Rock, Paper, Shotgun had an interesting article on the activities of the consumer protection group Stop Killing Games (SKG). The article inspired some thoughts on my part about what SKG and similar groups are trying to do on the behalf of gamers.
SKG’s raison d’etre
Stop Killing Games was, as I understand it, founded on the concept that games that players pay for should continue to be available for some reasonable span of time. Developers today have full control in this equation for many games: for multiplayer games they operate the servers, and many single player games also have ‘phone home’ features that allow for remote termination. Basically, the producer of the game can turn it off whenever they want without advance notice.
SKG started by pushing for legislation in the EU and in America to put protection of some sort for gamers into law. The idea would be to codify a kind of guarantee of playability: maybe not ‘forever’, but at least long enough that players could get their money’s worth out of a given game. These laws might have escape clauses whereby the publisher could terminate early but then would owe the consumer a pro-rated portion of their purchase price. Regardless, the end user would get at least something for their money.
Thus far, sadly, SKG’s efforts have been in vain. The attempt to get laws in place in the EU in particular failed rather completely and, although they intend to continue pursuit of legal ends to preserve gaming, there isn’t a clear source of hope at the moment.
Where we are now and my thoughts
Thus it is that Stop Killing Games is now, it seems, looking at other ways to be an advocate for game consumer rights. Their latest attempt is to become party to a lawsuit being brought against Sony regarding their game store and its predatory pricing practices (alliteration for the win!).
Sony has an effective monopoly via their e-store now that they don’t support physical game media. This means that the fees they charge developers and the prices they enforce in their store give them undue control over the consumer’s pocketbook as well as the game developer’s bottom line. Sony is different from, say, Steam in this regard because they control both the storefront and the hardware platform it runs on. Microsoft differs to a small degree because their console still, ostensibly at least, supports physical media.
I don’t know whether a lawsuit like this has sufficient merit to stand up in court. But I do respect the effort SKG is putting into the topic of protecting consumers from the corporate gaming overlords. I’d really like to see them circle back, however, to their efforts regarding preservation of game access. Like “right to repair” for physical objects, “right to use” for software needs to be enshrined in some kind of legal framework. Right now the software licenses put all the power in the hands of the developer and publisher, and governments need to see that this is unfair for the consuming public.