Their fault. I remember a time when publishers allowed for people to run their own dedicated servers, for FPS at least. They could have modified that existing model, but instead they took that ability away from the user whilst almost simultaneously making excuses about the problem they created.
If their servers can’t run forever, give us dedicated servers on a larger scale FFS!
I really believe it has nothing at all to do with running the servers or their maintenance costs.
It’s about control. It’s a rare sight to see any kind of multiplayer experience that isn’t all about selling shit through MTX. If you could run your own server, you might be able to also give yourself the shit they want to nickel and dime you for without paying, and that would really ruin their model.
Yeah, but the point is if they’ve already shut off their servers and moved on to the next thing, who cares? Just let the dedicated fans and other nuts run their own servers and they can wash their hands of it entirely. They weren’t going to make any money on it after pulling the plug anyway.
Ah, but then there’s a chance fewer people would buy the next piece of shit designed to extract their money.
Yep, their argument against game preservation is that some people may use the preserved games for *shock* recreation!
That is an idiotic argument.
Replace *shock* with \*shock\*
Thanks!
You’ve nailed it with these two points.
I’d like to add they specifically want to determine when and where you access their IP.
Yep.
If its possible for someone to choose an older, less expensive game, then that means those games are market competitors for similar modern games, with more mechanics designed to coax money out of you.
Its basically a hyper charged version of planned obsolesence.
If they completely replace a game with its successor and shut the former down, then people can only play the latter: the developers don’t have to compete with themselves, and the publishers have an easier time with their enshittification of their franchise.
The game that kicked off SKG in the first place is an example of this, as far as I’ve heard The Crew was better received than The Crew 2 and 3.
I mean you can see it even a bit with Payday 3 and 2, if 2 wasn’t such a cash cow you can believe a lesser company would’ve shut that thing down ages ago
The game that kicked off SKG in the first place is an example of this, as far as I’ve heard The Crew was better received than The Crew 2 and 3.
It actually was just convenient moment. SKG was started long time ago.
It’s such a garbage argument when you can just counter with “okay then, release software which allows the public to run them for themselves”.
There are plenty of famous games, including Minecraft (only the most famous game in history) that manage to do that just fine. Acting like it’s impossible just so that you can force people to buy the next game is bullshit.
“okay then, release software which allows the public to run them for themselves”.
Or shit at the very least release documentation on how it works and let the open source community take care of it lol
Both? Both. Both is good.
It’s such a garbage argument when you can just counter with “okay then, release software which allows the public to run them for themselves”.
Which you can help by signing European Citizens’ Initiative. If you are EU citizen that is.
Here is a completely noncontributory comment.
I stumbled across a copy of a physical book from the author of the comic this is from. I wondered to myself if this meme is in it.
It is.
THE PROPHECY HAS BEEN FULFILLED!
THE CHOSEN ONE IS AMONG US
They cant run servers forever. Which is why they should release the server code when they decide to shut down.
Yeah that would be awesome but it’s easier said than done (to no surprise, I’m sure).
One of the big issues I see from a developer standpoint is the potential for leaking proprietary code that they may not want to publicize like things related to authorization, server side anti cheat implementations, etc.
Why would they care? The product is done right? Well every project is not written from scratch and so to publish this stuff it could incur risk to the org’s other current/future projects in addition to helping outside sources get a leg up on said other current/future projects.
This could be dealt with potentially as well but that means extra dev resources and time and potentially inter-org collaboration to develop common OS standards but again that’s work that does not generate $$$
I’m not defending these assholes mind you, I just understand the blockers in the way. The greedy fucks could indeed do this but they never will because of said $$$
common OS standards
By OS, did you perhaps mean open or open-source?
Because it seems most people understood it as operating system.
One of the big issues I see from a developer standpoint is the potential for leaking proprietary code
It is no longer proprietary then.
that they may not want to publicize like things related to authorization,
If it has any impact, then it means they were insecure all along. Or in other words, they had CWE-656 vulnreability.
server side anti cheat implementations, etc.
There are lots of effective opensource anticheats. Server-side, obviously. See minecraft anticheats.
and potentially inter-org collaboration to develop common OS standards
So, POSIX?
it could incur risk to the org’s other current/future projects in addition to helping outside sources get a leg up on said other current/future projects.
It’s called anti-social behaviour. “Why help someone else?”
Oh, well, if it’s not proprietary anymore, no problem!!! Did you not read the context regarding the impact to other existing and in-progress projects?
Also I like how you threw out POSIX as if that somehow makes this concept not only feasible but also fits into profit margins to be able to secure the additional funding. Who will sign up to contribute time and resources and stick to those same standard long term? EA? Ubisoft? I didn’t say it couldn’t be done I said it’s not something corporate would ever go for.
Go ahead and tell those big corpos to stop being anti social, I’m sure that’ll secure the funding and commitments necessary industry-wide
as if that somehow makes this concept not only feasible but also fits into profit margins to be able to secure the additional funding.
> mentions AWS> says POSIX is not feasable
Are you imagining them renting AWS and running windows?
Go ahead and tell those big corpos to stop being anti social, I’m sure that’ll secure the funding and commitments necessary industry-wide
That’s what we are doing. Even your argument is about success.
Let me guess, you are from USA. That’s how we have healthcare and labour laws.
EDIT: where did mention of AWS go? Was it in another thread? I can’t find it.
EDIT 2: found https://lemm.ee/comment/16849765
Go ahead and tell those big corpos to stop being anti social, I’m sure that’ll secure the funding and commitments necessary industry-wide
We are literally trying to pass a law to force them.
“They can’t run servers forever!” Open source the server then Let people who want to play it run it themselves then
EDIT: typo
I remember being able to run a private World of Warcraft server on my computer back in like, 2009. Surely if WoW can be reverse-engineered, so can many other titles.
But yes, it would obviously be better if they’d just open-source it.
Surely if WoW can be reverse-engineered, so can many other titles.
This is solving wrong problem. Or rather, this problem should not exist at all.
they can’t keep running servers forever
That’s exactly why we need it to pass.
Which EU citizens can help with by signing it. We are 40% there, we need your signature.
“Stop Killing Games” is literally a way to force companies to let you host your own servers. That’s the intention. The company loses nothing, they can wash their hands and move on.
In fact, they can even continue to sell games without servers.
I think Microsoft should be pressured under this with their deprecation of Windows Mixed Reality. They’re totally fine with just bricking tons of highly sophisticated, expensive devices people already bought.
And then they have the gall to talk about “sustainability.”
Not gonna support it anymore? Give it to the community. Patch out the requirement for your top-secret black-boxed corporate garbage.
That all costs money though …
Money they earned when they said it will be around in the future, so fuck-em.
100%. They shouldn’t be able to leave a device completely inoperable like that.
I’m not alone when I say I just want my perfectly good VR equipment to continue working, dammit lol. Monado is crazy impressive, but if M$ just released some driver specs or something we’d happily have these things working on Linux within like a month. Then we could just go our separate ways lol.
If they’re not gonna run servers, then they should distribute and open source the server software so players can run their own servers.
Whenever google cancels a cool project a small part of me wishes they would open source it.
Only a small part?
The rest of me has given up.
I feel like wayyy too many engineer minds lean back on “too vague” without understanding how many judgment calls judges make in cases every day. It’s not uncommon for them to have to decide what someone’s intent or knowledge was when taking a certain action.
Software engineer here. I find the petition to be very specific, and totally feasible.
Anyway, this isn’t a true referendum where its text would become immediate law as soon as it passes. It’s a petition that would be presented to legislators who would write the actual law. The petition doesn’t need to be written in legalese.
(Also: if the customer paid them even one cent, then they DO owe the customer something. Also: They should be forced to release the server software when they shut down the servers.)
It’s a petition that would be presented to legislators who would write the actual law.
Oh-ho-ho! It’s about to get better: they can instead say, that existing laws cover this. Which will have even greater impact.
That’s someone who shouldn’t be a judge, that’s what a jury or maybe even mediators would be for. A judge is black and white, and shouldn’t judge on anything they aren’t 100% educated on.
You’re absolutely wrong.
Just because the USA broken system is that way doesn’t mean it’s the norm, nor should it be how it’s actually done.
How can you be an impartial judge on something you don’t know anything about? They need to know the law, the relevant materials, and comprehend it.
So yea, they NEED to be knowledgeable, and if they are using “personal interpretations” instead of established, they aren’t fit to be a judge.
Just because this is allowed by your corrupt system doesn’t make it okay to allow dude.
It’s literally in the word “impartial” means. OP is saying they want biased judges who judge with their emotions instead of objectively.
You’re arguing against things nobody brought up. Nobody said judges shouldn’t be impartial or knowledgeable. It’s also not about ”personal interpretation“.
But judging is all but black and white. A lot of laws have wiggle room to varying degrees, and for a reason. Because no two cases are identical and intents and knowledge have to be able to be taken into account. That’s why laws are usually a little vague.
For example, a sentence for assault and battery has a degree of freedom (when the suspect is found guilty), the punishment can vary from a fine (of varying hights) to a time in prison (from a few months to some years).Just because the USA broken system
Stop making everything about that shithole of a country. Stop Killing Games isa european initiative towards EU laws ffs.
Just because the USA broken system is that way doesn’t mean it’s the norm, nor should it be how it’s actually done.
Dude, I know you are upset with your legal system. Who wouldn’t? But we are discussing EU here.
Meanwhile ragnarok online a 2002 mmorpg is alive and kicking with hundreds of private servers…
This is so weird after I was just thinking “I wonder if there’s a way to play RO the way it was circa 2007 or so when I remember it…”
To all the people saying they should release server source code: You don’t even need to do that (as nice as it would be). At the very basic level all that is needed is:
- remove DRM (which probably cost more effort to add in the first place)
- a description of the API for any online components (which any decent dev team will already have internally documented)
Depending on the game, a lot of mechanics live on the server side. Not sure which game this is about though.
But think of any competitive game like League. All the processing and tracking is on the server. Change that and you change the game.
- remove DRM (which probably cost more effort to add in the first place)
Denuvo charges monthly. And, looking at history of games, takes no effort by developers. Heck, they even can take their own pirated game with DRM removed. And even if removing DRM costs money, they have nobodu, but themselves to blame.
If your game relies on your servers, I won’t buy your game.
If two guys and a basement can run the guild wars 1 servers for next to nothing (their words) than yes, company’s very much could run their servers forever.
Switch this meme with “people want video games they own” and it’s this thread. There are still plenty of games you can self host: Palworld, Minecraft, Satisfactory, Factorio, Terraria, Space Engineers, Counter Strike 2, The Forest, ARMA III, 7 Days to Die, Rust, Valheim. The average person obviously doesn’t care about self hosting their own game server.
