Firefall dev shutting down beta in protest of SOPA
Firefall developer Red 5 Studios has notified Shacknews that it will shut down its ongoing beta and close its website on for 24 hours beginning January 18 in protest of the 'Stop Online Piracy Act.'
Firefall developer Red 5 Studios has notified Shacknews that it will shut down its upcoming title's beta and website for 24 hours beginning January 18 in protest of the 'Stop Online Piracy Act' (SOPA).
Calling SOPA "misguided legislation," Red 5 Studios CEO Mark Kern said the proposed bill would hurt smaller game companies, "who will not have the legal resources or lobbying presence to protect themselves from unwarranted shutdown."
"We are extremely disappointed in this misguided legislation. We are also ashamed of the ESA for supporting a bill which is clearly not in the best interests of gamers or the game industry," Kern added.
The Entertainment Software Association recently came out in support of the bill, and by association with the group, a laundry list of major game companies are standing behind it as well. While some ESA members have spoken out against the bill, none have canceled their membership.
"No we are not, and now we never will be," Kern told me when asked if Red 5 Studios supported The ESA.
When asked if Red 5 Studios would appear at future E3 events considering the company's position against the ESA, CEO Mark Kern said: "No, we will not attend E3 unless ESA reverses their stance."
[Update: 7:35pm PT] "I just had my staff cancel our E3 plans," Kern added in a follow-up email.
Red 5 Studios is joining Reddit in protest of SOPA by going dark on January 18. We will be taking down our website, community site and Firefall beta for 24 hours on the 18th.
We are extremely disappointed in this misguided legislation. We are also ashamed of the ESA for supporting a bill which is clearly not in the best interests of gamers or the game industry.
This bill, and it's sister bill, Protect IP, will shut down live streaming, shout casting, user generated content and have a chilling effect on game innovation and social media.
Most of all, it hurts the smaller game companies, who will not have the legal resources or lobbying presence to protect themselves from unwarranted shutdown.
We issue a call to all our industry peers, including developers, publishers and game press, to join us in letting the ESA know they do not represent our views on this issue, and strongly oppose SOPA and PIPA.
-- via Mark Kern, Red 5 Studios
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Shacknews
replyXav de Matos posted a new article, Firefall dev shutting down beta, site in protest of SOPA.
Firefall developer Red 5 Studios has notified Shacknews that it will shut down its ongoing beta and close its website on for 24 hours beginning January 18 in protest of the 'Stop Online Piracy Act.'-
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Right, because the guys in charge of SOPA have been playing a fuck load of Firefall lately.
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ok? Thanks for letting us know.. i guess let us know if Firefall will be celebrating valentines day by changing their website pink, or if they'll put up some wacky april fools joke on april 1st. I am eager with anticipation.
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LOL so if the riot guys do it, its cool but not firefall? they are like the rodney dangerfields of gaming
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Yeah I don't know why people are going after them for this. I get that people are annoyed about the spamming before but this is actually worth reporting.
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24 whole hours? Oh the humanity!
So far, the people doing this are just inconveniencing their own users. No one that plays Firefall has any ability to change anything about SOPA. Reddit users are already aware of SOPA, but when it shuts off it's just going to increase Digg's traffic.
I'm not sure there's anything that can be done to stop it. The politicians don't listen to anyone that doesn't belong to a huge corporation, and they're the only ones with the power. Fortunately like most of the things that gets the internet in an uproar it's completely overblown and won't effect anyone in the slightest.-
right yea, lets do nothing and let governments/organization gradually take away what freedom we have. The thing is the people like you that don't act and grumble about others acting will moan about problems but accept any improvements the protestors get, funny that!
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[Update:] When asked if Red 5 Studios would appear at future E3 events considering the company's position against the ESA, CEO Mark Kern said: "No, we will not attend E3 unless ESA reverses their stance."
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Awesome. It's too bad that the ESA is shaping up to be as shitty as the MPAA and RIAA.
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there is an irony to the idea that a game company that suffers from zero piracy will pressure other game companies who suffer great piracy to reverse their position on SOPA
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[Update: 7:35pm PT] "I just had my staff cancel our e3 plans," Kern added in a follow-up email.
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PREORDER E3 BOOTH CANCELED!!
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This is pretty huge, probably much bigger than most people realize.
Red 5 and Firefall aren't some no-name brands. They had literally the biggest showing of any single game at PAX Prime - one of the biggest gaming conventions in the world. They probably would have had a massive presence at E3 too.
While the ESA will probably find someone else to take their place, hopefully they wake up soon and stop supporting this disastrous, catastrophic bill.-
their pax booth was massive. booth really doesn't describe it though. dahanese and crew were right there next to it, so she could probably describe it better.
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hey if they are a shacknews/gamefly sponsor, can you just come out with it? It's better than us making snarky posts when we see updates that offer really no other value than to give them continual visibility.
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Whenever an update is pushed on any post we strive to update Chatty. This is not a sponsorship thing. Firefall does not sponsor this website. I'm just trying to update people regarding the news.
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Security loopholes and lawyers!
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I wish but I don't see Gamefly ever letting that happen.
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lol...I really doubt GameFly would do that.
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That's the entire point of protests, don't you get it?
If SOPA is passed, then there's practically nothing stopping Red 5 from getting affected by it against their control.
SOPA would enable the government to do on a whim what Red 5 is willfully doing in protest instead. It's a great way to get gamers to care about SOPA when they'd otherwise be totally apathetic.-
Have you read SOPA? What makes you think it would shut their game down? It talks about shutting down illegal streams of copyrighted material but why would streaming Firefall be illegal? Read it for yourself: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c112:H.R.3261:
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Glad I live in England. This is an American bill right?
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We can assume similar legislature will eventually reach europe / the uk if this passes and the big corporations get their way.
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Meh, maybe, but I doubt it.
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So why don't we see news about Britain's similar bill in the news?
Oh, right... IT DOESN"T EXIST.
IP and copyright holders have the right (as they should) to take legal action against anyone infringing on their rights, that's enough. They don't have the right to shut down a website without investigation. -
Except our political system is far more robust than yours. Not to mention that passing a bill that allows the arbitrary shutdown of any body it deems "rogue" is just wrong.
Would never get passed in Britain. Referendum would get shot down easy.-
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Since almost all important internet infrastructure is in the US, you country won't matter - You'll feel the kiss of SOPA wherever you are.
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You have a warped view of things, my friend.
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Visa/Mastercard/Paypal are all US based so they would begin to block payments going to foreign places because of this bill.
You could have a completely legal in the UK business killed off by an incorrect report. Or even a correct report if whatever you are doing isnt kosher with the MAFIAA.
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Aren't they going to do that? I know reddit is going down and wikipedia is thinking of joining them: http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2012/01/13/wikipedia-mulls-sopa-blackout-as-other-sites-join-in/
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Hey remember when the Firefall CEO came in to the chatty and said (implicitly, to be fair) that we'd get beta access? I do. :(
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Well it was part of that big apology thread he made. He certainly said he would do something to make it up to us but then nothing ever happened. This was months ago!
I mean if it was just a throwaway comment fine, but this was part of an effort to apologize to the community as a whole.
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yeah, wtf happened with that?
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There was never talk of giving anyone access to beta as an apology to shacknews I am not sure where you guys are getting this from. But I am assuming it is form this thread by grummz http://www.shacknews.com/chatty?id=26743489#item_26743489 in which he stated he is working on a better apology that is all.
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I am shocked to see the many negative comments in response to this. Yes there was that whole "spamming" incident but that was good publicity for both firefall and shacknews (less for firefall due to all the complaining done by people). But that has nothing to do with this idea in general, it doesnt matter that firefall isnt the largest or most popular website. A protest will grow with more flamboyant displays of discontent, so if firefall can get a little more people (100+ at very least) interested in the protest it will the do worlds of good. This bill goes far beyond just general game piracy and gives the government access to shutting down websites because it has "copywritten material on it" which could be a post from a non company forum member or players. Most more socially aware websites are going down on the 18th in protest of SOPA some larger companies many even take their games down if the bill passes (see games like LoL)
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I have great admiration for Red 5 's courage to take its stance in opposing SOPA !!! Its courage is also the theme of Firefall !!!
We all know SOPA is "misguided legislation," and would have threatend the gaming industry with "unwarranted shutdown," if the bill passed.
So, all Americans, haters/lovers of Firefall, let's pick up our courage to speak out against SOPA !!-
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