Quoting: TheSHEEEP... but why?
Usually, malware has a specific purpose, monetary or data gathering or disrupting infrastructure.

This just messes with your mods and steam stats for a title.
Very annoying especially for modders, but beyond that I don't understand the motivation here.

Trolling.

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I just care about the Steam Controller 2.

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Quoting: robvvI'm wary of Netflix these days as Trump has bought around $1m in bonds in Netflix.

Netflix has been beholden to the likes of Obama and the Clintons for decades, but it's only now that you're worried? 😆

At any rate, as long as Blender development stays independent then I'm fine with Netflix throwing their dirty money at it.

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Quoting: TheSHEEEP

Quoting: Mountain ManFrankly, I have no time or patience for people who dismiss an opposing opinion as "drinking the cool-aid".

That is okay, not everyone can deal with honesty and rather just goes "lalala I can't hear you" when being called out on how wrong they are.

I have no problem with honesty. I just have no time for jackasses.

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3D renders do not a viable product make.

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Quoting: ShabbyXSay this fine is paid, where does the money go? I highly doubt to the consumers the suit claims to protect. Does it go to the UK government? To the people filing the suit (in which case, why do they deserve this money?)?

If it's like class action lawsuits in the US, the overwhelming majority of the money is awarded to the law firm that filed the case since they're supposedly representing the injured party.

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Quoting: TheSHEEEP

Quoting: Mountain ManYou really can't demand that software developers not take advantage of cost saving technologies like cloud servers.

Of course you could.

But that isn't the goal - as I already wrote, those mock servers are already a reality in almost any project.
It would be work to make these more user-palatable, but not much. Paling in comparison to the dough raked in by online games that were even just a bit successful.

It is also by far not the only way to go about this, nor the cheapest.
You are drinking the publisher cool-aid already and they haven't even really started firing their propaganda - weird, dude!

You could absolutely - and reasonably! - demand that an end-of-life plan must be made before an MMO/Online-focused game is released, and that end-of-life plan MUST include a way to play in a "reasonable, minimal way" (eg. say offline only, or self-hosted, etc) past end-of-life.
Or you can't release/sell it in the EU.
Simple, really.

If those few weeks of work and minimal amount of resource cost would keep a game from being developed, then developing that game was never a viable business decision anyway.
Publishers really have no leg to stand on here.

You also can't forget: When you ignore the suits, the vast majority of developers is in favor of this.
Understandably so, as nobody wants to see years of their work just ceasing to exist.

Frankly, I have no time or patience for people who dismiss an opposing opinion as "drinking the cool-aid".

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Quoting: Purple Library Guy

Quoting: Mountain ManYou really can't demand that software developers not take advantage of cost saving technologies like cloud servers.

Sure you can. Just like the Chinese were able to demand that milk producers not take advantage of cost saving technologies like watering it way down and thickening it with malamine. We demand that people not take advantage of cost savings all the time, if taking advantage of them would cause some disadvantage to their customers or the common good. We demand that factories spend money on scrubber thingies in their smokestacks so we don't get acid rain; that's why there is still maple syrup.

Watering down milk and adding thickeners without disclosing this to the consumer is fraudulent, so of course it's illegal. That's not at all the same as a developer using existing cloud services rather than expending the resources to create their own online infrastructure. As long as they disclose the fact upfront that future functionality is not guaranteed, then there is no fraud. And I think that's ultimately where this is going, that any product that depends on servers will be required to carry a prominent disclaimer that necessary online services could be discontinued at any time without warning.

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Quoting: soulsource

Quoting: Mountain ManHow broad do we expect this law to be?

The original introduction video to the campaign talked about this. They also mentioned that in an ideal world, all of what you mentioned would be regulated in a way that allows people to keep accessing the content they bought a license for. However, the initiators were aware that it would never happen if it was that broad, so they picked games as a smaller target. That's not perfect, but it's a start.

I think that will ultimately kill any chance of this becoming a reality, especially since most lawmakers consider video games to be nothing more than childish amusement. Game developers could also make a good case that they are being unfairly singled out when even by this groups own admission, there are many other consumer products that depend on network services.

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I honestly don't see this going anywhere. You really can't demand that software developers not take advantage of cost saving technologies like cloud servers. What's next, demanding that music and video streaming services make their content permanently available to customers in the event that they shutdown? And what about software other than games that depends on servers and key activations? Phone apps? Digital thermostats? Network connected security cameras? The long list of "smart devices" that require some sort of online service to function? How broad do we expect this law to be?

Frankly, I think this is never going to happen.

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