Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Stop Killing Games

jxself.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 287 posts

Re: Stop Killing Games

#91

Post by wxre »

stronglikedan wrote: post #57
ryandrake wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not asking for free labor. I'm asking that if someone sells me a product for a one-time cost, then I expect that product to continue working as it did when I bought it. If ensuring it "continues working" represents a cost to the developer, then they should reconsider charging one-time for the product.

> they should reconsider charging one-time for the product You wouldn't be able to afford it. It's well known at the time of purchase that online games will eventually become obsolete. Comparing that to tools is comparing apples to oranges. Now, I do think that game companies should be compelled to make their servers available for others to host and maintain if they decide to stop hosting and maintaining them themsel…

Okay well how about my EVSE (EV car charger)? Much more akin to a tool. I can't configure it now because it relies on a cloud interface and the company that sold it to me changed hands several times and now doesn't operate in the US. Now it's stuck thinking I want it limited to 28 amps rather than the 50 amps my new car can use.

Re: Stop Killing Games

#92

Post by Telaneo »

0xy wrote: post #88
cogman10 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I purchased a toy that I expect to be able to continue playing with long after the company that made that toy loses interest in it. I don't expect the company to run servers for my toy, I can do that if they gave that opportunity. The way the industry currently operates is you show up to an all you can eat buffet, pay your $10, and then they give you a 30 page contract that you have to sign before you can start eatin…

Games explicitly do not promise online features remain available perpetually. No reasonable consumer would assume perpetual access, either. I also completely disagree that "it doesn't cost Valve anything to run Half Life". Firstly, it's patently incorrect, given Half Life has received 20+ updates in the last 5 years alone. Secondly, it's technically incorrect, given Steam going offline prevents you from opening Half…

> No reasonable consumer would assume perpetual access, either.

I expect perpetual access to my game the same way I expect access to my books. Most of my multiplayer games can still be played without involving a clown server somewhere (either by hosting one myself, or by playing over LAN). This is somewhat skewed by me not having bought many of the offending games, but it's clearly not an impossible feat. It's not even a big ask. And yet it's still not done.

> Steam shuts down tomorrow, guess what? None of your games are working without a third party workaround. Even if you had them installed.

The mere existence of that workaround means I still get to play my game. There aren't any workarounds for most of the games Stop Killing Games care about, since developing them requires enormous amounts of man-hours reverse engineering, while the devs could do the same in a fraction of the time (or at the very least give people a head start!).

Re: Stop Killing Games

#93

Post by DSMan195276 »

F3nd0 wrote: post #50
dijit wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

as a game dev myself, agreed. I’m guessing nobody here has ever actually tried to make games, let alone multiplayer ones. It’s not “oh just make it better” we’re usually already stretching the limits of what’s possible financially and time wise to get a working (fun) product. You can add burdens all you want, but that means the games get simpler.. because they can’t be made cheaper (price sensitive customers) and tim…

As not a game dev myself, may I ask for clarification? How does ‘Stop Killing Games’ legislation kill any sort of multiplayer games specifically? Aren’t there already games which don’t have the problem the movement is trying to solve? Wouldn’t it only require action from you if you were trying to kill multiplayer in the first place? I feel like I may have misunderstood your point or am just lacking a lot of important…

> Wouldn’t it only require action from you if you were trying to kill multiplayer in the first place?

It's a question of when, not if - you're not going to pay to keep the servers online forever. What are the legal consequences of not releasing a functioning server if for some reason you can't? If they're bad enough then plenty of people will not be interested in taking that risk by making such games.

Re: Stop Killing Games

#94

Post by abetusk »

nerdjon wrote: post #8

This is basically advocating for open source games which is a completely different story than what stop killing games is trying to do. There are tons of closed source games that have zero online component to them. I don't see how you can actually argue that this is a good thing, especially when they say: > The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help others. That... basically kills the entire gaming industry. A…

> That... basically kills the entire gaming industry.

Pretty dismissive, no?

Jason Rohrer puts many (most?) of his games in the public domain, including "One Hour, One Life" [0] [1]. As far as I know, his game is pretty successful, by indie standards.

Teeworlds was at one point accepting donations, I believe [2]. Solarus has a donation page [3].

I'm sure there are many more examples that span the spectrum of payment options and cover different permutations of being online or offline.

To me, the deeper question is what are you actually purchasing? The bytes? The convenience? A slice of server resources? Developers and artists time?

I'm happy to give money to projects that I use, especially if it creates less friction than trying to go outside of the payment method and if the project is libre/free. I'm willing to pay for proprietary content but I have little expectation about what kind of service they're providing, especially they fold.

If there's a libre/free option, I would much prefer to invest in it. If there's a proprietary option that is asking for resources, I'm much less prone to give since it's clearly a transactional relationship.

[0] https://onehouronelife.com/

[1] https://github.com/jasonrohrer/OneLife/blob/master/no_copyri...

[2] https://www.teeworlds.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=446

[3] https://www.solarus-games.org/about/donate/

Re: Stop Killing Games

#95

Post by Altern4tiveAcc »

PSA for anyone considering reading it: this article is full of LLMisms and was probably generated from a prompt.

That being said, I agree with the premise. Most of those cultural preservation issues wouldn't be a problem if users had control over their computing.

The problems caused by game servers going offline aren't necessarily specific to games, and the cultural preservation aspect can be applied to other programs as well. This essay explain what those problems are in a very accessible manner: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/who-does-that-server-really-s...

Re: Stop Killing Games

#96

Post by m463 »

nerdjon wrote: post #8

This is basically advocating for open source games which is a completely different story than what stop killing games is trying to do. There are tons of closed source games that have zero online component to them. I don't see how you can actually argue that this is a good thing, especially when they say: > The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help others. That... basically kills the entire gaming industry. A…

yeah.

I think a more achievable model might be more like GOG, but with online.

GOG games remain closed source, but are downloadable and playable offline with no DRM.

But there's nothing about online/multiplayer play in the GOG equation.

Re: Stop Killing Games

#98

Post by singpolyma3 »

nerdjon wrote: post #8

This is basically advocating for open source games which is a completely different story than what stop killing games is trying to do. There are tons of closed source games that have zero online component to them. I don't see how you can actually argue that this is a good thing, especially when they say: > The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help others. That... basically kills the entire gaming industry. A…

Given that I can already get a copy of any game in existence without paying, the quoted text isn't even a change from the status quo really.

Re: Stop Killing Games

#99

Post by dijit »

F3nd0 wrote: post #86
dijit wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, ok, you grasped at a few issues there that go off in different directions. The issue with "Stop Killing Games" is that the legislation doesn't currently look like anything, it's a broad appeal and the solution for studios will depend on where it finally lands. If it lands in the realm of "Games must be released FOSS after x years" then, aside from the fact that a lot of the times we don't own the copyrights to…

Wow, thank you for the detailed answer! I understand your point much better now. I still think ‘kills any sort of multiplayer games’ (what the other dev said) is a gross exaggeration, since you list some ways this could be made to work, but it sounds like some things would cost significantly more resources and need to be done differently. But hey, maybe that’s not necessarily a bad thing. (Plus, there are multiplayer…

I think what I'm trying to explain is that we barely make it work by the skin of our teeth, and adding more requirements means fewer features.

The extra point I made was that it's actually kind of costly to run these systems, and I promise you publishers would love to push that cost onto the community with community run servers (think: CS1.6) but the reason they don't is because developing systems that way takes much longer and cannot be properly secured (mostly due to cheating but also from an entitlement standpoint).

So, I think either multiplayer games will get much more basic, with simple gameservers. No more large multiplayer RPGs.

Or, there will be fewer multiplayer games, because it's even more risk in an already risky business.

Re: Stop Killing Games

#100

Post by singpolyma3 »

john_strinlai wrote: post #19
nerdjon wrote: post #8

This is basically advocating for open source games which is a completely different story than what stop killing games is trying to do. There are tons of closed source games that have zero online component to them. I don't see how you can actually argue that this is a good thing, especially when they say: > The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help others. That... basically kills the entire gaming industry. A…

this was written (or 'output') by someone (or something) that clearly has not thought of the knock-on effects of those freedoms. they sound great in theory, but in practice exactly one person will buy the game that cost millions to produce, put it up on a website for free, and then the studio will say "well, never doing that again". by all means i 100% agree that an ostensibly single player game should not be locked…

We have decades of real world experience which shows this is not true. People buy things they could otherwise get for free with a bit of work all the time.
Post reply on HN