And the reason AAA games cost that much is that big studios locked themselves into a scope creep driven industry wide death spiral. Most of the extra cost does nothing to improve the game.
Sometimes the big trees need to burn so the forest can thrive.
If you go really out of the beaten path, a client that only reads from other instances could use the RSS feed to go around the signed requests.
At least the first few times, you need a core group that you are sure will show up, and everyone needs to try to bring at least a friend. If you manage to pick up momentum then the core group becomes less critical.
Issue arrest international arrest warrants for everyone from the CEO to the janitors and this kind of crap will stop.
The loophole in the directive is smaller phones. Smartphones go from 10.16 cm (4 inches) diagonal to 17. 78cm (7 inches) and everything bigger (up to 44.2 cm) is a tablet.
Samsung and Apple’s flagship smartphones are very close to be considered tablets but that wouldn’t save them from the requirements.
Absurd dead lines are partially a result of scope creep. Games that are well planned and focused don’t need 10 years to make right.