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November 30, 2017 dev

Net Neutrality is a Big Threat to the Game Industry

Net Neutrality once again is under attack. While we hope that you care about keeping the internet equal and accessible for a multitude of reasons, losing neutrality could jeopardize indie gamemakers and gamers drastically.

 

 

If Net Neutrality is overturned, ISPs could slow down bandwidth to tools that many indie developers use (including us) like Slack, Trello, Skype, and many others. This would inhibit our ability to produce games and work with remote teams. Healthy competition between services keeps our production costs low so we can create great games at a reasonable price.

 

If you are a gamer, ISPs could prevent you from downloading on certain platforms, or slow down your access to servers to play online games. No one wants to play Relic Hunters Legend if their character moves one pace a minute! Plus streaming services like Twitch could be throttled or blocked behind a paywall in favor of other sites.

 

Voicing your concern for the FCC’s current plan to overturn Net Neutrality is very easy. They are accepting comments on their final proposal through August. There is a very easy set of instructions over at VentureBeat to help you leave a comment. If you need inspiration there is a simple example comment on that site, or you can use ours:

 

I am writing to the FCC today to express my continued support of keeping ISPs under the current Title II regulations. As an avid game maker/game player my interest lies in having free and open access to the internet. Should ISPs be removed from the Title II regulations, I fear the game industry would suffer greatly, resulting in job loss and product profitability. Video games make up a $91 billion dollar industry that will be directly affected by the loss of Net Neutrality. Once again, please keep ISPs under the current Title II regulations.
Thank you,
[Your Name]