Episode 17 - Stop Killing Games with Kai McAlister

Returning guest host Kai McAlister discusses the Stop Killing Games initiative, and why it matters - not just for the gaming community, but for consumer rights across the board.

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Intro music: Groovy Trip Hop/Marcolaieh/Tribe of Noise

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

And I think for anybody who is dissatisfied with the streaming service model, as many of us are, even if you're not into gaming, you should still be in favor of the Stop Killing Games initiative's reason for existing, because it could, and it very well might have a trickle-down effect.

SPEAKER_00 0:46

I'm your show host, Evan Buck, and always remember, the buck stops right here, because we are looking out for you. Today is a special occasion for the show because I am having my first return uh guest host. Joining me is my esteemed friend, Chy McAllister.

SPEAKER_01 1:10

Hello, hello. Good to be back on the show, and I'm excited for our topic today. Should be pretty interesting.

SPEAKER_00 1:18

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And if y'all are wondering who the heck this Chi McAllister fellow is, um, feel free to go back and check on, I believe it's episode six, I want to say. Um, whichever one it is, um, it's called AI Robot, and so I give a more full uh primer and background on who Kai is on that show. But for purposes of this program, we will just be moving right along, and before we get into our main topic, as I always like to do, um, just as quick reminders, we have our new Discord server that I've spun up. Um not really too much going on there right now, but hopefully as the show grows, it'll become a nice little warm community for us all. And always feel free to reach out there or at the bottom of the show description, the show notes, um, you're able to text me if you have any comments or feedback or things you wanna talk about, feel free to contact the show that way as well. So with those issues, housekeeping issues out of the way, we're gonna be talking about an issue that for many listeners it might come across rather nerdy, rather niche, but I do think that outside of the realm of gaming and video gaming, it actually does have some profound implications for consumer advocacy and consumer rights as a whole. And what corporations who sell us as consumers the products that they sell us, well, what are their obligations after the sale has been made? And that topic that we're going to be covering is of the stop killing games movement, and more broadly speaking, the idea of game preservation and uh just this new trend of games as a service and like live service types of games, what happens when those games are shut down. And so I'm just gonna insert a little clip here from the creator of the Stop Killing Games movement, and his name is Ross Scott, and he's a he's a pretty big famous YouTuber, um, as far as I'm aware. He's like a machinemist. Um, it's kind of a special kind of uh video game-based um series of videos that he makes on YouTube. Um and he started this movement because he was very concerned about these sorts of live service games. And for those of us who may not know what that means, uh a live service game is or a game as a service is basically a video game that requires the user to be connected to the internet at all times in order to be able to play it. And this makes sense for you know some types of games, like online games like, you know, Call of Duty, um, you know, which were Halo, which have uh, you know, a robust online community that are, you know, online servers. And of course, once those servers are shut down, you know, it makes sense the multiplayer aspect is going to be turned off as well. At least online multiplayer. But a really interesting trend lately has been some of these video games also locking single player content behind these online services. And so once the servers for that game are shut down, not only does the multiplayer aspect go away, but also the single player campaigns, which is is a just a very baffling decision to me and um, of course, Mr. Scott and the millions of people who have signed the Stop Killing Games Initiative over in the European Union. But I'll just do a quick little cut here. I'll insert it's basically just like a minute clip where he he explains the philosophy and mindset of the Stop Killing Games movement, and then when we come back, um Kainei will talk about why this matters to us as consumers.

SPEAKER_03 5:49

I'm the founder of the Stop Killing Games movement, and this is a reaction to me hating seeing video games destroyed. Or the general practice is you buy a video game, and at some undisclosed point in the future the publisher disables it, then they keep your money, and you can never play it again. And this has led to the destruction of more video games than any other practice I'm aware of. And I've been kind of working backwards from my conclusion, which is just to stop this. And that's gone several different methods through government channels for some of them. And the but the big one we have going on right now is called the European Citizens Initiative, where if it gets enough signatures and it looks like it might, um this goes before the EU Commission for them to let hear it out and hopefully pass a law on it. And this I can tell your position is you have similar views on the end goal, which is stop the games from being destroyed, but we have disagreements on how we go about this, so we we can try and figure it out.

SPEAKER_00 7:06

So, as I mentioned, this topic goes far beyond just video games. And Kai, I I'd like to have you uh jump in here and opine You know, I did talk a little bit about the background on this and why it doesn't make sense to me anyway, as a as a consumer of video games, but can you see this issue um expanding beyond just video games?

SPEAKER_01 7:39

Definitely, I think that as you kind of stated at the beginning, this uh Stop Killing Games initiative is, as the name suggests, uh limited to the gaming industry in terms of its purview, but the issues that it is seeking to address are in many ways far beyond the industry of gaming. And although we don't see as much of a robust movement to counter these what can ar what can be argued as deceptive practices among developers and and publishers in other industries, like the streaming services that have popped up over the past decade or so. Yeah, that was my argument. You know, all over the place and are and are and and are in many ways becoming the sole method for legally accessing content such as movies and and music and things of that nature. You know, there's certainly parallels to be found here with the gaming industry and where the gaming industry is going. And we can sort of look to the future of gaming, and if we want to understand where it is heading and what is most likely to come about in the future, I think probably one of the best places to look is the streaming services and what has happened to film and music. Because there, what we do see is essentially the only way to access these media legally in the year of 2026 is to purchase and maintain these streaming services. Um, and with legacy media, of course, you could still buy digital, you know, discs and uh VHS tapes for those who are excessively retro-inclined, but that's not going to happen anymore because increasingly there are things are going straight to the streaming services. And as a result, it's going to become incredibly difficult to access that media legally. And in the same way and in the same vein, video game purchases and video game accessibility is increasingly going online, increasingly going to the cloud, which raises the concern what happens when those servers go down, because invariably they do go down. And that's where I think the video game industry has more to say here, and we can talk about that more in terms of video games are unique in that they are a multiplayer experience, they are something that you go back to again and again and again and again, and they're something that are replayable. So there are some nuances here that differentiate it from movies, film, music, etc. But I think ultimately the parallels between those two industries can inform us as to where this might be going. And that is indeed, I think you would agree, Evan, quite ominous.

SPEAKER_00 10:36

Yeah, I absolutely would. And I think you brought up a lot of great issues there to tie this to our non-gaming audience, um, why this is an important issue to talk about. Uh just, you know, going back and thinking about, as you mentioned, like physical forms of media for things like uh movies and TV shows, um, you know, you once you bought something like uh a DVD or a a VHS tape, you owned it. Like, period. As long as your DVD machine kept working, as long as, you know, the VHS tape uh was was preserved in good working order, you would be able to pop that in, enjoy the movie as many times as you want. There were, you know, no servers that would be taken offline, there would be no lack of access. You purchased it, you owned it, it was now yours. Now the issue is with a lot of streaming services is that you are not purchasing the ownership of a specific movie or TV show or set of TVs and movies. Rather, you are purchasing a license. You are purchasing A revocable license. A revocable license, which is only contingent upon the company that you're buying it from actually keeping those servers online, and even not just the servers, but just keeping the media that you wish to access on its service. Um, there's been countless examples of, you know, shows and movies that have been just arbitrarily removed from the streaming services, or in several instances it comes down to like a a rights dispute, like an intellectual property dispute, and that ends up harming us as consumers because we now no longer, with the same amount of hard-earned money that we're paying, if not more money that we're paying, we don't actually own what we are using our money to buy. We're just we just are buying a uh this tenuous, vacuous right to certain electronic products that can really be taken away from you at any time. This kind of reminds me of, not to get too uh, you know, Illuminati conspiratorial here, but it reminds me of the famous saying from the World Economic Forum that you will own nothing and be happy. You know, we'll all live in our pods and eat insects and, you know, all that good stuff. Um I mean, obviously I'm being facetious here, but the point I'm trying to make is that it's just a disturbing trend that's not limited to just video games. Now, what makes uh video games uh, as you mentioned, also, Kai, a little bit different is that these are, you know, interactive forms of media as opposed to, you know, movies and TV and and songs that, you know, you may are mainly just passive. You know, you watch it once, you know, you can watch it as many times as you want, but like gaming is an experience that not only is interactive with you as the player, as a single player, but also with people around the world on multiplayer servers, um, you know, that experience is something that I think is unique to gaming. And, you know, back when, you know, Kai and I were growing up, it was a very similar thing to cassettes and DVDs. You bought a video game console or a PC, you bought the disc, you bought the cartridge, whatever. All of the game was on that disc, on that cartridge, you owned it permanently, completely, as long as the disc didn't scratch, as long as you, you know, into the cartridge, so that dust didn't collect in it, um you know, you could always play it whenever you wanted. You didn't have to connect to the internet, you didn't have to rely on these companies and their shady policies. Now more and more that's becoming an afterthought. More and more that's becoming, in fact, uh anathema to a lot of gaming companies' bottom lines and it has disturbing implications for game preservation. Um and really, again, like a lot of people, a lot of the of my audience might not necessarily care a lot about video games in general, but think about why we have things like, you know, the Library of Congress and you know, I forget what they call um, you know, the preservation entity in the Library of Congress for movies, for example. But it's basically like a hall of fame for culturally significant movies. The thing is, is that, you know, all forms of media do inherently have some form of expiration date or expiration tag on them that's tied to the physical media that they're produced on. Um, you know, the console's gonna eventually break, you you can repair it or whatever, but you know, the console's gonna break probably, the disc itself's gonna get scratched, the cartridge isn't gonna work anymore. And for for a medium-like video games, which I would argue are one of the highest art forms in actuality, because it combines story, it combines music, it combines um, you know, player hand-eye coordination and movement. Um again, regardless of whether or not you view video games as something that's interesting to you, video games are culturally significant in in many, many ways. And if we have games that are locked forever behind these arbitrary licensure online policies, we're we're really losing a a big part of culture. We're really losing important aspects of progress. Um, Kai, in the pre-show, you had mentioned to me, and we chuckled a little bit about it because of, you know, just how nerdy a reference it is, how niche a reference it is, but this is reminding me of the situation with one of our favorite um bygone handheld consoles. You want to relate that issue to our audience?

SPEAKER_01 17:19

Yeah, definitely. So to give a little bit of a backstory, and I'm not sure if Evan has ever delved into this on the podcast, I suspect, given the nature of the podcast, that he is not. But Evan and I both are we enjoy our games, um, and we enjoy gaming, um, but we are at our core very much Nintendo fanboys, so to speak, in that we both grew up playing Nintendo, we both have extremely fond memories of Nintendo, and we could opine endlessly on all of those core memories that were foundational to our childhood. And one of the systems that when Evan and I first became friends, the system that w we became friends over and started playing games together on was the Nintendo 3DS. And the Nintendo 3DS was, you know, a pivotal console for both of us. It was, you know, I I still maintain it's one of Nintendo's better consoles. Uh, it was a handheld console, it was a successor to the Nintendo DS, uh, which I think everybody knows about, and it had some fantastic games on there, which I won't list, but there were some amazing games in the Nintendo 3DS. And much of the software that was available on the Nintendo 3DS was available exclusively on the eShop. These were eShop games that you could only purchase by going on the eShop. There was no physical copy available, or if there, or in some cases, if there was a physical copy, it was only available in Japan. And a couple of years ago, the Nintendo eShop on the 3DS shut down. And with it, that entire library of games was effectively lost. Now, luckily for us who were able to who were able to have advanced notice of when the shutdown was coming and how to prepare for it, we were able to go and make use of the fact that you could actually go and buy these games and download them onto your hardware and preserve them. And indeed, that's exactly what Evan and I did. We went through and we bought a bunch of games that were only available on the Nintendo eShop. We then downloaded them onto our system, and to this day, we both have our Nintendo 3DS which contain that software. But if we are were to lose that 3DS, if that 3DS was to get damaged, destroyed for whatever reason, that physical media, or that software rather, would be inaccessible to us, and we would no longer have the ability to play it. And this is emblematic of the issue at hand, except that it's only getting worse because at least in this scenario, we had the ability to download the software and to play it. Many games these days are no longer available to download, and if you do download them, you must remain online at all times. Meaning that when those servers do go down, there will be no legally accessible way to play those games. And this is something that is concerning because it begs the question, what exactly did I purchase? As Evan stated, you're purchasing a revocable license to the game. Or at the very least, that's what the companies want you to be able to purchase, is a revocable license to the game. Not actually having any ownership over the media that you purchased, but instead having a license that is only good in as much as the company that made the game wants to allow you to play that game. And SKG, Stop Killing Games, argues that this should not be the case, and that indeed this is a deceptive practice because they're selling you a media form that they can then revoke at any time for any reason. And that is simply not something that should be allowed. It's deceptive, and as Evan stated, it permits essentially the destruction of history and of culture that people have enjoyed, and instead says, no, you're not allowed to focus on that anymore because we need our servers for the next shiny object, which is something that is also disturbing, in that it essentially requires you to consistently offer up money to these companies to be able to access their games because the games that they graded in the past are no longer accessible, and so you must always be upgrading to the shiny new object, always be offering your money to have to purchase another revocable. License that they can then revoke, and then you then supply to play the next shiny object, and this cycle repeats ad nauseum, ad infinitum, mimicking, as I stated earlier, the streaming services, where every month you are billed to be able to access the old content and to be able to access the new content. This is so this is where the gaming industry is going, and I think for anybody who is dissatisfied with the streaming service model, as many of us are, even if you're not into gaming, you should still be in favor of the Stop Killing Games initiative's reason for existing, because it could and it very well might have a trickle-down effect, in that if the European Union listens to this, and as I think is unlikely, but hopefully the European Union acts on it and says, Yeah, you know what? You're right. When you purchase the license to something, you are purchasing that media, and it's not a license that can be revoked. And so there must be the gaming industry must facilitate the continuance of that media in perpetuity. That can and very well might have a ripple effect on other forms of media like film and music, which I think would be welcome news to a lot of people who are disgruntled with the uh streaming service model that has that is taking over in so many art forms.

SPEAKER_00 23:29

Yeah, and I think you said that very well, because like I remember there there has been quite a bit of nostalgia that I've seen for like the old days of uh you know loading up music on your iPod and not having to have it be connected to anything, you know, you've been downloading the songs, yeah. Right, right, all of that good times. And and now really it's almost impossible to get around um, you know, just how pervasive music streaming is. Um one of my essential must-have, you know, hashtag first world problems, but one of my most essential subscriptions that I have, and I, you know, I loathe in detest subscription models in general, but I have to have Spotify for me, because you know, it's almost practically nigh unusable without having a subscription. You know, they play and spam you with so many annoying ads, you're not able to play whatever music you want in the order that you want, and so for how heavily I use Spotify, both on the road and at my work, I get something I have to have. But we know whatever happened to being able to have all the music you want on even CDs, you know? Cars don't even have like CD players nowadays, um, and so you have to burn those. And and for you know, we're starting to age ourselves a little bit here. We're starting to date ourselves a little bit when talking about like burning CDs, um, you know, and VHS tapes. And you even when I was very young, like cassette tapes are still a thing um for music and cars. So um I think it's just this shift away from physical media and there being no real emphasis on trying to preserve at all. It's just it's a sign of the times to me. It it's a sad sign of the times. It just goes to show this very consumerist mentality, um, just like kind of lack of regard for the consumer and also a lack of regard for the media that's being produced. And this combined with artificial intelligence producing content, it isn't really doing that on a broad level quite yet, but I think that's something that harkens back to our previous discussion that I won't go down that rabbit hole right now, because we already got enough, we've bitten off enough for us to chew on here with this topic. But I think, yeah, it's just it's all a sign of the times. I do think there are some, you know, devil's advocacy kind of points of view or arguments that can be made. And I think it'd be fun to toss those around a little bit and and discuss those, because you know, we've talked here for a while and have stated, you know, both of our strong opinions on the matter. But you know, there are like industry advocates and there are, of course, the companies who have a different point of view. And I think it'd be good to, you know, give as as balanced of a take on this as possible. So let's let's talk about you know, the main reason for like the servers eventually being removed, especially for these online only or majority online games, is because of just pure profitability, right? Pure profitability no longer being there. Um, you know, if nobody is really playing your game, either purchasing it to play or it's like a free-to-play model and they're, you know, engaged with your product, you know, buying uh in-game currency, whatever. Um I think uh one could argue it would be pretty unfair to hold these uh publishers, these you know, the these game creators and publishers to you know, once the consumer buys a product or or downloads a free game, to always maintain these potentially costly servers for perpetuity. So in that sense, what would you say against uh that argument that you know just downloading a game, like especially a free game, doesn't entitle the consumer to being serviced by the company that produced the game forever.

SPEAKER_01 28:06

Yeah, it's a good point. It is a good point, and it's something that is important to discuss, but we have to draw some caveats here, and we also have to point the industry, we also have to point the finger back at the industry, who is in many ways creating a problem that they are then complaining they can't solve. First point there's two types of video games. There's single player video games, and there's multiplayer video games. Single player video games, it's more or less a cut and dry case. If you download the game, and for some reason that game is no longer supported by the developers, no longer receiving updates, no longer receiving patches, that's perfectly fine. But you as the player who purchased that media should still be able to play that single player game that you purchased. Simple as that. And so if the developers are saying, well, you have to be online all the time in order to play this game, we can't maintain that, well, then we have to think for a second and point the finger back at the industry and say, why are you making us be online 24-7 to play these games? What is the reason for that? Because it didn't always have to be that way, and for many games, it isn't that way. So for single-player games, I think we have a cut and dry case of if you purchase the game, you should be able to play that game in perpetuity, no questions asked. And you shouldn't be required to maintain an uh internet connection in order to do so. I think that's a cut and dry case, and I think that SKG agrees with that, and that's part of the reason why they're they're doing what they're doing, is they're saying, listen, you purchased a game, and under, I think it's Article 17 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, which is the the uh initiative, or the that's what the initiative is invoking, is that article. It basically says if you purchase something, you own it, and you can't be deprived of your possessions, that's theft. And in the case of a single player game, that's exactly right. If I purchase a piece of media that is a single-player piece of media, I should have access to that in perpetuity. And the SKG argues that that's the case. But for multiplayer games, it's a little more nuanced because most multiplayer games that don't do a peer-to-peer connection require you to have server access. And to maintain that server is costly. So it's understandable that at a certain point a game that's no longer profitable, that no longer has a substantial user base, would be retired and would no longer be maintained by the company that created that game. That's fine. And SKG, Stopkilling Games, acknowledges that this is something that should not be expected of publishers to maintain servers in perpetuity. What they argue instead is that companies should leave games in a functional state, and upon retirement of that game, right, because they're essentially saying this isn't profitable anymore, so therefore we don't want to maintain it, that is, in effect, an admission that we're no longer wanting to make money off of this game. And as a result, SKG says they should make the files available so that fans can host their own servers on their own dime as a passion project, enabling continued playing of this game in perpetuity. And I think that Evan and myself, but mostly Evan, have an example of this working and being a functional model with a game that not very many of you are going to have known about, and frankly, in and of itself is not terribly an amazing game, but for personal reasons, Evan and I still greatly enjoy it. Evan, do you know the game that I'm talking about?

SPEAKER_00 31:56

I think it is a game that has to do with uh royalty and a certain realm.

SPEAKER_01 32:03

I think you are correct, indeed. Why don't you explain the situation that happened with Realm Royale?

SPEAKER_00 32:07

Yes, exactly. Um so I love how we we both just knew exactly what uh what Kai was going for there. Well, I would hope Kai would know because he's the one saying it, but I picked up very quickly what he was putting down. Um yeah, so to make a long story short, uh Realm Royale is, or I should say was, uh a Battle Royale online uh multiplayer game. Uh you know, if you don't know what Battle Royale games are, it's kind of like Fortnite or uh you know, Player Unknowns Battlegrounds. You know, you drop into a into a map and you try and collect resources and weapons and everything, and you try to be the first, the last man standing. Uh that's the kind of the very basic model for these sorts of games. And Realm Royale was a very unique game in that it was like a fantasy, uh like kind of medieval sort of uh Battle Royale game, which is not a very common theme, and you had, you know, five different classes, uh four main ones really for most of the game, but five different classes at the start and end of the game, uh, that just all had very unique, very different abilities. My personal favorite was the Warrior. Um but anyway, that game was a ton of fun, but the developers just really poorly mismanaged it. Um you know, they they didn't really update it well, they didn't know how to handle when the game was super successful, and even had a very prominent streamer switch from Fortnite to Realm Royale, um, Ninja. Uh he actually did switch to Realm Royale for a time, which I find pretty amazing, uh, given the game's eventual fate. But yeah, they just weren't able to retain the player base, and they did do one last major update, Realm Royale reforged. Uh new map, new abilities, new changes, but it was pretty divisive. Um a lot of the changes were not super well received. And after they did that update, they basically never did anything with the game again, and rather quietly shut it down after I think maybe like a year, year and a half or so. Um, thus leaving us as fans of the game with no real way to ever be able to play it again. And for over the sp span of a year, it's actually pretty incredible, um very passionate fans, uh I believe some of them were former employees of the developer Hi-Rez. Um, they basically been able to remake the game. I don't believe they have the source code or anything along those lines. Um, they just have basically been able to remake the game and have their own fan servers uh for the game. So and it's supported by fans, such as myself. I'm actually a patron of um a patron of the arts. I can say I'm a patron of the arts now. Um my little$7 a month to help support those fan servers. Um But yeah, we're now able to play the game and enjoy it, just all the memories, all the fun times, and they're gonna be able to do their own sorts of events and you know, cool things with the game. Now I think in the instance of those sorts of games, which don't really have any sort of single-player mode, um you know, it's eminently understandable that, you know, at a certain point servers are gonna be taken off, the game's not profitable, not you know, attracting a uh enough of a player base to justify running the servers, so those are gonna be removed. My my main issue is, though, is that there's no way to be able to still experience the game in some form or fashion. Like, make some sort of offline mode, make some sort of, you know, single player, or like, you know, where you're just able to fight against bots or something, like non-human players, like computer players. The fact that there is absolutely no way to experien to keep experiencing that game truly is, I would say, a travesty. And that is something that Stop Killing Games is trying to address. Did I just about cover um all of the things you wanted me to talk about with the Realm Royale example?

SPEAKER_01 36:45

Yeah, exactly. I mean, essentially, yes. And I think Realm Royale is an example of a game. It's kind of a a case study for how the end of a game and the end of a multiplayer game could become something that's really exciting and and well maintained beyond the death of the game. And that can be emulated going forward. It doesn't have to be that all multiplayer games eventually go the way of Anthem, rest in peace. Um, you know, for those of you who don't know, Anthem was a uh multiplayer game that as of January of this year has essentially become completely unplayable. There is no legal way, I don't even think there's an illegal way, although I'm not gonna say that because I don't want to provoke that conversation, but there's no real way to play Anthem anymore. Now, luckily, Anthem was made by EA, so it's a terrible game, and we never have to worry about it. Wink wink, just kidding. But Evan will understand the sentiment behind that. Anthem was made by EA, it was kind of universal, it was kind of decried as something that was not very good. Um, and so no one's really ruining the death of that game too much that I've seen online. Nonetheless, it's not it's not about that. It's about the fact that this is a case study of something that has happened in real life. A game that was available and was playable at a certain time is now completely erased and no longer accessible in any form. And then on the other hand, we have a game like Realm Royale, which is a game that also went had the same fate in that it was shut down completely. But because of the the ground what the groundswell of grassroots support for the game has been maintained and is currently being maintained, and is so we have those two fates essentially, the fate of Anthem or the fate of Realm Royale. And Stop Killing Games Initiative says that in the industry should be required to allow games to have the fate of Realm Royale, and I think that that's something that should be endorsed.

SPEAKER_00 39:03

Yeah. Well, and that actually does pr pr bring up a good issue because even with Realm Royale, uh, that was an instance where the fan base, just out of you know, pure passion and technical capability, was in fact able to resuscitate the project, it was not in any way, shape, or form helped by uh the studio that you know published produced and published the game and then ended up shutting it down. Um but I do think there is, I think, a very important counter-argument as well that I I would I would be interested in hearing your take on it. Um because especially for a game like Anthem or Realm Royale, um, which because we've discussed at length the differences between single-player games and experiences and multiplayer games, one could argue that we'll take Realm Royale for as an example. It's a free-to-play game, so nobody is paying anything to download it and play it. I could play it for hundreds of hours and not give them a single dime. And they've invested, you know, the developers invested a lot of money, hired a lot of people, a lot of man hours, you know, etc. etc. to to make the game maintain it with servers. It was never made with an offline mode in mind. It was never made with a single player mode in mind. It was made to be purely an online multiplayer experience. So would it not possibly cause some degree of a chilling effect in the industry if, for example, the developers of Realm Royale knew, you know, before they made the game, hey, we are going to be required by law to invest more time and more resources into making some sort of offline single-player mode? And we have no guarantee of payoff on this. Like, you know, it's a free-to-play game, we're not selling it for anything, we're depending solely upon the sale of in-game currency and battle passes and cosmetics and things like that. Would that not possibly cause some unfavorable industry consolidation? Like, because right now game development costs have just skyrocketed into the hundreds and millions, uh, even for, you know, like the single player, you know, Sony movie games that kind of ISO love to to riff off of and make fun of sometimes. Um but like development costs are spiraling, it's becoming more and more difficult for like smaller studios to, you know, really be able to establish themselves, make a big hit. I mean, of course, there have been a lot of independent indie games that have been pretty successful, but you know, those arguably are kind of becoming more the exception rather than the norm. So what would you say in response to that, that uh especially for games that are like freemium model, you know, service, live service games, requiring them to make some sort of offline mode would actually um prevent more games from being made, or prevent innovation from happening, and just keep contributing to the ever-increasing cost of video game production.

SPEAKER_01 42:32

Yeah, it it it it it's a reason, it's a good point, and I think it's something that we need to be concerned about. I do just want to push back on one thing that you said. You said that indie development is getting fewer and far and farther in between, and I would push back against that, and I would say, no, I actually think that we could potentially be in a renaissance of indie gaming as these large industry, as these large uh game companies are becoming more greedy and are producing lower quality games for higher prices and making their games increasingly inaccessible and making their creams increasingly unfun and increasingly pay-to-win. I think what we're seeing is that people are turning to indie games as an alternative to return to that gaming experience that everybody knew and loved as a child, and I think we should all be supportive of it because indie developers are the lifeblood of this of this industry, and the large gaming companies that are putting out these horribly made, grossly overpriced, nigh-unplayable play-to-win games should have to reckon with that fact. And I hope that it continues to be the case that indie studios will continue to eat up a larger and larger and larger portion of the consumer's uh budget because they're eminently more deserving, in my opinion. Humble submission. Side note there. Um just have to get that in there. The to address your concern, or to to address your concern, I mean. I don't really have an answer per se. I'm not by any means an industry expert, let that be made clear. But I think that the notion that games should be required to make a solo single-player game, even if it's an exclusively multiplayer game, that's I hope that that's not what Stop Killing Games is promoting. And if it is, that's one area where I would disagree with the game. I don't think that you should place undue pressures on gaming studios to create something which they are not wanting to create, right? So if the game is intended to be a multiplayer only experience, it should not be any there should not be any government body that says, no, you must make a single-player experience. Instead, what I hope that Stop Killing Games is arguing is that, or at least this is what I believe, I'll say this. I believe that if you make a multiplayer game, you should have an end-of-life plan for that game. Meaning you should essentially allow or create a modality that allows fans to inherit your servers if they choose to do so. You don't have to force them to do it, obviously. You don't have to pay for it, you don't have to um, you know, make it uh, you know, you don't have to make it like so that they have the source code necessarily. You just have to allow the fan, the community to run that server on their own server privately on their own dime if they choose to do so. This allows the game to continue, and if nobody wants to play it, nobody's interested, and nobody you know cares to host the server of their own, well then the files sit on the company website, or the files sit on Steam, or the files sit wherever they end up sitting, in the Library of Congress. Who knows? They sit wherever they are and collect dust, but at least they're there, so that 20 years from now, someone has a memory of like, hey, I remember this game. Did you and they get together their friends and they're like, We remember when we used to play this game? Well, it's obviously not running anymore. It was hosted 20 years ago. Let's go get a retro PC or a retro switch 2, because it'll be 20 years from now, or a retro you know, alienware PC or whatever, and let's host the server on our own. That should be something that is possible. And it should be possible without the looming threat of some giant corporation trying to sue them for copyright infringement. Because if you're retiring a server and you're saying we're no longer wanting to support this game, you should be okay with the fact that you're no longer going to make money on it, and you should be okay with the fact that other people are playing it free of charge. That's what I think SKG is arguing, and that's what I hope SKG is arguing. And if they are saying no, you have to create a separate single-player experience, I disagree with that. And I think that goes against yeah, I think that's placing an undue burden on these gaming companies that would indeed repress creativity in the industry.

SPEAKER_00 47:07

Yeah, for sure. And I I you definitely have some very good points there. I think uh just a big uh component, you know, of of you know the industry advocacy like against this initiative and you know some opinion pieces that I've read from the other side centers upon some of, you know, the the vagueness, I guess, of some of what the initiative is asking for. Um I do think when you read over the the Stop Killing Games website, there's there there's a lot of information on there. And me personally as a gamer, I think it's pretty I I personally feel it's fairly clear what what they're asking for, but there are s just some areas that I do feel like maybe could be uh discussed a little bit more in depth or you know, really knowing exactly a especially you know in terms of the lawyers and like the the legal eagles and the ones who would actually be drafting the legislation. I mean, if we if we have our American Congress as any indication, um having a bunch of uh crusty eighty-year-olds who the last PC that they used probably had floppy disks on it. Um like having them dictating policy on you know ever-moving, ever-evolving technological uh you know products and spheres like the video game industry is not really uh a very desirable outcome. I I think what the initiative can, should, and I think really is trying to focus on is giving an environment where preservation is the primary um not even primary, but just preservation is something that is I'm not I'm not even gonna say top of mind, but just especially towards the end of a of a game's lifespan um it's it's something that is at least a contingency plan is made for it. Um but it just when you do start getting into some of the nitty-gritty details, like, okay, does this mean that a company has to have server code or source code for the game once it's done? Like I think that's that can be very problematic if, you know, let's say twenty years down the line, um, we see like, you know, Microsoft is bringing back like the original uh Halo Combat Evolved. Now, of course it's like a remaster or a new version of the game, but you know, let's say twenty years from now the company wants to uh like restart up the servers and run it again for some sort of nostalgia event or something. Well, they've basically been forced by law to give the you know source code or be give private servers to consumers so there's no real reason for anybody who's in the know to to purchase the game from them again when they can just they can just use a private server. That's for free. But anyway, I'm not gonna get too far into the weeds there. Um I'll let you comment on that in a minute, Kai, if you would like to, but I do kind of want to start pivoting the discussion a little bit because we have been talking about ownership for quite a while. There is a very famous phrase that I think is very uh salient to the discussion, and that is if buying is not owning, then piracy isn't stealing. And for uh the FBI uh currently, you know, if you're not already wiretapping this Discord call, um you're gonna listen to this episode and just, you know, be on high alert for what I'm advocating for here. So let me be clear. Um I am not advocating for piracy. But what I am saying is, is that this sort of environment which I feel the industry is creating of not caring about game preservation, uh, you know, the example that Kai brought up of of Nintendo with the Nintendo 3DS, um, and another topic that we'll get into with Nintendo that I'm sure Kai has been uh very patiently waiting to bring up and and rip rip Nintendo on. Um we we we love Nintendo products, but we don't really tend to love some of Nintendo's business practices. We'll we'll just put it that way. Um but I kinda lost my track of thought train of thought there. But essentially this idea of no longer being able to play and access certain uh video games that are you know well loved, well liked, well received, um until and unless the company so magnanimously decides and graciously decides to put it on some sort of online subscription service, i it's it's a real issue. It's a real problem. And so I think a big problem, uh one one of the ways that this manifests itself is with the new Nintendo Switch online subscription model, but even further than that is the the game key card controversy on the Nintendo Switch 2. So, Kai, I I gave a lot for you to just take that and run with it, um, and my previous comments as well, if you want to if you wanna hop on those, but yeah, take it from here.

SPEAKER_01 53:02

Yeah, so first of all, to talk about what you said the quote that you said if buying is not owning, then piracy is not stealing. Again, I'm not advocating for piracy either. And what I but I think Nintendo provides an interesting case study for why that statement is so salient. You have a company like Nintendo, which is a company that Evan and I whose products Evan and I have enjoyed as children and continuing into adulthood. And at that same time, Nintendo makes decisions which utterly baffle anyone, and which Evan and I, in a lot of senses, can't stand. One of those is their insanely litigious, insanely protective nature over IP that is no longer legally accessible. Now, Nintendo is known to be absolutely furiously litigious when it comes to piracy. You know, they've gone after people for millions and millions and millions of dollars over piracy, and they've claimed damages and and stuff of this nature. And, you know, I'm not here to comment on the legality of those, I'm not here to comment on those cases in the legal context. I'm not a lawyer, so I'm not going to comment on any of that stuff. But what I am going to say is that you have a company like Nintendo, which up until very recently in Nintendo's history, with the release of Nintendo Switch Online, where a lot of these retro games were accessible through that subscription, there was no legal way to play older Nintendo games if you didn't own the physical media. And owning the physical media for many of those games, especially GameCube games, was prohibitively expensive.

SPEAKER_00 54:57

So, for example, just to cut in here, actually you might be bringing it up here in a second, but uh for anybody in our audience who's made it to this point, go look uh look up uh copies of Earthbound for the NES on eBay.

SPEAKER_02 55:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 55:12

Um and then I'll uh administer smelling salts after you recover.

SPEAKER_01 55:18

Yes, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 55:19

Right.

SPEAKER_01 55:20

Earthbound, an uh NES game, very charming, an icon in the field an icon in RPG history, something that so many people love and admire and adore and wish to play. And as of recently, it's been I think it was available on the eShop for the Nintendo 3DS, and then it was available again on the eShop for the NSO, Nintendo Switch Online, for the Switch, but prior to that, there was no legal way to access that game. There was no way to play that game, and the only legal way to do so without buying a copy of the game, which as Evan said will require smelling salts to recover from. Outside of that, there was no way to play it. And so the only option that you had was emulation and piracy. But Nintendo hates that. And so Nintendo has created a problem which they're not willing to solve, and that is that they're going to continue to go after people for piracy while not providing legal ways to play their games. And this is emblematic of what we're talking about. If a company is willing to retire a game and say that we no one longer want to make profits on it, it should be able to be legally accessed in some way. And that's the fundamental argument that I think SKG is making, and that I think that we agree with in on in in terms of what SKG is prescribing. Now, I forget what the last thing that you that you talked about was, Evan, but I it was important and I wanted to address this what it was.

SPEAKER_00 56:55

Yeah, the game key cards controversy.

SPEAKER_01 56:58

Right. Yeah. So on that note, to continue the Nintendo uh ripping. With the Nintendo Switch 2, Nintendo essentially created a new form of ownership. Well, ownership and air quotes games. Yeah. Yeah, heavy air quotes for that, which is to purchase a key card for the game. Now, what a key card essentially is, is it's essentially a license to own, a license to play the game without actually having a physical copy of the game installed on your system. So what you do is you purchase the game key card, and then you have access to play that game on your Nintendo Switch system, but you're not actually, you don't actually have a complete copy of the game. So you can't so when the Nintendo Switch online is when Nintendo Switch is retired, you're in theory going to be able to have that license revoked and no longer be able to access the that game.

SPEAKER_00 58:00

This comes in just as a quick clear sorry, just as a quick clarification, these game key cards are physical game key cards. So they're being sold. Thank you. Yes, I didn't clarify that. Right, right, right. They're being sold in stores. And so, you know, grandma and grandpa or mom and dad, they're looking at this, they they're not gamers, they have no idea, you know, what this stuff is. They're they're like, oh, little Timmy wanted me to buy, you know, such and so. And so they buy it and they don't know that that game is not in fact going to be accessible after the online service is shut down, because what is going on is, you know, normally you have a game key card, or you have a game card, we'll say, to differentiate, that has the game entirely programmed and stored on that game card. With game key cards, you don't even have the game actually on the game key card. Really, all you're doing is you're just buying a physical representation of a digital product. You have to go online to the Nintendo Switch uh eShop and download the game with a physical product. So it makes it pretty confusing for low information consumers. And, you know, I'm sure there'll be a lot of a lot of uh shock and unfortunate instances of people who thought they could always play their game key cards. Well, once the Nintendo Switch servers are shut down, they'll be in for a rude awakening.

SPEAKER_01 59:30

Yes, thank you, Evan. That was a that was an important clarification that I didn't make. Yeah. This is something that you can purchase physically at a store. And so the assumption is if you go to a store and you purchase a game, you're purchasing a game, and the files are on the cartridge, on the disc, on the physical media that you purchase. In this case, if you buy a Nintendo Switch 2 game that is a key card game, there are the the game files are not on that cartridge. It is simply a essentially a gift card that you can use to download one specific game off of the Nintendo eShop. You don't actually have a physical copy of the game on your system at all, and it can be revoked at any time. This is, as Evan said, gonna provide some confusion for low-income consumers, or not low-income for low information consumers, in that they're thinking that they're buying a copy of the game, but in reality, they're not buying a copy of the game at all. They're simply buying a token that allows them to download that game from the eShop, and then that license can then be revoked at any time. An example of this, an example of this that Evan and I were trying to avoid, right? Because we don't want to purchase something like this, both out of principle and out of the fact that we don't want to own we don't want to buy a game that we don't actually own. Uh, you know, we want to avoid it out of principle, and also because of that. The game uh was released not too long ago. It was a remake of a game called Pac-Man World 2. That's not important. Point is there was a Nintendo Switch 2 release that came out, and it was it had HD uh or had uh uh uh better graphics and it ran faster, all of these things. It was a much better version of the game, and then there was the Nintendo Switch 1 version. Now the Nintendo Switch 1 version was the traditional modal the traditional type of game in that you bought the game and on the cartridge was the game files, meaning that you can play it in perpetuity because you'll have the physical copy of the game. By contrast, the Nintendo Switch 2 version was a game key card, meaning if you purchased that game, you did not have the games on that cartridge. It was only accessible by downloading it online. And so Evan and I, both of us, decided to eschew that version of the game, even though it was technically superior, and to instead get the Nintendo Switch 1 version because we were adamant that we only purchase physical games if the media is contained on those games. And it's important to stress, I think, that we're at the start of this transition in the industry. Nintendo is still privy to the fact that most people want to purchase physical media, and so they're still providing it for most of their games. But they're testing the waters. They're trying to see can we get away with this? And other companies are doing this as well. Can we get away with just selling these revocable licenses that we can then take away whenever we want to for any reason to force people to switch to the shiny new object? Is this something that we can get away with? And I think SKG is essentially a way to combat this and say, no, you cannot get away with this. This is tantamount to theft, and we're going to ask the EU to step in to essentially put its foot down and say, no, you're not able to do this, you're essentially stealing from your consumers.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:54

Yeah. And I think there's another important thing to consider as well, is that Nintendo, because of its uh fan base being primarily um, you know, either children or uh as you know, Kai and I are, we are Nintendo fanboys who have grown up with Nintendo, and so we still like and enjoy their products. Um so most of those consumers, I would say, or a good portion of those consumers still prefer physical. But when you look at other game companies like um, you know, Microsoft and Sony, you look at the actual statistics, there has been a pretty large decline in physical sales. Um and and both of those companies have much more of a robust um, you know, digital online platform, uh, you know, like PlayStation Plus, uh what's the what's the one with Xbox? Xbox Live, um, you know, Game Pass. So like I would say, and for those of us in the audience who are just as nerdy, if not nerdier than us, you might be saying, well, hold it, like most games now are being sold as digital games, physical games are really falling off. Yes, on a on a broad sense that is true. But not only would I say that's not so much the case for you know, the main console and the main company that that Kai and I prefer, besides of course our our gaming PCs. But the the fact that there may be a more dominant form of media to be uh delivered, it doesn't mean that there shouldn't be an option for those of us who prefer it the old school way and who actually like to own what we purchase. And so um to make the argument that, well, mm, this is just the way it is, this is where everything is going, it makes things more it makes it simpler for the producers and publishers, it increases their profit margins because they don't have to, you know, produce physical discs or cartridges and and game cases anymore. You know, it's kind of interesting, Kai. I have never seen so many people so ardently and passionately defend the profits of deep pocketed uh gaming companies like in any other industry. Like I I don't see that really being defended. Like maybe for defense contractors, but besides that, like most every every other industry seems to be have a lot of a more pro consumer focus to it. You know, pharmaceutical industry, finance, banking industry, um you know, like auto, you know, sales, like there just seems to be a lot of an emphasis and a lot of a pro consumer focus for those industries. But when it comes to the gaming industry, it just seems like a lot of folks are very are more than fine with just having them having these companies purely go online. Now I I don't I think if you make a personal individual decision to you know maybe out of convenience, maybe you don't have a lot of room, you know, in your house, you don't want to have a ton of cartridges or discs lying around, so you prefer digital, that's one thing. But denying the r the ability for others to make a different decision, I I think is is a rather silly, foolish argument to make. I I would assume you agree with that Yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:42

Yes, yes I do. In fact I think that it's Yeah ex yeah exactly. I a hundred percent agree. And I think you know going back to the point about how, you know, piracy is something that if i it what was the quote again? I I forget the quote. It's uh if if buying is not stealing isn't owning then piracy is not stealing. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that some there's there are players in the field who understand this. Nintendo is definitely not one of them. But for example, a player like Valve understands I knew you were going to bring up Valve a play a a company like Valve understands that sentiment in a lot of ways. Now Valve has a checkered history in some respects. It's not the perfect company but comparatively it's a lot better than companies like Nintendo and EA and Sony etc and Microsoft. And one of Gabe Newell's who's the CEO of Steam one of his quotes that is I think is very salient for this discussion is that piracy is almost always a service problem. And I think that that kind of underscores this whole point that we're talking about which is if you're not providing a way to play these games if you're not providing a way to if you're not maintaining your library you cannot be surprised again I'm not recommending it but you cannot be surprised if people who want to play those games if they are not able to do so legally are going to seek alternative ways to do so. And I think SKG is simply saying provide a legal way to do so.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:21

Yeah and I think really honestly even if you are so concerned about the prop padding the profits of video game companies I think there is ample evidence to say that at least in the case of the Nintendo Switch 2 and the game key cards there has been a you know a noticeable like between like memory storage on the console native to the console itself and just the game key card controversy like you know Kai and I have made the decision with certain games if they're only offered digital or if they're only offered as a game key card, no matter how interested we might have been in those games, on principle we we don't want to buy something that we're just not going to be able to play at some point in the future. For as big of nerds as we are, you know, time is a limited resource. We don't have all the time in the world to play everything that we want to play. And so there are you know instances where we we might buy a game or we or we might you know look forward to purchasing and playing a game at some point in the far future well now we know it's like milk. It has an expiration date and we we we can't rely on that being around forever. But what I'm saying is is that it's actually leading to fewer sales. It's actually leading to instances of consumers like Kai and I making the active choice to purchase fewer games because it is only being offered as a game key card, as an anti-consumer practice. And so I would say even for those who are for whatever reason they are totally not um you know Rockstar game or EA game employees hiding behind a bushy mustache and monocle um like or you know the silly dis cartoon disguise or whatever like even for those people who are very concerned with with video game industry profits I think one can make a strong case that maintaining some form of physical media would actually even help on that basis as well.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:31

Um but anyway sorry what you were gonna say no I was just saying I was disagreeing I was saying yeah no doubt like again I understand what you were saying about how and I and I agree with you that for some reason people are super concerned about the profits of these gaming companies when that doesn't seem to be the case in a lot of under other industries. And I think that's because a lot of the times these you know the gaming industry it's understood that it's a huge amount of effort being put into making a good game and I think a lot of gamers are understanding of the fact and and desirous to reward companies for making good games but at the end of the day the point of SKG is not to argue that games should be made differently or that we should require game companies to do something radically different to accommodate gamers. It's instead to say that you know consumers have rights too and one of those rights is they can't have their property taken from them at the whim of some company.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:32

Right. And so I think as we kind of start drawing this episode to a close here because I think this has been a a very interesting very robust discussion of a topic that is of great personal interest and meaning to both of us I do think there is one thing to be said about like industry comparison. I do think that perhaps consumers are a little bit more like lenient and in fact in favor of padding industry profits because they realize that like an industry like the gaming industry is an extreme you know what's the word I'm looking for like disposable income sort of industry, right? Like as opposed to healthcare, as opposed to you know driving a car or you know any of those sorts of industries um you know which are things that most people need to have. Gaming is, you know, and I and of course Kai and I definitely recognize this as I alluded to earlier in the up in the episode it's this is very much kind of a first world problem sort of thing. But gaming definitely is something that is more of those of those like less necessary for life and existence sort of industries. So that might be one reason. And the one thing that I can all I'll also throw in here just to be charitable as charitable as I can for what I see as a very anti-consumer practice um but the one thing I can say in favor of game key cards, uh something that I think Kai is actually probably going to be pretty um you know surprised to hear given the antipathy and animosity we share against game key cards is with the impending uh shortage and the ongoing, just severe shortage of uh you know different components that are needed to be making both consoles and the individual physical game cards you know chip shortages are becoming a big problem and especially again throwing in artificial intelligence in here this is why two sticks of RAM costs$900. Um as that famous meme that's circulating the internet goes. But you know AI is taking a lot of these chips and a lot of this memory processing power. Um you know geopolitical issues are of course at stake here with China owning most of the rare earth minerals that are needed, not just for game consoles, but also for uh you know critical national security needs and technology and you know our phones, those kind of things. So the one thing I can say in favor of game key cards is that it could essentially, if the shortage continues and becomes more severe, it can then basically become a choice between okay, do you want to have games period? Like at all or are you okay with having longer development cycles and you know less availability due to the fact that physical media is becoming not only more expensive to make but also just more difficult due to the lack of of the materials needed for them. That's like the one thing I can say in favor of game key cards. But even there, I still think that doesn't justify the fact that I think that game key cards are just deceptive, just flat out and like we mentioned for low information consumers low information per uh purchasers it is to me just kind of dishonest still and so digital games it's not like game key cards are hurting digital games at all just by their existing in fact I would say if you have just digital as an option and just physical as an option like that's ideal. Don't give us a half physical that's really just all digital but it's still in a physical form method if that makes sense. Like just give us all or nothing. Give us all digital and all physical as options, but don't give us a physical option that really isn't physical.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:53

That's that's what I would say um I I think that what I think what you said Evan about being in about your uh devil's advocacy for um the uh game card the game key model is I think you might also be surprised to find is not only received by me with ambivalence but with agreement. I I actually agree with you that that is that is uh upside of the game key model. What I think uh what I would underscore your point with is I would say that that it that is emblematic of why the SKG initiative is important to endorse is because in theory I am actually in very very much in favor of virtual media purchasing games online maintaining a library that is uh digital I'm very much in favor of that the problem is there exists at this current moment no framework for ensuring that my purchase is maintained and that the integrity of my purchase is not compromised by the whims of a corporation that can at any moment decide to revoke my license. If that framework were to exist I would be far more amenable to purchasing my games digitally and I think SKG provides that framework. The reason why I am so radically in favor of purchasing physical media where available is precisely because it's the only way that I can guarantee that I'll be able to play those games in perpetuity. And so on those grounds that is the reason why I seek out physical media where available if there was a legal framework that said hey you can't just take away someone's ability to play a game that they purchased I would not have those same reservations. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_00 1:17:55

Yeah yeah I can definitely uh that makes a lot a lot of sense to me and there was of course another rather nerdy reason that you also mentioned uh that also made sense for game key cards but that's not really something that I think the majority of our audience are going to find very interesting but for the nerds among us who are interested it has to do with the Nintendo game share uh feature so apparently Kai knows about this I don't from my own personal experience but apparently the game key cards do in fact make it easier to be able to share your game with another system even the previous model Nintendo Switch 1 edition um but yeah I'm not gonna delve into that because no no that that is such a deep rabbit hole that you know if we haven't already lost our audience at this point we their eyes would glaze over for sure. So yeah I think that's just about all the all the blood we can squeeze out of this turnip, all the mileage we can get from this topic. I greatly enjoyed this discussion.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:00

Are there any other points or examples or issues that you think need to be brought up burning questions that are on your mind before we close this out Kai No, I think that the only thing that I'll say just to kind of tie up the tie up the bow on this episode is just to give a little status update on where this SKG initiative is in terms of the EU inner politics. Um so the initiative received the requisite number of signatures and as a result it's going to be heard by the EU and don't quiz me on which body of the EU is going to be hearing it and which chamber it's going to be held at I have no idea of any of that. All I know is that we're expecting some sort of reply from the EU as to whether they're going to have a vote on this or whether they're going to draft some form of legislation on it. To be honest I shouldn't even be commenting on this I don't actually know the the details but what I do know is that roughly we should be expecting some form of official reply from the EU sometime later this year. So that'll be something to look forward to and to to keep an eye on.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:17

Yeah that's thanks for bringing that up because just to underscore the amount of popular support for this I believe this initiative received one point four million signatures. Am I correct on that?

SPEAKER_01 1:20:31

I I don't know exactly but I'd it's well over a million.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:34

Somewhere in that neighborhood yeah so that just goes to show like how uh you know broad of support this has and how big of an issue it is because you have to reach um I think I I believe the minimum is like 1.1 or 1.2 million in order for it to be considered by the EU.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:50

So and you have to be an EU citizen too which means that no Americans sign this no British no Brits sign this no uh Japanese sign this this is all mainland Europeans peop countries in the EU that signed this and 1.5 million of them signed it. So 1.5 million of them signed it.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:08

Yeah exactly and I mean now that we're thinking about this of course at the very end I'm coming up with another possible devil's advocacy point but I'll just throw it in here at the end. I do think that there is a possibility which would be you know pretty unfortunate for European consumers. Uh kind of like when you know Facebook and a bunch of other social networks like basically threatened to pull out of Europe because of certain str more stringent privacy laws that they were proposing. And I mean honestly in that case fine. Like I'm sure the citizens of the European Union are just absolutely devastated at Facebook no longer being there. Yeah but I mean okay Instagram sure whatever like I I I use Instagram for certain things so like yeah that would be a little unfortunate losing Instagram but it's to me it's it's whatever I'm not huge into social media anyway. But I digress. The the the the the per the illustration I'm trying to make is is that what if you know if the European Union were in fact to actually make these laws um it would not really in fact actually help the cause of game preservation because all that would happen is all of these game companies would just flee Europe en masse rather than actually have to be forced to comply with the edicts of the SKG initiative.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:34

But that's something that I mean I'm sure Kai if you just want to give a a brief uh you know touch upon that at the very end here but that was just something that I thought about as a as a possibility because we do very briefly I'll just say very very briefly yeah that is an altern that is a possibility it's a harrowing one. We have a counterexample though which is the EU stepped in and said Apple can no longer use proprietary chargers they must use USB-C and Apple did not pull out of the EU they instead changed all phones to have USB-C which I think was a an amazing win for consumers in Europe and outside Europe. So we have both possibilities we have the possibility of those companies just saying okay screw Europe we're not going to be in Europe anymore or we have the possibility of them saying hey to comply with European regulations let's just do this for everybody and that would be the scenario that we could hope that we should hope for.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:27

Absolutely well I love that you're quick on your feet and you can you know give that example because that's actually one I forgot about so good on you. But anyway uh if you've listened in to the very end uh we thank you for your time uh let us know what you think about this subject and uh you know do you agree do you disagree do you have other questions or perspectives that we might not have considered uh feel free to sound off and uh Kai thank you so much again for joining us here on the show your insights and uh opinions are very much valued pleasure to be on looking forward to do it again yeah absolutely we'd love to have you on again we being spelled me because I'm the only one who really hosts the show. I thought you were gonna say we being spelled W I true all right well thank you so much everyone for tuning in and until next time always remember the buck stops right here because we are looking out for you to get it together