All the EFF suggests with their proposal is that after such a game has been abandoned because the copyright holder is no longer hosting said server, the DMCA would not apply to such activities. Conventional copyright law would still disallow actions that otherwise infringe on copyright, such as either making unauthorized copies of said work or creating derivative works.

Re:Era of micro transactions

[ArcadeMan]

That may be true, but don't forget that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

use it or lose it

[neghvar1]

First off, I believe software should have a different copyright length. (Windows XP's copyright expires sometime after 2100. How crazy is that?) I also believe a "use it or lose it clause" should be added to copyright law. If a publisher or copyright holder ceases to publish, market, support and profit from a product, then after X number of years, that game will fall into public domain. I believe this clause should apply to all copyrights and not just software.