I think the video is overhyping the position of the EU Parliament VP. It's a sign of political support, but there is a strong chance the
potential end result, if any, would be disappointing and not cover all online games.
I also agree that the change won't come from court. The courts interpret the law to apply it to the case brought before them in civil law systems (ie, the tradition most common in continental Europe) but precedents are only illustration and don't determine the ruling. Even if you get one court to rule that the law is interpreted in a way, it won't affect any other court in the same country. However, the way the judges interpreted the law can enlighten the later judges. Highest court of each country can set up guidelines on how to read a specific law, but mostly the onus is on the law to be clear, and changes mostly come from an evolution brought by lawmaker. Judges don't get to decide (and it often happens that a law is changed when it is discovered that it was written so badly than the judges applied it in an unintended way... but exactly the way it was written).
An EU directive (the piece of legislation that comes from the EU) must be "translated" into national laws within 2 years. They don't specify the details but they define goals that must be reached, and each Member States adapt it so its own laws reflect the harmonization on the EU.
The wording is often very important. For example, let's take theft. In some juridictions, it is defined as the unlawful removal of a physical property from someone. With this definition, you can't sue for theft if nothing is taken. So if you go to a hotel and leave without paying, you're not stealing. It's very similar, but it is a different misdemeanor and it requires another definition. Same you're not removing something, but tricking the owner into giving it to you (for example, you promise to pay the seller later, and don't). Often, of course, the penalties set for this different variations are the same, but the definition matters.
And the definition override what the contract says.
If someone is selling a coffee, and it's not coffee, you can get a compensation. The court will check if it was coffee. You can't make a defense saying that in your head, coffee was water mixed with black ink. The laws will define it exactly. It tends to make laws verbose and often, the EU is derided for it, for example about a text that regulated the length a banana can have.
Which wasn't a joke : "The minimum length permitted is 14 cm and the minimum grade permitted is 27 mm. As an exception to the third paragraph, bananas of the Gros Michel and Cavendish sub-groups produced in Madeira, the Azores, the Algarve, Canary Islands, Crete, Lakonia and Cyprus which are less than 14 cm in length may be marketed in the Union." (part of
Delegated regulation - EU - 2023/2429 - EN - EUR-Lex, the regulation defining bananas). [Regulations are another legislative tool of the EU, they don't require interpretation and are directly applicable without requiring transposition into local laws]. While laymen will laugh saying the EU is full of technocrats that need a 1,800 pages long text to recognize a banana, it is actually useful to law professionalss.
When there are definition, you can't contractually say "I am not selling X, I am selling Y instead" -- well, you can write it into your contract, but it will be made void by the courts, who will apply the law that say that a product with all the characteristics is an X and therefore you calling it Y won't work). For example, if you sell a book, you can't prevent someone from reselling it. Saying that the item you're selling isn't a book, but the physical replication of an online resource that you're only granting a revokable, non-transferable license to access the content won't work. It fits the definition of a book, so you can't prevent reselling it, even if it would be possible for e-books (because the text saying you can resell book and the rights are exhausted with the first sale, but books are defined as physical items, so e-book aren't included).
The same could happen to interactive digital entertainment products. Once defined, they could be mandated to forbid the need of connecting to an online resource, or limit the consequences of the failure to connect.
However, without knowing the extend of any future directive, it is difficult to draw any conclusion from the video and the position expressed in the video. Worded as above, it would totally prevent MMOs to be marketed in the EU. This is probably not what the wording will do. But it could differentiate somehow between single-player game and multi-player games. It could have a very small impact (forbidding single player games to rely on an external connection, while allowing multiplayer games to do so) or be a real change on how digital content is treated, the way it is expected by the SKG movement. Without knowing the extend of a proposed legal change, it is difficult to draw any conclusion. Especially one as far-reaching as thinking companies would be forced to allow private servers to be run. Or one saying, as the MEP says, that you "own" a video game when you buy it. It would create a set of right you can't be deprived of when you pay money for a video game, irrespective of how you phrase the EULA.
