A frog who wants the objective truth about anything and everything.

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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 4th, 2023

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  • This is a summary from @Essence_of_Meh@lemmy.world:

    TL;DW:

    • Patrick Breyer and Niklas Nienaß submitted questions to the European Commission on the topic of killing games (the latter in contact with Ross and two EU based lawyers).
    • EU won’t commit to answering whether games are goods or services.
    • EULA are probably unfair due to imbalance of rights and obligations between the parties.
    • Such terminations should be analyzed on a case-by-case basis (preferably by countries rather than EU).
    • Existing laws don’t seem to cover this issue.
    • Campaign in France seems to be gaining some traction. Case went to “the highest level where most commercial disputes submitted to DGCCRF never go”.
    • UK petition was suppose to get a revised response after the initial one was found lacking. Due to upcoming elections all petitions were closed and it might have to be resubmitted.
    • Also in UK, there’s a plan to report games killed in the last few years to the Competition and Markets Authority starting in August (CMA will get some additional power by then apparently).
    • No real news from Germany, Canada or Brazil.
    • Australian petition is over and waiting for a reply. Ross also hired a law firm to represent the issue.

    This is a simplified version of simplified version.























  • For those who can’t watch the video:

    Across the globe, companies can simply say you DO NOT own your games as long as they have a EULA, and it even gives them the power to destroy your ability to play a game!

    Ross Scott (of Freeman’s Mind and Game Dungeon fame) has done the leg-work of researching how much power these companies have in various countries, and what he found was that, as a gamer, you effectively have the same amount of rights as a squirrel.

    The only way to stop this practice would take millions of dollars to fight it legally in court, and uh… I don’t really see any millionaire gamers willing to take up that cause. So, in any realistic sense, the corps have won here. There’s nothing we can realistically do, short of boycotting.

    BUT, that doesn’t count for the EU, Scandinavian countries, Canada, UK, or Australia. Unlike the US, they actually have functional consumer protection laws, and ways for consumers to fight back against corporate overreach without needing to have a few million in the bank.

    If you live in any of those countries, we could use your help! It would help even further if you’ve purchased and own The Crew at any point in time, but you can help even if you haven’t!

    If you live anywhere else, you can STILL help by helping sign a French consumer petition, which has real weight to do something, it isn’t like one of those pointless change(dot)org ones! But to participate, you must have owned the game.

    You’re on the front lines of consumer protection for gamers across the globe! Your actions (if we’re ultimately successful) would likely have ramifications even in the US and Canada!

    How can you help? If you can’t watch the video, here’s the website with a step-by-step guide on what you can do to help: StopKillingGames.com

    This is likely going to be the biggest push for consumer protection for gamers there has ever been, so… Like, it’s kind’ve a big deal. Let’s make this count, guys.



  • I’ve actually been pretty impressed with LibreOffice as of late. It’s fairly easy to adjust the theme (they have proper dark theme support now!) and layout to something pretty darn cozy feeling. Maybe for a power-user it’s not enough, but for my simple needs, like fiction writing and simple documents, I honestly can’t complain, they’ve done a solid job. Could it be better? Sure. But it’s in a good place, IMO.

    I think GIMP is a better example of a really user-hostile UX. That, almost more than any other open-source app, needs a UI overhaul.