Canada rescinds digital services tax to advance trade discussions with the United States
ImplyingImplications @ ImplyingImplications @lemmy.ca Posts 2Comments 2,322Joined 2 yr. ago
I absolutely hate always online DRM in single player games, so I get it. Personally, I'll avoid games that use it. I was a huge fan of the Hitman series but haven't played any of the new ones because of always online, live service, season pass, model they decided to go with. It's a deal breaker for me, but I understand it isn't for everyone else. I told my friends I wouldn't be playing Helldivers 2 with them because of its use of kernel level anti-cheat and they just gave me a weird look.
I'll choose to support games that are developed in consumer friendly ways, but I also accept that not everyone sees it as a big deal. If a company decides they need kernel level anti-cheat, then that's on them. They won't get my money, but I'm not about to start a petition to legally ban the use of kernel level anti-cheat and call anyone who won't sign it an industry shill and bootlicker.
Want to stop games you buy from being killed? Don't buy games that can be. Does this mean you'll be sitting out while all your friends have fun playing the latest hit game? Probably. Does it mean 10 years later when the game no longer works you can smugly tell them "heh, looks like you guys got scammed." Also yes. Just don't be surprised that they think you're weird.
From the initiative:
This initiative calls to require publishers that sell or license videogames to consumers in the European Union (or related features and assets sold for videogames they operate) to leave said videogames in a functional (playable) state.
Specifically, the initiative seeks to prevent the remote disabling of videogames by the publishers, before providing reasonable means to continue functioning of said videogames without the involvement from the side of the publisher.
The initiative does not seek to acquire ownership of said videogames, associated intellectual rights or monetization rights, neither does it expect the publisher to provide resources for the said videogame once they discontinue it while leaving it in a reasonably functional (playable) state.
This is all that the initiative states on the matter. How it would actually work in practice is anyone's guess because the wording is so vague. Supporters seem to be under the impression that companies have a "server.exe" file they purposefully don't provide players because they're evil and hate you. They could also be contracting out matchmaking services to a third party and don't actually do it in-house. Software development is complex and building something that will be used by 100,000 people simultaneously isn't easy.
There's a reason comedic videos like Microservices, where an engineer explains why it's impossible to show the user it is their birthday based on an overly complex network of microservices, and Fireship's overengineering a website exist. Big software is known to be difficult to maintain and update. Huge multiplayer games aren't any different. It's likely there isn't actually a "reasonable" way for them to continue to work. Supporters are hopeful this initiative would cause the industry to change how game software is developed, but that hope gets real close to outright naivety.
He should get tips from the Yakuza team
It's a video game. It's all CG.
Is it because he's a westaboo?
"We record with other actors in a studio in Los Angeles, so it’s a bit of a problem if they don’t have native-level English skills", he said.
Yep.
Dino called someone but they didn't pick up. Brain is relieved saying they can forget about the call. Dino notes the person they tried to call is calling back. Brain urges Dino to ignore it.
Oh it's out?
PlayStation 5 exclusive
Ah. Thanks Sony.
[Canada] has just announced that they are putting a Digital Services Tax on our American Technology Companies, which is a direct and blatant attack on our Country," Trump said.
Taxing Meta, Apple, and Amazon for business they do in Canada is an attack on the United States?
Wes Anderson vibes
US law allows companies to enforce essentially any terms of service or end user licence agreement they want when selling products or services and rewriting laws to add an exception for video games is never going to happen.
Stop Killing Games believe existing EU laws don't allow this and are alleging some TOS and EULA of game companies are in violation. They want the EU parliament to review that and hopefully clarify the laws to ensure game companies aren't "depriving citizens of property".
From the petition:
We wish to invoke Article 17 §1 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union [EUR-Lex - 12012P/TXT - EN - EUR-Lex (europa.eu)] – “No one may be deprived of his or her possessions, except in the public interest and in the cases and under the conditions provided for by law, subject to fair compensation being paid in good time for their loss.” – This practice deprives European citizens of their property by making it so that they lose access to their product an indeterminate/arbitrary amount of time after the point of sale. We wish to see this remedied, at the core of this Initiative.
The hope is that companies won't make two versions of their games. One that complies with EU law and one that doesn't. No idea where that comes from. GDPR is EU law and many companies created two versions of their service to avoid needing to follow it for everyone. Some companies, including game studios, even dropped their EU customers entirely instead of complying.
It's also become YouTuber drama bait at this point and is an easy way smaller channels can get extra views.
It's unfortunate because it seems like a self-made problem. There's report after report of how there aren't enough residency positions for new doctors. It seems like Canada wants doctors, they just don't want to train them.
Wow. Lots to unpack there. Skipping over the part where you believe the government shouldn't need to honour the contracts they've signed with First Nations if they don't feel like it, unchecked resource extraction is also terrible.
The island nation of Nauru discovered huge deposits of phosphate under their land. The government began large scale mining operations in the 80s which saw the country sky rocket to highest GDP per capita in the entire world. The mining industry brought in huge sums of money for the country and it's people. Mining became the biggest industry in the entire nation, with most people leaving their old job and getting a new high paying one in the ever expanding mining industry. An economic phenomena known as "Dutch Disease". If that name doesn't sound like a good thing, it's because it's not.
The market price of phosphate eventually dropped. The mining industry faced massive downturn and layoffs. The country had tore up their farmlands to build mines and farmers had left agriculture to become miners. They were importing most of their food with the money they made in mining. Money they no longer had. They also had a large tourism industry that no longer exists because they no longer have a single beach. All of them were turned into mining operations. Today the country struggles with poverty and is unable to rebuild any of the industries that mining killed. Their main source of income today is holding prisoners from Australia.
Why have lot company when few company do trick?
The headline is misleading because the Ottawa Citizen is owned by conservative fanboys, PostMedia. Carney promised a balanced budget but his budget guy said that's not going to happen since making good on his campaign promises is more costly than initially expected and balancing would require a budget cut. They're not doing that. That's just taken out of context for the headline.
But in an interview, Giroux said that the promise of a cap on the public service will not be enough to mitigate Carney’s additional spending. He said he expects higher deficits, and as a result, higher debt servicing charges over the next few years.
Emphasis mine.
“To balance or to pay for these types of additional spending there would need to be severe cuts to the public service, significant cuts,” Giroux said.
There would need to be cuts to balance the budget. That's why they're not going to balance the budget.
This is a fetish thing isn't it?
These are the vests we have: TechNiche CoolPax. They're okay. I find the ice packs melt quickly and freeze slowly but they're good for temporary relief. My company initially bought these to be worn under hot PPE like hazmat suits, but even just having a bunch of ice packs in a freezer you can take out on the floor to hold onto could work.
I don't like it either, but stroking Trump's ego and not doing anything to set him off is probably a better strategy than telling him to go fuck himself. Although I really really hope it works out. If Carney doesn't get a win the Liberals are going to be replaced real quick.