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  • The EU Citizens petition to stop killing games is not looking good. It's shy of halfway where it needs to be, on a very high threshold, and it's over in a month and change.
  • paraphrasing a little more than a half hour of the video: "Man, fuck Thor/Pirate Software for either lying or misunderstanding and signal boosting his incorrect interpretation of the campaign."
  • The past year has been quite draining on Ross, so he's done campaigning after next month.
  • It will still take a few years for the dust to clear at various consumer protection bureaus in 5 different countries, and the UK's seems to be run by old men who don't understand what's going on.
  • At least The Crew 2 and Motorfest will get offline modes as a consolation prize?
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[-] TheGreenWizard@lemmy.zip 30 points 1 month ago

Piratesoftware makes me so fucking mad, shit is so crazy people give him the time of day.

[-] MITM0@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago

What happened ? I'm out of the loop on this one

[-] Duamerthrax@lemmy.world 18 points 1 month ago

He's opposed to it. He speaks with a very clam, professional voice, so people like to believe him. I get skeeved out by it personally. Honestly, we shouldn't be taking advice from former Blizzard dev anyway. Nothing that comes from that company has ever been respectful to players or even human decency.

[-] Draedron@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 1 month ago

He wasnt even a dev. He was a quality tester.

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[-] TheGreenWizard@lemmy.zip 9 points 1 month ago

Sorry, I went to sleep not long after I made that comment. I see I was beaten to it but, he was just so dramatically crass and rude when introduced to the movement, and said mean shit about Ross, the guy behind the movement, calling him gross, a greasy used car salesman, saying "he can eat my whole ass". And after all of that, he refused to speak to Ross and continued to make 2 entire youtube videos, and some livestreams about shit talking the movement, fuck that snotty little prick.

[-] chrislowles@lemmy.zip 8 points 1 month ago

Calling one of the most polite, succinct and eager to explain themselves YouTubers a greasy used car salesman is just an automatic red flag, just unbelievably skeevy behavior from him.

[-] MITM0@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago
[-] SomethingBurger@jlai.lu 4 points 1 month ago

He wasn't a game dev apparently. He worked in security, and there are rumors saying he actually was a WoW moderator.

[-] Duamerthrax@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago

"You think you do, but you don't!"

[-] A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world 30 points 1 month ago

PirateSoftware is an enormous cunt.

And he makes no effort to hide it.

I genuinely don't understand why he has such a rabid fanbase.

[-] ArsonButCute@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Youtube shorts.

Imagine you're a gamer, one who is interested in game Design. Your view history has games, gaming, game design, but it's also full of algotrash talking heads, scam baiters, shit slingers. You open the YouTube app on your phone, and it immediately opens to shorts, you don't remember settings that as the default but it's fine, you recognize the creator and the 45 second clip was neat. Swipe up. Next video, it Nile Blue dropping a beaker of chloroauric acid. Next video, its Chris Boden yelling about some kind of electrical infrastructure you don't understand (and that's pretty cool). Next video, Thor, speaking softly, explaining an aspect of game design that you never thought of. This one catches your attention, its in your wheelhouse, its something you're genuinely interested in. You click the profile, swipe through a few more shorts. Your algorithm is permanently damaged. Your a pirate software fan now, whether you like it or not.

Or you can use freetube and never see algotrash talking heads in your feed and never enter into this cycle.

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[-] ipkpjersi@lemmy.ml 9 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

I've seen him described elsewhere as "a poor man's idea of a rich man" and I think it's accurate.

With that said, I don't think it's his fault the petition failed, people just don't care usually.

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[-] lime@feddit.nu 28 points 1 month ago

yeah my opinion on piratesoftware was really cemented by his inability to do a charitable reading of the petition.

[-] absquatulate@lemmy.world 23 points 1 month ago

I think the initiative just ran out of steam. I remember seeeing it everywhere for the first month or so, and then nothing, and it plateaued around where it is now. Maybe the vast majority of EU gamers just can't be arsed to read and sign a petition like this. I mean most can't even vote with their wallet when a shit game releases. And of course it's fun to blame thor/pirateguy for this ( and they probably did have their share of fault ) but in the end it looks like 500k is the amount of gamers that actually give a fuck about the state of things.

[-] TheEighthDoctor@lemmy.zip 8 points 1 month ago

It just didn't reach enough people, no one I know that is not on Reddit and Lemmy even heard about it or understood the problem to begin with, on top of that, most "gamers" are playstation players that don't know anything about these problems or care for that matter.

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[-] QubaXR@lemmy.world 22 points 1 month ago

It was nice to have some degree of hope for nearly a year. So I guess, thanks for at least giving it a serious attempt Ross.

[-] Sixtyforce@sh.itjust.works 17 points 1 month ago

Ah you know, not the outcome I hoped for but it's exactly what I expected from humans.

paraphrasing a little more than a half hour of the video: “Man, fuck Thor/Pirate Software for either lying or misunderstanding and signal boosting his incorrect interpretation of the campaign.”

I agreed with Ross previously that Thor taking a really dumb fuck position helped get more attention on the issue that was, IMO, as hopeless as trying to get the masses to care about or understand Net Neutrality. That was what I saw repeated and upvoted at the time even before Thor revealed himself to be a gigantic narcissistic nepo baby bullshitter more recently.

If you watched the vid OP, what changed his opinion? I'll check it out once I'm home from work regardless.

[-] ampersandrew@lemmy.world 7 points 1 month ago

what changed his opinion?

The metrics on signatures for the citizens' initiative. If it helped, it would have boosted those too, but it didn't. He also got word that at least one very large YouTuber/streamer that he did not name decided to stay quiet about SKG because it would have contradicted Thor.

I'll also reiterate that 1M signatures out of a population of 450M is an absurdly high threshold to have to reach, so getting 1/10th of that is still impressive, even if it's unsuccessful.

[-] Stamau123@lemmy.world 8 points 1 month ago

Fuck whoever stayed quiet then

"Oh no, I might contradict the annoying moron who is wrong! I can't be seen as being on the opposite of that!"

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[-] p03locke@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 1 month ago

He also got word that at least one very large YouTuber/streamer that he did not name decided to stay quiet about SKG because it would have contradicted Thor.

So, Asmongold. Got it!

[-] FartMaster69@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 1 month ago

Actually Asmongold was one of the biggest names in support of SKG.

Broken clocks are right twice a day.

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[-] cecilkorik@piefed.ca 11 points 1 month ago

I am still of the opinion that they aimed too small and focused too narrow. Games are a "luxury" anyone can live without and it's hard to rally grassroots support behind protecting something that people only use for entertainment. Yeah it's low stakes to force them to let you continue to play it after servers shut down but the same low stakes also makes the petition itself pretty ignorable to anyone who's not a very invested "gamer".

Actual right to repair and right to continue to access to the software and services and devices you buy goes SO far beyond mere games, there are other huge impacts to society from exactly the same problem that leads to game servers being shut down, and this petition ignored them completely to focus exclusively on games. I know that was done purposefully, but I think it was a miscalculation.

I'm convinced it could have got a lot of support if it had broader aims. Yes if you go after the big boys who are locking down tractor parts and integrated electronic modules so they become obsolete and unrepairable and directly impacting farmers and our food supply, you're going to REALLY piss off some very big business interests who are going to try and kill your petition, but you're also going to help educate and hopefully get a lot of support from politicians who already know this is a problem and from the general public who doesn't care about games but does care about society (at least once they're properly educated about it, which is hard but also a necessary and positive step to even attempt).

[-] lime@feddit.nu 7 points 1 month ago

that was sort of the point though. a big case with a narrow focus can later be used as a fulcrum for a wider scope, given that the original case has the right spin. it's also easier than going after the anti-repair people.

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[-] atro_city@fedia.io 6 points 1 month ago

I understand why he's frustrated. EU citizens are just so damn lazy and won't help themselves. I've told all my friends and family, brought it up at parties and other gatherings to anybody who plays games. But there are EU gamers (streamers and consumers alike) who are chronically online, on every proprietary platform out there and who don't give 2 shits about the campaign.

Edit: Fuck Thor.

[-] jol@discuss.tchncs.de 10 points 1 month ago

That's not true. The petition to ban gay conversion therapy achieved the same number of signatures within days. This is just much more niche.

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[-] daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 1 month ago

I've always thought that the only solution to this problem is being able to reverse engineering central servers and thus being effectively being able to pirate online only games.

[-] normalexit@lemmy.world 6 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Reverse engineering the server is reverse engineering the whole game. It's going to require skilled engineers and a significant time investment. It may be possible, but not practical.

Also, the client will likely verify it is talking to a legitimate server by checking a certificate, so you may also have to hack the client too.

At some point you're better off making your own game with hookers and blackjack.

[-] ampersandrew@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago

It's an unreliable solution, because there's no guarantee that even dedicated and talented individuals will be able to reverse engineer every online server, if that game has those individuals in its customer base in the first place. The solution seems to be either legislation, which this campaign is seeking, or for the market to outright reject online-only games, which it isn't doing. I don't even really have an alternative to online-only games in some genres, like FPS for instance, to send my dollars toward instead; sports games are in a similar position, since the sports organizations all signed exclusivity contracts.

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[-] veniasilente@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 1 month ago

I'm quite lost (disinterested) on MCU stuff as of late, what's going on about Thor? Is there a game?

[-] lime@feddit.nu 6 points 1 month ago

thor is a tech youtuber. it's just his actual name.

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this post was submitted on 23 Jun 2025
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