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Stop Killing Games

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Re: Stop Killing Games

#241

Post by willmadden »

dombiscoff wrote: post #97
willmadden wrote: post #58

Idiots putting their noses where they don't belong. We do not need legislation for this. It would kill the gaming industry.

It just wouldn't

Did you read the article?

>The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help others. >The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others.

It's forcing all games to be open-source. If you develop a big video game with an eight or nine figure budget and your customers are free to distribute and modify your product you will lose everything.

Re: Stop Killing Games

#242

Post by djaro »

Telaneo wrote: post #124
eckesicle wrote: post #116

My father was a printer his entire life. I went with him to work one day when I was around 12 years old. He loaded up a box of, what seemed to me a random selection of flyers, booklets and other printed goods in his car, and together we drove to the National Archives (in Sweden). He explained to me that every media artifact of cultural significance would be stored there in three (I believe) copies for future generati…

> I was always at unease growing up, wondering what would happen to video games when they no longer became popular. Would I be able to enjoy them when I got older? Would my children ever be able to play the games that shaped my teenage years? The worst thing, at least to me, is that the worst case scenario, as long as the devs don't go out of their way to kill a game permanently, is still not all that bad. There's em…

Games in general are a very difficult thing to preserve because of how they are often "on-going" things rather than definitive objects like books or films. Minecraft has gone through 27 major version updates, most of which having had in the range of 3-10 sub-versions. So that's potentially ~100 versions, just for Java edition. Should all of those be archived? Or just the final version, when it one day arrives? At this point, the Minecraft from 2014 and from 2026 are completely different games. And at least for Minecraft, there's mostly just stuff added. What about games in which major features regularly get removed, like Fortnite? There, the "last" version will lack many of the games most famous attributes.

Maybe we should just accept that big online games are more like cultural happenings than media objects. In the future, you simply might not be able to play Fortnite, in the same way you can never visit Woodstock again. It's just something you had to be at.

Re: Stop Killing Games

#243

Post by djaro »

willmadden wrote: post #241
dombiscoff wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It just wouldn't

Did you read the article? >The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help others. >The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others. It's forcing all games to be open-source. If you develop a big video game with an eight or nine figure budget and your customers are free to distribute and modify your product you will lose everything.

All of these freedoms would only kick in after the developer shuts down official servers, after which the product is discontinued and not generating income anyway.

It wouldn't affect game developers at all, the only change would be that they have to upload the server file's code when they decide to stop supporting the game, so that players can continue it themselves.

Re: Stop Killing Games

#244

Post by djaro »

lowbloodsugar wrote: post #196

Oh fuck off. [1] To elaborate, if I make a creative experience, that requires a server, and sell it to you for $70, and you play it for a year, that's your $70 of value right there. That's the moral argument. Every single games company faced with this issue is now going to change the terms of service to note that the $70 "includes free two year subscription, paid up front!", and if the lawyers get pissy about that th…

Yes, as a society we can collectively decide what companies should and shouldn't do. It's called living in a society with rules and regulations.

> Every single games company faced with this issue is now going to change the terms of service to note that the $70 "includes free two year subscription, paid up front!", and if the lawyers get pissy about that they'll sell two versions: one that is $0, but doesnt work until you sign up for the $70 per month subscription.

So if you make it illegal for companies to lie and say they are selling you a game, only to then take it away, they will instead... be honest and tell you how long the game will be supported? Great!

Re: Stop Killing Games

#245

Post by t917910 »

F3nd0 wrote: post #30
saghm wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In that vein, the other day this got posted to HN: https://twilitrealm.dev/ It uses an independent reimplementation of the code of a Zelda game from the GameCube and combines them with the assets from the actual game to make native binaries for various platforms, which blows my mind a bit but demonstrates the power of this sort of split abstraction.

Yes! And there are many other re-implementation projects, like OpenMW, OpenGothic, fheroes2, and others, which allow you to play the games if you can provide the original assets. Largely for older games, but the point stands. https://openmw.org/ https://github.com/Try/OpenGothic https://ihhub.github.io/fheroes2/

Unfortunately, open source projects traditionally have a poor AI record. And when (sometimes, contrary to tradition) they make a fully-fledged AI, it plays at a super-expert level and ruins the fun of both campaigns and single-player, turning a simple walk into Saving Private Ryan. I'd call it "made by maniacs for maniacs."

Re: Stop Killing Games

#246

Post by willmadden »

djaro wrote: post #243
willmadden wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you read the article? >The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help others. >The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others. It's forcing all games to be open-source. If you develop a big video game with an eight or nine figure budget and your customers are free to distribute and modify your product you will lose everything.

All of these freedoms would only kick in after the developer shuts down official servers, after which the product is discontinued and not generating income anyway. It wouldn't affect game developers at all, the only change would be that they have to upload the server file's code when they decide to stop supporting the game, so that players can continue it themselves.

That's not clear from the article. Even if that's the case, it still gives away the studio's IP the moment they discontinue the game. Counter strike wouldn't exist if these "freedoms" were in effect when half-life ended support.

Re: Stop Killing Games

#248

Post by dijit »

duped wrote: post #247
dijit wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The backend isn’t web technologies.

I mean it absolutely is, but that's not an answer to the question.

Of the 7 AAA games I’ve been part of making, not a single one used HTTP (well, not as a primary driver of anything), HTML, CSS or anything that could be construed as a “web technology” so, what are you talking about please?

Re: Stop Killing Games

#249

Post by duped »

mvdtnz wrote: post #215
duped wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess what surprises me here is how much of this is 3p code that couldn't possibly be distributed. Like why would you not be using an open source web server, or widely available message broker? Things like chat moderation/match making/anti cheat/etc seem like add on services that would be implemented per game (well, maybe not match making) and aren't relevant to the problem that the "stop killing games" people are…

Frankly it's none of your business why, and it's completely irrelevant. The fact is that this 3p code exists and this law needs to account for it or it's unworkable.

This is kind of needless aggression that doesn't help non domain experts understand.

I've worked on a lot of complicated and deeply optimized networked applications. They're almost all closed source. I know exactly how I would design a system to support these kinds of initiatives. What I'm curious about is why that's impossible for game developers, because either I'm missing something, or game developers are just bad at software design.

Re: Stop Killing Games

#250

Post by simbosambo »

duped wrote: post #249
mvdtnz wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Frankly it's none of your business why, and it's completely irrelevant. The fact is that this 3p code exists and this law needs to account for it or it's unworkable.

This is kind of needless aggression that doesn't help non domain experts understand. I've worked on a lot of complicated and deeply optimized networked applications. They're almost all closed source. I know exactly how I would design a system to support these kinds of initiatives. What I'm curious about is why that's impossible for game developers, because either I'm missing something, or game developers are just bad…

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