Let's be real, open sourcing it isn't "hardly any work". All the code has to be reviewed to make sure they can legally release it, no third-party proprietary stuff.

I remember the "old days". That was when dialup internet was still popular and running a server usually meant it was on your 10Mb LAN. When we got DSL it was better and you could serve outside your LAN. This was also the time when games had dark red code booklets, required having a physical CD inserted or weirdly formatted floppies (sometimes a combination of these). You could get around these things and many groups of people worked hard at providing these workarounds. Today, many of these games are only playable and only still exist because of the thankless work these groups did. As it was and as it is has not changed. Many groups of people are still keeping games playable despite the "war" that corporations wage on them (and by proxy on us). Ironically, now that there is such a thing as "classic games" and people are nostalgic for what brought them joy in the past, business has leapt at this as a marketing opportunity. What makes that ironic? These business are re-selling the versions of games with the circumvention patches that the community made to make their games playable so long ago. The patches that publishers had such a big problem with and sought to eradicate. This is because the original code no longer exists and the un-patched games will not run at all on modern hardware and the copy-protections will not tolerate a virtual machine. Nothing has changed.

We can even go back as far as when people first started making books or maps that had deliberate errors so that they could track when their work was redistributed. Do the people referencing these books or maps benefit from these errors?

Why do some of us feel compelled to limit knowledge even at the cost of corrupting that knowledge for those we intend it for (and for those long after who wish to learn from historical knowledge)?

I'm speaking from ignorance but isn't the server backend often licensed and they couldn't release it if they wanted, even as binaries? Granted, going forward they'd have to make those considerations before they accept restrictive licenses in core parts of their game. And the market for those licenses will change accordingly. So there core of your argument is correct.

History taught us that corpos would literally burn the world for a few more bucks. And by history, I mean right now.

Not to mention that studios like Larian have proven that it's entirely possible to make a blockbuster game without teams of 400 heads, changing direction and leadership every few years and laying off the people who made the product in the first place. They really seethed at that one, so many salty comments lol.

Yeah sometimes their choices are bad, that is like 1/3 of the whole point of government. To stop businesses from just doing whatever nonsense they want.

Because sometimes publishers like to be the ones curtailing dev choices

That's good news. Means the initiative has a shot.

It was disquieting back when they were just flat out ignoring it.

Still trying to find the right direction on animal crossing.

They still will, this will just limit their ability to force you to move to the next one once the servers shut down.

It's almost like government was made to create and enforce those guardrails.

Yeah just the choices that fucks over paying customers. They are saying they would like to keep doing that and this laws would curtail that.

Will someone think of the poor shareholders? /s

Yes! When I read that, I immediately thought "curtailing developer choice is exactly the point."

It's not just for the hell of it!

Invalid votes will be removed when it's time for the final tally, so the initiative needs a solid buffer to still he over a million after.

There's been a talk of some people using bots to inflate the numbers in a misguided attempt to help the initiative, so every vote is still very welcome.

Also, I kinda want to see just how high Finland can go above the threshold.

Tell your friends!

I agree wholeheartedly and I also signed late while being Finnish.

Pretty sure it was so publishers (printing press owners) could have a guaranteed profit. Those two things (publisher and artist profits) were correlated at the time. Not so much anymore. Streaming/subscription mentality is like planned obsolescence for IP.

This is the most level headed approach to IP I've seen. If you're not willing to use the property you forfeit it. It's a common contact for licensing rights for movies that forces a studio to make a movie or lose rights. That way people can't squat on a licence to prevent others using it.