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But modern software, and especially modern software development sucks.
Already happened: Dragon Quest X was an MMO, and later they re-released it as an offline version.
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General Gaming News and Discussion
- Thread starter Wintermute
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Control
Bronze Baronet of the Realm
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emus are a thing too, but there's a big difference between something being possible and something being required.
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Daidraco
Avatar of War Slayer
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I get where you're coming from in that its like talking about a subject that you ultimately have very little control over. But its worth discussion in the hopes that it does trigger a change. All of this subscription shit thats going on, whether its for games, my fucking ring cameras, movies and shows, my fucking business software..
That shit is literally nickel and diming everyone alive and in my head, its extortionist. Change needs to happen.
When an Online Game sunsets, then all the microtransactions should become available for anyone who owns the game. I'm sure the immediate idea is to limit it to just those people that bought - but the game being offline while quickly degenerate into "Jail Broken Cosmetics!" packs. Just like mods. The company should have an expiration date on the availability of the download link, and after that date - they can clean their hands of the game in its entirety.
As far as banning people - Ive always disagreed with outright banning people in an online game. Probably cause Ive lost a couple accounts that way. If its an online game and the player gets banned, just shadow ban them at that point. They can play the game and do everything they want to solo (no grouping/raiding/AH, etc.) - but the online service is a service unto itself and they violated those policies.
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Burns
Avatar of War Slayer
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Andromeda had some lulz from people ridiculing it, so I guess we can hope it gets to be the final nail.
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From my perspective, the games industry pushed the boundaries quite a bit, and has already provoked the anger of the legislator in some places: from requiring to print the chances of obtaining rare items on gacha pulls to outright banning such gambling mechanics for children. Remember the "it's not gambling, it's surprise mechanics" bullshit?
Well, if it's required maybe plan for it? To make a car analogy: It's like selling cars but not making spare parts available. Oh, and we require crash tests for new vehicles, too. So maybe, just maybe take responsibility if you release a game, fleece customers and then fuck off into the sunset with all the money.
Will it have a chilling effect on the games industry? I sure fucking hope so. In fact, I hope it ALL crashes and burns, especially the "how to catch a whale" experts.
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Wombat
Trakanon Raider
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Re Stop Killing Games: To be clear, there are definitely cases where companies use always online connection checks as a form of anti-piracy, killing any long-term preservation (or even ownership), but this seems like it has wide ranging implications beyond end-of-life scenarios.
DLC - Many games hit an authorization server to validate you have purchased that DLC. And to be clear, losing access to DLC you have paid for because the authentication server has been sunsetted sucks / may potentially even be illegal in some markets. But I don't see any proposed remedy - defaulting to No Authentication Response = authorized just means anyone can download the files from another install and pull their internet connection for access. You could presumably move the authentication step to a permanent account flag at the Steam / PSN / Xbox Live level, but that just moves the sunsetting issue up a level.
MMOs (or really any client/server interaction) - Much like RPGs, MMORPGs are a dying genre because MMO is an ingredient, not a genre, in a lot of games. And its unclear just how integral those server interactions are to many games - does any enemy in Destiny 2 compute anything at the client end?
Beyond the obvious MMO activities, there's been a slow but increasing push to move computationally advanced components off the client. To cloud based deformation going way back to Crackdown 3 to LLM AI voices today in Fortnite, the trend is steady to move these activities off the glorified laptop CPUs game consoles use. So what happens under this initiative? A lot of minimal fallback activities? What happens when all the decision making is cloud based (say, an RTS tthat uses LLM for its move decisions) - does that get released if its main (or any) innovation is dependent on a server connection?
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To be fair, there are definite issues with preservation and long term ownership when it comes to online-connected games. But as others (even in this very thread!) have said, the real issue is an industry-wide conflation of ownership vs license, if ownership even means anythig when we're dealing with computer files that can be copied and distributed at will, and not physical goods.
DLC - Many games hit an authorization server to validate you have purchased that DLC. And to be clear, losing access to DLC you have paid for because the authentication server has been sunsetted sucks / may potentially even be illegal in some markets. But I don't see any proposed remedy - defaulting to No Authentication Response = authorized just means anyone can download the files from another install and pull their internet connection for access. You could presumably move the authentication step to a permanent account flag at the Steam / PSN / Xbox Live level, but that just moves the sunsetting issue up a level.
MMOs (or really any client/server interaction) - Much like RPGs, MMORPGs are a dying genre because MMO is an ingredient, not a genre, in a lot of games. And its unclear just how integral those server interactions are to many games - does any enemy in Destiny 2 compute anything at the client end?
Beyond the obvious MMO activities, there's been a slow but increasing push to move computationally advanced components off the client. To cloud based deformation going way back to Crackdown 3 to LLM AI voices today in Fortnite, the trend is steady to move these activities off the glorified laptop CPUs game consoles use. So what happens under this initiative? A lot of minimal fallback activities? What happens when all the decision making is cloud based (say, an RTS tthat uses LLM for its move decisions) - does that get released if its main (or any) innovation is dependent on a server connection?
--
To be fair, there are definite issues with preservation and long term ownership when it comes to online-connected games. But as others (even in this very thread!) have said, the real issue is an industry-wide conflation of ownership vs license, if ownership even means anythig when we're dealing with computer files that can be copied and distributed at will, and not physical goods.
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Caeden
Golden Baronet of the Realm
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This topic always brings out my inner unabomber, but mine just turns on my SNES in my basement.
Online connected games feel like rentals. I’m getting old. The impermanence of things I enjoyed as a young adult has hit me hard. From people, to places, to things I did for hobbies….time fucks us all
Online connected games feel like rentals. I’m getting old. The impermanence of things I enjoyed as a young adult has hit me hard. From people, to places, to things I did for hobbies….time fucks us all
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I was thinking about this stuff as I replayed Black Flag this past winter on my PS4. Each time you fire it up it connects to Ubisoft to check for whatever… I was wondering how long until that step fails. They need to patch it out - there’s no news or updates coming anymore.
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it sounds like EU being full retards like usual, and it will probably result in game developers just not selling games to people in the EU, ygwyd.
Could you imagine a company like daybreak being told they have to redesign every game in their porfolio to allow for an offline mode, or just cancel the 50 remaining subs of EU players? Yeah they are going to tell you to get fucked nerds
Could you imagine a company like daybreak being told they have to redesign every game in their porfolio to allow for an offline mode, or just cancel the 50 remaining subs of EU players? Yeah they are going to tell you to get fucked nerds
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Gutterflesh
Parody Account
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I thought this was funny, because my only knowledge of Mr. Minecraft was a weird interview where he ate chocolates with Craig Ferguson.
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Caeden
Golden Baronet of the Realm
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Alternatively, could you not release the code free for people to make servers once you sunset the game?
but yeah. I agree. Probably the logical outcome.
Talos
Golden Baronet of the Realm
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This is very short and the use of Veni Creator Spiritus did not make sense. Easy to get all achievements though.
Captain Suave
Caesar si viveret, ad remum dareris.
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What code, though? The back end of these games are giant databases running on enterprise SAS platforms on AWS. It's not like you can just fire that stuff up on your windows machine.
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Kaines
Potato Supreme
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People have been calling for the death of MMOs for a long time. This would probably do it.
Noodleface
A Mod Real Quick
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Well.. it gets tricky. There's likely tons of IP in that code and generally companies are reusing a lot of that code across multiple generations of products.
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You do realize that "stop killing games" was started because of "The Crew" from Ubisoft, when Ubisoft was caught lying that there is no single player mode in that game, but people found one in the game files? And that "stop killing games" is targeting single player games?
Another example:
Remember when EA released Sim City and claimed it had to be always online because they offloaded computation, but people found out that they offloaded jack shit and it was just for copy protection? Now imagine EA shuts down the servers for that because of cost cutting: Now that game won't work anymore, and you're out of your $60.
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Penance
Golden Baronet of the Realm
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Yes you can.
But its not even about that. There should be terms up front in plainly worded English about what type of product and agreement you are entering into.
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Control
Bronze Baronet of the Realm
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Is that actually what the petition says? Because I see people making a lot of claims that aren't actually in the petition. I posted this on the previous page:
This looks like their ask imo. Maybe I missed a spot in the petition that limits the scope?
Wombat
Trakanon Raider
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Even if the EU demands that any game server stay up indefinitely / release server code:
1) What happens when that company goes under?
2) "Just release the source code so people can make their own servers!" I don't recall any other industries having to give away their IP, and this could still lead to a given game not functioning if no one chooses to run a homebrew server for Game X.
3) "Just patch the game to remove the online bits before you sunset the servers!" Beyond functionality that may not be reasonable / possible for the client to run (e.g. the inevitable LLM hooks), this just pushes the End of Life issue to that patch server. If the patch server isn't maintained, the games can't be patched and still won't work. (Hell, nearly three decades ago I recall trying to reinstall Ultima Online and was stuck because the patch server the disc executable looked for wasn't running anymore.)
Again, games abusing always-online protocols for anti-piracy features is bad for game preservation AND basic ownership. But most games are client/server live services nowadays, not static code on a disc, and the expectations for those categories should be different because the real-world functionality of those software categories are different.
1) What happens when that company goes under?
2) "Just release the source code so people can make their own servers!" I don't recall any other industries having to give away their IP, and this could still lead to a given game not functioning if no one chooses to run a homebrew server for Game X.
3) "Just patch the game to remove the online bits before you sunset the servers!" Beyond functionality that may not be reasonable / possible for the client to run (e.g. the inevitable LLM hooks), this just pushes the End of Life issue to that patch server. If the patch server isn't maintained, the games can't be patched and still won't work. (Hell, nearly three decades ago I recall trying to reinstall Ultima Online and was stuck because the patch server the disc executable looked for wasn't running anymore.)
Again, games abusing always-online protocols for anti-piracy features is bad for game preservation AND basic ownership. But most games are client/server live services nowadays, not static code on a disc, and the expectations for those categories should be different because the real-world functionality of those software categories are different.