Normally I don’t make posts related to news events, but since I literally think this is the most important topic in gaming now (plus about a dozen people have emailed me about this), I’m making an exception on this. Many people have reported now that the Library of Congress now allows cracking single-player games to be legal. This may sound cynical of me, but I feel like too many people are viewing this as something worthy of dancing in the streets and solving the problems of dead games.

In my opinion, this barely solves anything. From an article I read on the matter, the following is stated:

“The LoC placed some important limitations on this new legal right, though. For one, gamers can’t legally work to restore online gameplay in titles that required a defunct central server to coordinate such play.”

This makes this new legal status almost worthless in my eyes for a few reasons:

1. While there were some exceptions, cracks to single player games (like at gamecopyworld.com) and abandonware games have more or less been operating out in the open. While giving these cracks legal status is definitely a positive thing by itself, I think it comes at a cost (below):

2. This does nothing to help games like Battleforge. In a sense, this is worse than nothing, because it reinforces that the practice of keeping online-only games is illegal.

3. While this legal status might be more important for places like museums, for the average person that actually wants to play the game, the legality is relatively inconsequential. People have been making cracks for decades and working on MMO server emulators for years without much regard to their legal status. While this sometimes leads to some legal conflict, I’m not aware of any server emulators for DEAD games that have been shut down completely due to the law. Besides, this new ruling says getting dead online-only games working is still illegal anyway.

4. This really does nothing to address the source of the problem, which I feel is that companies shouldn’t be allowed to operate commercially if they’re killing games with no end-of-life plan for them whatsoever. While I’m sure there’s a better annd less hyperbolic analogy than this, what comes to mind reading this is something like “Good news! It’s now illegal to whip your slaves UNLESS they’ve tried to run away!” rather than trying to limit slavery itself. I’m of course not trying to equate killing games with something as serious as slavery (I’m tired while typing this, it was the first analogy that came to mind), rather my point is that it’s still completely backwards where we’re focusing our attention on this. The Library of Congress is treating people who want to play dead games LESS like criminals instead of addressing how harmful this practice is to culture to begin with.

Anyway, sorry to burst people’s bubbles with this, I just thought I should make a post on this before I got 20 more emails on the topic.

- - -

ADHD version: Ross says the ruling by the Library of Congress of being able to restore games isn’t that big a deal and doesn’t help save the most at-risk games at all.

Subtitles: English

More Game Dungeon! This is an episode I didn’t have planned at all until a couple weeks ago, but it fits in with having spookier games for October, so I decided to throw it in. I wasn’t even sure this game was going to be proper Game Dungeon material, but after playing through it, it certainly seemed to fit the bill. I actually cut out a chunk of this episode since I felt like it was going on a little long considering the length of the game. The part I omitted was about me asking questions of the developer directly concerning the timer. It wasn’t anything especially fascinating, so I’ll probably include it when I eventually do a follow-up episode.

In the meantime, I’ll be working around the clock to have the Halloween episode out ASAP, there’s still a lot left to do. This unfortunately means I’m going to have to neglect many messages and emails, but I’ll try and make it up in November.

= = =
SCREENSHOT CONTEST
= = =

This is very short notice, but the developers gave me 3 extra copies of the game, so I’m having a small screenshot contest if you want to try and win a free copy! Here are the rules:

-Post or submit a screenshot (up to a maximum of 3) from any game.

-You can either post your entry in the forum thread to this episode here, or email it to me (rosswscott (at) gmail.com). If you email it, I highly prefer a link instead to an attachment.

-Only one copy of the game can be won per person.

-The deadline is roughly midnight of Oct. 29th PST. I will announce the winners the next day on the 30th. You can try and submit something late, but you risk not making it.

-I’ll pick the winners by whichever screenshots I like best. So whoever has the most interesting or funny ones will likely win a copy of the game.

Subtitles: English

Go to hell, everybody! This is a game I almost covered last year, but I think it fits especially well after Construction Bob. Some may be disappointed that this is just a casual game, but not only are the next episodes this month going to be more substantial games, but I think this might have one of my favorite endings for the Game Dungeon so far. I don’t have much more to say other than that I’ll be busy working on the next two episode to get done by Halloween. On that note, I have received a TON of emails and I’ll try my best to respond to everyone, but you may have to wait until November for a lot of them just so I can get the videos done in time. More stuff coming!

More Game Dungeon! I was hoping to have this out earlier in the month, but the whole last 2 months has been defined by me making things I meant to do weeks ago. This episode is pretty typical for Game Dungeon, though I’m going to do my best to get as many out as I can this month. I might be attempting too many, but I hope to get 3 more out this month. One short one, one similar to this, and one longer one. We’ll see what happens! Also thanks again to everyone who has donated, it’s been really fantastic. I’m still trying to respond to everyone, but I’ve been flooded with emails on top of everything else. It may take a little while to get back to you!

New video! This one probably isn’t what a lot of you were hoping for, but I admit this is one aimed at a real minority of the audience. I tried to make it as enjoyable to watch as I could. The short version is this is a fundraiser video and I’ll be happy for any donations I can get. There’s no obligation to donate anything however, you’ll still get all the videos. This is another experiment of mine to stay afloat, like many others. If you are interested in helping out though, the donation page has been updated to make it a little easier to use + now includes stat tracking!

Donation Page

I was originally going to use Patreon for this, but for reasons discussed in the video, I decided against it (them being hacked recently reinforced the decision). For those wondering, I’m unfortunatley going to be pretty empty-handed regarded prizes, although if there’s something you really want that doesn’t take a lot of time, I can consider it. It’s mostly an issue of time more than anything else. If you’ve ever wanted to know what my financial or work situation has been over the years, it’s all in the video.

Something I was considering saying that’s not it the video is if anyone has alternative solutions to my situation also, they’re free to suggest them. I was a little hesitant about saying that on Youtube since a lot of suggestions might not be so practical (”You should live in a dog house, it’s much less expensive, woof!”).

One big news item in the video that’s worth repeating is I plan to be setting up monthly live video chats in the near future, so anyone can communicate with me and I can let everyone know what’s going on. Ideally, I’d like to start this sometime late October, but realistically, it may not happen until early November. I’ll have details posted here once things are worked out.

For the time being, next up, regardless of how the fundraiser goes, is going to be as many Game Dungeons as I can cram in for October. There will be a bit of a delay, but expect several for late October and of course, a Halloween episode. While the overall future of my videos is a little like the Magic 8 ball answer “reply hazy, try again later”, for the time being, there’s a bunch more coming!

- - -

ADHD version: Did you know Ross accepts money? Also he’ll be doing live video chats in the future!