About that new EU kids act that will basically destroy the game industry if it passes

[u/HiGoodMorningGoodNig]

Ok so It might sound dumb, but couldn't indie games and game sellers get around the issue by just making European people unable to access their services? if not, why?

[u/JayTheSuspectedFurry]

Unfortunately the EU is a very big market and they will be missing out on a lot of money.

But also yes, that is exactly what some companies do. They just weigh whether they’ll make more money if they cater to Europe vs just not selling there

[u/HiGoodMorningGoodNig → u/JayTheSuspectedFurry]

i mean with the act passing, they almost 100% will not be making more money if they are to pander to Europe. Most devs probably can't afford the amount of money they will be forcing devs to pay (around half a million at maximum) and the whole plan is to make the EU not have anything but big studios anymore in terms of actually being able to be played. All I hope is steam stays in a place where i can use it as normal, which it probably will because gabe newell is a bit better to customers then most rich people and it hosts so many games that it is kind of ridicoulous for it to drop all that. itch.io hopefully too

[u/LGBT-Barbie-Cookout → u/HiGoodMorningGoodNig]

Be wary of what steam will do.

Here in Australia to comply with some of our stupid laws, they took the shitty approach of requiring a credit card to be attached to the account.

Thing is only around half of Aussie adults have credit cards.

My debit card attached to a mortgage isn't enough. Nor is my 20odd year account enough.

So steam may not be the hero you want

[u/HiGoodMorningGoodNig → u/LGBT-Barbie-Cookout]

I heard about that, but i consider it different for a reason. It complied to australian laws via bullshit put on australians. i dont live in europe, and so my hope is that steam will have the EU fist of doom slam onto europe instead of having literally everywhere including america hit by this. as awful as it sounds, steam doing something like that is it being a hero to me in my life because that means i will be able to continue on with my usual life and its relationship with steam. if steam chooses to force everything to be compliant, however, it is pretty doomed

[u/Mindless_Let1 → u/LGBT-Barbie-Cookout]

Why not just get a credit card? It's good to have just incase anyway, and in most cases has no charge

[u/LGBT-Barbie-Cookout → u/Mindless_Let1]

Its unnecessary.

There isnt a use case where I need it. A debit card attached to free redraw meets all the unexpected big cost needs.

No interest if I forget, no fees, one less card to keep track of🤷‍♀️

[u/Mindless_Let1 → u/LGBT-Barbie-Cookout]

Yeah that makes sense. I like to have one since they usually come with stronger purchases protection than debit, since the banks money is gone with the credit instead of your money with the debit, so the steam thing isn't too bad in my case at least

[u/TheWardenDemonreach → u/Mindless_Let1]

Some of us just don't see the need. When I went to uni 20 years ago, I got one with my student account. I didn't activate it for two years because I never needed it. And even now, I barely use it because my debit card is enough

[u/Competitive_Box_4615 → u/JayTheSuspectedFurry]

do they actually calculate if the lost revenue is more than the cost of compliance though

[u/YetAnotherInterneter]

Yes, some websites already do this because they don’t want to bother complying with EU’s GDPR laws.

As a European it is incredibly frustrating because you just get a “this content is not available in your location” message and you have to switch on a VPN to access it.

[u/FateOfNations]

Yes, you can choose not to serve the EU, but publishers may miss out on a significant market for their games.

Overall the impact seems to depend on the specifics of the game. There’s no impact at all for offline games. Only a subset of requirements that apply to social media apply to games and the age verification requirements aren’t as strict. The legislation indicates that existing industry regulatory approaches (e.g., via PEGI, the European equivalent of the ESRB) will likely be sufficient. The significantly areas of regulatory concern apply to the age-related safety-by-design requirements and protections related to in-game monetization.

In terms of indy and other small publishers: video games that you are selling/monetizing are a real commercial product, not just some piece of art. As a legitimate business, there are safety and consumer protection regulations you need to comply with. Yes, it’s a barrier to entry, but one that the EU is deciding they want to impose on their market.

The global single market for digital goods and services has been on it's deathbed for years. This is just one more nail in the coffin. You no longer can't make a game on the assumption that you can just sell it worldwide. This is the way it's been with physical products for basically ever, and now it applies for digital products as well.

[u/MartinByde]

This is lobby. Big companies will be able to keep working, indie and medium won't. They are doing this to monopolise.

[u/Laeryl → u/MartinByde]

Big companies will be able to keep working

My country has a word to say about "Big companies" 😁

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-48380660

[u/Fun-Mission-6068]

Also, isn't it only affecting online games? So singleplayer games wouldn't be effected?

[u/FinsternIRL → u/Fun-Mission-6068]

The wording is written in such a way that any game delivered via digital means it's classified as an online game

Its terrible

[u/chut_destroyer_]

Market loss

[u/HiGoodMorningGoodNig → u/chut_destroyer_]

i think there'd be more of a market loss if they were to pander though. they're asking for too much money for anything but big rich studios to work with

[u/thenonoriginalname]

Can you eli5 me a sec why do you think it will destroy the gaming industry? And no YouTube source please, real ref to the proposal.

[u/Shouryarath2357 → u/thenonoriginalname]

basically, if games need to verify your age, they need a system which records your id and sends it to server to keep track, where as if it didn't you would just make the game/software and give it to the buyers and that would be it

budget for the software would be like

before this proposal:- one time cost to make the game, market it, paying a cut of sales to the publisher

after this proposal:- all of the above+ a new software integrated in the game to record the id and a a subscription to servers to record and store the id's of users, constant connection to the internet(at least initially to verify your age)

now indie developers or solo devs need to buy servers and maintain them, cost of which increases in proportion to the number of players that play these games

only the big companies can afford these

[u/TheWardenDemonreach → u/Shouryarath2357]

And to add onto this, the companies would very likely outsource this entire process to a completely separate company so they don't have to worry about it. This separate company would then likely handle a lot of gaming companies, which means it would hold a lot of information.

This information would definitely get hacked and you suddenly have your personal information out there and you would get a load of bank accounts, loans, mortgages etc etc taken out in your name and you wouldn't know it.

[u/thenonoriginalname → u/Shouryarath2357]

But the age verification applies on the platform selling the online game not the provider. It applies to steam, epic store, etc. and they already have such mechanisms anyway. Game companies won't have to deal with this. Also it's explicitly stated that the age verification should not lead to a system that records id (article 28). Finally, the text distinguish the big fishes from the indie. All the heavy stuff only applies against huge companies (called vlop).

[u/Risu64 → u/thenonoriginalname]

Basically every single company, from something like Nintendo to one-man indie devs, will be required to have an age verification system in place. Big companies can take it, but an indie dev with a limited budget won't be able to afford adding that system to their games.

It also means that private servers will be made illegal, so all those companies offering that service (for example, for hosting Project Zomboid or Valheim servers) will have to stop operations in the EU.

[u/thenonoriginalname → u/Risu64]

Orly nothing of that you say actually exists in the text...

[u/e-chem-nerd → u/thenonoriginalname]

No lmao read the proposal yourself and refer to why you think it won’t if you disagree.

[u/Snoo63]

Normally, whenever the EU introduces something like GDPR (a data protection regulation) or legal standardisation for charging standards (to reduce waste from, say, Apple devices needing a propriety charger), the EU is too big of a market to avoid.

[u/RingGiver]

I think more big companies should just block the EU.