Hey there!
Just a small reminder, 31th of this month will be the deadline for those willing to sign the european citizen initiative “Stop Destroying Games”, aka “Stop Killing Games”.
I think this movement has goals aligned with sites preserving the access to old videogames, like what Libretro’s doing here. But I didn’t find any other post about the subject so I thought I could present it here before its end. https://www.stopkillinggames.com/eci
There’s a lot of info on that site, but I think this bit summarize what the eu initiative is :
Videogames are being destroyed! Most video games work indefinitely, but a growing number are designed to stop working as soon as publishers end support. This effectively robs customers, destroys games as an artform, and is unnecessary. Our movement seeks to pass new law in the EU to put an end to this practice. Our proposal would do the following:
Require video games sold to remain in a working state when support ends.
Require no connections to the publisher after support ends.
Not interfere with any business practices while a game is still being supported.
If you are an EU citizen, please sign the Citizens’ Initiative!
Reading about that I have realized that some of the games I bought were no longer playable. I think about Eve Valkyrie (a VR game à la Tie Fighter), Lemnis Gate, and The Crew. So I decided to sign the initiative. Only took me about 5 mins, used the belgian app for gov sites identification to log in. I’m not totally convinced the initiative would be more than some form of counterlobbying. That may not bear any result, and I spend most of my game time nowadays on Retroarch, but I thought that if I couldn’t be bothered to take 5 mins to sign in, then I should never complain about bad practices from the videogame industry again.
I totally understand that this subject is a bit divisive, so dont take this as some kind of proselytism. I’m not affiliated with the movement, just representing myself and why I signed it, and hopefully if you’re in the EU and didn’t hear about the initiative, you’d find my post at least interesting to read. Cheers from Belgium!
