Official response from EU Commission after attending invite only party hosted by lobbyists, attended by Ubisoft and other corpos
Open letter from SKG addressing EU Commision (aka industry/lobbyist talking points)
https://x.com/StopKilingGames/status/2062131784926519424
Video from YongYea if you’d like to listen to the situation
If I buy a physical board game, I can keep playing it as long as I still have the game in my possession. Video games should be no different.
Before the internet was widespread, that’s exactly how they worked.
I mean, until their internal ram failed and you needed to do a full RPG in one sitting, but I guess that’s true of board games losing pieces or breaking.
That is what archival copies and emulation exists to protect. In case your physical copy that you purchased becomes damaged and as a result is no longer usable, you still have the legal right to access the digital content you paid for. You have the legal right to make your own backup copies. You cannot distribute the copy, and are only entitled to one (at a time), and must destroy the copy if you sell or give away your physical copy. Basically the physical copy acts like a proof of purchase.
Nintendo does not know the law and asserts their own creative interpretation is correct, but the letter of the law is very clear.
Games (and software) are one of the few forms of media and free speech that are subject to this.
Hence why streaming, e-books, etc come in to push in convenience while removing ownership/independence.
I see it tangentially related in how it operates similar to fossil fuels/renewables. The industry wants you to keep buying. They can’t control the sun, wind, etc, so you don’t need to rely on them.
Same kinda thing here, they want you to rely on them and keep buying the newest thing. And if they delete your old version, welp, guess you better come get the new one (especially when they “remaster” it with 0 effort and slap it on a new digital storefront.)
I just hate the profit motive lol