I can’t speak for them because I never worked on them, but you’d be surprised how often a piece of music or a graphic is copyrighted. One of thousands of your common textures gets a bit too close to something else and suddenly you need a license.
Fun fact: a lot of game audio is licensed too, sound effects and such.
Regardless, the issue of sublicensing goes beyond what you’re allowed to let people do, it also goes into the idea that you’re often forced to disallow people from harvesting those assets from the game, or allowing the game to turn into derivative works - and because you yourself do not actually own the asset, you’re forced to confront it.
To avoid these issues, games would have to be very small (2D? Chiptunes? idk how small), but it’s one of a million tiny issues that comes up in game development, and each one of those tiny issues risks not allowing you to release the game.
Games are really, really hard to make, there are so many issues waiting to kill it- and even if you manage to make it, there’s no guarantee it’s successful, so spending time on these things is stealing time from making it fun or viable.
Again, what the fuck does the licensing of music or textures have anything to do with people playing the game offline?
Why do you mix your awful DRM scheme with something completely separated from the subject matter?
Are you trying to claim that the licensing scheme establishes by contract that the players must be stripped of their consumer rights by not being able to own the game they bought?
Well, good news for you, maybe the regulations that will come out of it will make this sort of licensing contract illegal. Perhaps it will make it easier to make games for you.
It’ll make licensing more expensive because the net result is more permissive. Or in the hypothetical the content could be removed and replaced with something bespoke or cheaper to licence. But both of these options will make the game more expensive to build overall across its surface area.
If the law is that you can't do this, then those terms will just disappear from licencing agreements. It's not like there's a shortage of textures and sounds in the marketplace.
Yea, I think some people are acting like these "licenses" are physical constants, found in nature and can't be modified! They are made by humans and can be unmade by humans. Regulation could deem those licenses unenforceable. Regulation could force permissive licensing. Regulation could add or remove IP protection. It's all conjured up by humans.
Yes, it is unlikely that legislators, bought and paid for by big corporations, will ever change the rules to reduce help to big corporations, but it's at least humanly possible.
Example: have you seen a street racing game with Toyota’s in it?
There’s a reason that Need For Speed games fell off after Most Wanted (original) and it’s because they themselves don’t get total artistic license on their works.
And part of the agreements is a reasonable expectation that you will not assist anyone else to violate the agreement - and, the agreements are not perpetual either.
So, depends on context. There are examples where licensing opportunities dry up.
That entirely depends on the content, some is fungible and some isn’t. For the majority of general content developers are already getting a perpetual license so it’s really these special cases that will remain an issue and are unlikely to be resolved in the manner you suggest.
When you’re licensing content from third parties the more permissive rights you need the more expensive it is. Music is a very good example where it might not even be possible to get a perpetual license. A bunch of games have removed music as their license to it has expired for example. In the context of EOL of a game if you have to provide it for free to owners in perpetuity any third party content, code and so on needs to have been licensed for that use. That is typically more permissive than licenses as mentioned up thread and so more expensive.
> In the context of EOL of a game if you have to provide it for free to owners in perpetuity any third party content
You start your argument from a presumption that releasing an offline game is almost an impossibility. Are you trying yo argue that offline games have zero things licensed? This sounds like a major argument in favor of offline games.
Sounds to me that the simple solution is just stop licensing things with such draconian requirements. If I play a racing game I care about it being fun. If the car I am using in-game is a BMW or a made up brand for the game is immaterial.
For some people that's true, But I've played with people that for example, slightly prefered PES Gameplay but just would refuse to play without a proper Real Madrid Team
In my experience, the more casual the player the more this mattered to them, but it was still a huge market
> just would refuse to play without a proper Real Madrid Team
Interestingly enough, I used to be an avid Football Manager player, where real teams/players is an important deal.
I can still download Football Manager 2010 (that is not available for purchase anymore), and I can play with Borussia Dortmund with all 2010 players without any issues.
If they could figure out how to properly license those teams/players so that the game is not dead in 2025 (considering how much anal football teams/leagues are with licensing deals), I am sure that racing games (and others) can figure it out as well.
If you’re saying that because they said the solution is simple, then it would seem you have not followed the discussion.
To them, it is as “simple” as not using the things that require onerous licensing. Whether the game is offline or online only matters as much as the licensor might prefer one or the other; obviating the onerous licensor (making your own assets and/or doing business with more agreeable people) is a simple solution. Simple meaning the complexity to understand it, not to implement it.
Stop killing games is not about forcing developers to perpetually sell games. They can still stop selling games. They just can't leave it in an unplayable state.
If developers want to get the rights to distribute a song for 5 years with their game, they can still do that.
No I’m talking about the distribution of games. With physical media that’s all fine because once the license expires they stop making new copies. People that own a copy are fine. With digital distribution once you’ve EOL’d a product you still need to make it available right? Otherwise how do people that have paid for it get it? But that means you can’t distribute elements you no longer have the license to.
With online distribution games can be made unavailable for purchase. You are not distributing it anymore. Only people that previously purchased can still download the game.
There are multiple such cases in stores such as Steam or GoG. I own games that are not available for purchase anymore.
Those games were not killed. I can still download and play them.
Offering the game for download but not sale is still distributing it and you’d still need licenses for all the content you’re distributing. In the cases you mention the games still hold the licenses which is common but not universal.
That's a solvable technical problem. If your game needs a online server to work, either patch it to not need it, or distribute the server. IF your licensing prohibits you form doing it... well, don't enter that kind of licensing, negotiate different terms. There might be a small fraction of games that stop being financially viable. That's what we call a tradeoff.
If you’re saying that a change like SKG would lead to developers needing to take a perpetual license then you should say that rather than alluding to it with a non-sequitur like this.
If that’s what you mean then I’d say maybe but doing so would definitely increase the cost and complexity in using licensed content. Which is likely to be passed on.
Interestingly though reading the EU petition and the petition authors views it would be fine to remove the content once the licence expired.
Developers already need to license whatever they're licensing in perpetuity, since they need to sublicense to the people who buy their games (regardless of format). Otherwise, they wouldn't be able to sell you the physical media. Licenses aren't yes/no affairs.
Stop Killing Games doesn't change this in any way.
No they don’t need perpetual licenses for physical copies. They just need to stop distributing physical copies when they lose the license. For example a reissue of a rhythm-action game (or a release on another platform) might be missing songs from previous releases of the same title. The issue with digital distribution is that you can’t redistribute the content once the license has expired. So if someone needs to redownload the game for whatever reason then they can’t provide content they no longer have a license for.
We’re talking about distribution so maybe you’ve come in to the conversation in a weird way there. To be clear the developer cannot continue to distribute content they no longer have rights to. With physical media you don’t go back to the publisher to get new copies but with digital media you do. And hence falls foul of changes in distribution rights.
"Distribution rights" aren't laws of nature. If you're making physical media, you get a license to sell physical copies of the game (containing the licensed material) for a limited time, to people who are allowed to keep them once your sales license has expired.
The digital equivalent would be: you get a license to sell digital copies of the game (containing the licensed material) for a limited time, to people who are allowed to re-download them once your sales license has expired. (And you are allowed to provide that downloading service, but not continue to sell the games, nor make them available to people who have not purchased them.)
It's not that hard – and the existence of Steam demonstrates that many people are already doing things this way.
If the licensing agreement does not differentiate in between "customers purchasing new copies" and "previously purchasing copies being available" then therein lies the problem.
Looks like the possibility of regulations will fix that. That in the Year of our Lord 2025, when online channels are many times the only possibility of purchasing a game, licensing agreements do not cover that, it seems that proper regulation is very much necessary.
That’s because distribution is seperate from sale. For example Spotify has a license to distribute music but not sell it.
I suspect if you’re expecting to undo decades of IP law with this then you’ll be disappointed. I also suspect that the requirement to be functional rather than complete could also mean as long as the game continued to work removing the content would be fine.
> I suspect if you’re expecting to undo decades of IP law
No, I only expects regulations that dictates I get to own the games I purchase. As any other consumer good.
And if that is not possible, then the agreement should be that games are leased for a set number of years, no gotchas to the consumer.
For some reason I think that the second would be much worse for the videogame industry. I don't think many people would be super excited about leasing a game for a few years for 60+ USD.
Games already handled this today on Steam, Apple Store, Play Store, etc by taking down the store page preventing new copies from being sold. Users can still redownload it. That's how things work today, and is how they would still work if SKG gets what they want. This isn't a new problem and is already the industry standard for how expiring IP works for the digital distribution for games.
This seems pretty easy. If the license to the music goes for X years, then build that expiration into the game. After X years, licensed music goes away, and the game is still playable. This is completely in scope of SKG. Everyone understands that not every feature has to be retained to stay the playable game.
That expiration date should, of course, be on the box. The consumer deserves to know.
That’s absurd. I can still pop in my Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater CD from decades ago and listen to the original soundtrack. TTL licensing should be illegal.
Yea, nobody seems to be addressing this: Content never expiring was the default for many years, when games shipped on physical media. Industry defenders are acting like this is impossible, where it routinely happened for a long time.
Before anyone says that its as simple as a switch statement, it’s not, its date enumeration and a switch statement, and an alternative codepath for testing and more assets: on every hot path, when you already only get 8ms for your frame is an annoying cost.
The expiration date properly visible is not a terrible idea though; or at least a “this edition is valid for x years” after which, updates that fix issues may remove content. Hrm.
I guess that only leaves the third option: don’t license music or other assets that way. It’s really not that hard. Instead of writing a contract that promises that you won't distribute the music with your game for more than X years, write one that promises you’ll only sell the music with your game for X years, but that you might still distribute it to anyone who made their purchase before the cutoff.
You see? It’s not that hard. You can license music and still make a game that doesn’t die after a few years. If EU law changes to make that a _requirement_, then you simply stop signing any licensing deal that would break the requirement.
> It’ll make licensing more expensive because the net result is more permissive
The current state of affairs is that the net result is such that consumers are stripped of their rights. I find it more unacceptable.
If the licensing costs without fucking over consumers is prohibitive, then maybe those games should not exist. If no one is licensing the brands/assets/music/whatever because the licensing costs are too high, it's likely that in time the costs will come down.
The framing was your own so it’s not the gotcha you feel it is. I also don’t know what you think I’m exposing because I’m broadly in agreement that games at their EOL, particularly single player should continue to work. I am interested in discussing where that breaks down but I think that’s probably where we differ. You seem more interested in being combative and making up gotchas.
> You seem more interested in being combative and making up gotchas.
Only because you are being purposely obtuse, gesturing at licensing as something that makes game development impossible without making games previously purchased by consumers unavailable.
If you make cakes that are poisoned with lead, and regulations say that you cannot sell lead-poisoned food, you cannot say "but all egg suppliers only sell lead-poisoned eggs, this will kill the cake industry".
If regulations say that games should be made accessible for people that purchased them past EOL, licensing agreements will have to adapt for it. Differentiating distribution as in "new copy being sold" and "previously sold copy being available for download".
> Only because you are being purposely obtuse, gesturing at licensing as something that makes game development impossible without making games previously purchased by consumers unavailable.
Please show me where I said that! If that’s what you think I’ve been saying it’s definitely not. And you accuse me of arguing against straw men!
That is a separate issue from what the Stop Killing Games political movement is bringing attention to. Few people are bemoaning that they can’t play the game that was never made. The rest are complaining that games they’ve played for years are being made unavailable when the authentication servers are killed.
Fun fact: a lot of game audio is licensed too, sound effects and such.
Regardless, the issue of sublicensing goes beyond what you’re allowed to let people do, it also goes into the idea that you’re often forced to disallow people from harvesting those assets from the game, or allowing the game to turn into derivative works - and because you yourself do not actually own the asset, you’re forced to confront it.
To avoid these issues, games would have to be very small (2D? Chiptunes? idk how small), but it’s one of a million tiny issues that comes up in game development, and each one of those tiny issues risks not allowing you to release the game.
Games are really, really hard to make, there are so many issues waiting to kill it- and even if you manage to make it, there’s no guarantee it’s successful, so spending time on these things is stealing time from making it fun or viable.