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Stop Killing Games Initiative passes 700K milestone
(feddit.org)
https://www.stopkillinggames.com/
Stop Killing Games is an European Citizens Initiative aiming to keep games playable even after their developers and publishers have stopped supporting it.
To get the initiative onto the EUs agenda so it has the chance to become EU law, it has to both reach 1 million signatures total and minimum thresholds in at least 7 countries. Those national thresholds have been thresholds have been reached. Now it's all about getting to 1 million signatures total.
Even if you are from a country that already reached the threshold you can still sign. Your signature counts to the 1 million goal.
Answering doesn't mean doing anything, and all they have to do is generally wave in the direction of the overwhelming popularity and profitability of the products compared to the online petition that 0.2% of the EU's adult population will have signed.
If the general public does not care, legislation will not follow. Filling out and promotinh a glorified change.org form is energy wasted on actually popularising your viewpoint instead of trying uselessly to get it in unpopularly.
It does mean doing something: they have to spell out whether consumers should have rights on this or not. Currently it's undefined, which is equivalent to "not."
And the initiative works against that? You say the cause could have gotten more publicity without it? I really don't see how that could happen, or understand the point in guilt tripping over it.
I'm starting to think this argument is energy wasted.
Entirely discounting the fact that the EU has a track record of consumer friendly regulation. I agree, instead of doing what has the highest chance of success, let's do nothing that could have an impact instead.
What on earth makes you think an online petition, which has never led to any of the consumer friendly regulation you mention, has the 'highest' chance? Or that the alternative to a petition is doing nothing?
All of that regulation came primarily from legal cases.
Citizens iniatives may be a form of petition, but the difference is they come with actual legal requirements.
This isn't some change.org bs, a list of names totaling some arbitrary number. That's why it has a hard deadline. And requirements for how signatures have to come from more than one country.
This is a pre-existing system for the people of the EU to force it to tackle an issue. Most EU countries have equivalent systems locally, as well. This isn't new or unusual for us.
Legal precedent is how the US works. Where lawsuits catalyzing the setting of new standards for what is legal, is the most common way the law changes. If you thought that's how EU legislation got done, then you have no fucking idea what you're talking about. Almost everything the EU does, is based on proposals. Not legal cases.
Those can happen in the EU, too, but we have additional ways to propose law as citizens, and legal cases are more common on the national level, rather than the continental level.
If you can gather proof (signatures) of concern on a given issue, you can force a proposal through the door that normally has to come from elected representatives.
The fact that it isn't just a petition, and if successful will put the issue before EU lawmakers. I'm presenting the alternative as doing nothing because you talked about voting with your wallet, and that is essentially doing nothing.
The reason I see this as having a higher chance of success than a legal case is the monetary limitation inherent to the latter. As far as I know there isn't a big track record of successful ECI's, so I would assume you're basing your opinions on regular petitions. Correct me if I'm wrong.
No, I talked about putting this energy into convincing others to vote with their wallets, not just "doing nothing". A boycott is an active campaign. It doesnt just mean not buying a product. It means not buying any associated product. Not even tolerating them in conversation.
I'm basing my opinion on how the commission has responded to similar successfully raised initiatives: "that's already covered by legislation and up to EU states to manage", "no that's something we cant support, but feel free to appeal endlessly", and in the most effective one, "committing to making a legislative proposal by 2023 but actually if thats ok we'll make it 2026 and I suppose then if legislation is agreed it may be in place within a decade" (end cage farming, which polls at 86% approval already in the EU).
Yes, that's what I was referring to; I didn't mean you personally voting with your wallet, but in the broader sense. In my opinion there's little chance of having success with this method in this field.
I'm not saying you're wrong in basing your opinion on this, but I think the sample size is very small and not necessarily indicative of future results. I'm not saying the chances are sky-high either, but I think this is the best way forward, especially right now with the campaign having received a second wind.
If there are alternative roads to the same goal, I wouldn't be against supporting those either. I believe this is the best we have right now, that's why I've put it before friends, family etc. If you have a better idea, you should definitely do the same, but downplaying the potential of this campaign helps nobody but those in the games industry.