Ah thank you.

I might not underestimate how much big tech companies hate this too. They are pretty famous about despising all regulation of their space. I wouldn’t put it past them to block a backwater like Utah.

Why are you assuming the ambulance is the first car behind the Waymo? Are they supposed to bash through all traffic to get to the Waymo and then push it? You know a lot of ambulance drivers are just low level private employees with a couple weeks of training, right? They’re not going to just use the ambulance like a tank and then tell their corporate ambulance company employer to sue Waymo, a huge and powerful tech company. Christ man join reality.

Okay. Most of your comment seemed to be focused on whether they resemble actual humans. I don’t think we have any information about whether these impact your mental health but I would tend to agree they can’t be good.

Perhaps the point is to seek something that’s not like real humans.

Someday soon, and it isn’t as far off as some people think: the government will know who we are.

First time?

Someone do a version of the comic with this guy’s comment as the text of the first panel, please.

I know what open source means.

A group that wants to host that game server is eventually going to need to fix it, or adapt it to new software / hardware if we expect it to be able to run in perpetuity. They will need to be able to modify that source code to do so.

So the game publisher can’t just publish one final compiled package “for people to use.” The software has to be able to be maintained, not just used. And if we expect the software to survive over time, it will need a community not just one group. Open source is the only thing that would allow the game publisher to walk away from it, but allow the software to live on.

This is meant as a joke but it’s very much a real thing and has been for a long time. Visit an unincorporated area that doesn’t have a permit office and you’ll see some crazy shit. Visit the third world and it’ll blow your mind.

But then how could anyone use it? If it’s to download and run at home, you can get away with it. But in many of these cases they’re saying open source it so volunteer group XYZ can host a server and keep the game alive. Wouldn’t group XYZ be vulnerable to copyright action?

Yeah I think there’s some promise in “open the source” as a remedy here. Because that doesn’t really put any onus on the game maker. They can keep making games exactly as they do now, but if they want to utterly walk away from a title, they have to open the source.

I think the complications with this would come from IP and copyright law, licensing, etc. for example, if the developer licensed any other software (or music or whatever) in order to make the game, do they actually have the rights to open source all of that? Perhaps not.

It’s kind of like accelerating the public domain thing. Very interesting remedy for this situation, but extremely complex legally, I would guess.

Absolutely. Age verification sucks. It’s just an example of the complexities between a two sentence concept and an actual software implementation. I lived through SOX, GDPR, and many others. They sound simple. “Right to be forgotten” but they are complex as hell and often have unforeseen side effects.

I wasn’t referring to you but rather the heavy downvoting that my comments are receiving. I know when I’m muddying the hive mind’s cherished narrative with complications from reality, and that’s a stoning offense, no mistake.

I believe you’re trying to make it sound like “no it would be simple, just don’t go out of your way to do the bad thing.”

I know people just want to root out only the most obvious most insidious cases where online is totally unnecessary so it can seem like a simple matter of not doing it. But what about all the rest of gaming? How are we going to define these concepts? Write this law so that it will work for Fortnite, Among Us, MOBAs, and Hearthstone. Just try.

If someone wants to write ten paragraphs defining “single player games” with due precision and “unnecessary online components” and the required remedies for games that do have online components I’d love to hear it. No one here will take this time even though ten paragraphs is a laughably small length for such legislation to be written.

This bound/enforce bit is a distinction without a difference. In each case you need to understand the letter of the law and dance around it. SB2420 has plenty of things to “simply not do” and any “ensure offline play” law would absolutely have things you must do.

Yes it’s video games and people want what they want and always think it’s simpler to deliver than it is.

Take Among Us. It is not some huge bullshit live service game, but it makes use of the internet. It was created by a small developer.

The game includes local network play which is a good thing because I assume it would have to under this law, so it can play “offline.”

Do we think that local network play was zero effort to include? Would it really have no effect on small developers if they all had to include this always?

I know what you mean about small indie games being simple but the reality is a little more complex than that image. Small developers do also create online games. They aren’t big shit shows like Fortnite but that doesn’t mean they don’t use the internet.

No one ever wants to hear that it’s more complicated than they think it is, but that’s the truth virtually all the time.

I understand the core case that this man wants to stop. But laws have to be written for all, with precise language, and can’t just say “you know the kind of game we’re talking about.”

And that’s where this gets difficult.

I would, but it’s video games and the mood in the room is not one of curiosity and discussion, but of pounding fists on the table. But suffice it to say that people think they can explain a law like this in two sentences while I despair that it can even be written at all, even with 100 pages, and function recognizably.

If you want an example, take Texas SB2420, the recent age verification law which said “the App Store has to ask your age and then tell developers so they can only show age appropriate content.” And now go read the full text, which I did at work. And look up Apple and Google’s implementation guidance and API specs. A “simple” thing people think can be explained in a few words is much, much more complex underneath. Like I said, I don’t even think this law can be written and come out the way we want it to.

In 25 years I replaced it only once and that was to get a model that supported wifi. The first one could have gone another 50 years.

I’d only be repeating myself.