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The gamers taking on the industry to stop it switching off games

bbc.com

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Re: The gamers taking on the industry to stop it switching off games

#31

Post by [deleted] »

ajuc wrote: post #25
phyzix5761 wrote: post #22

Why California's New Save Our Games Bill Could Kill Indie Studios: https://arkvis.com/blog/2026-05-15_why-californias-new-save-...

> Now it becomes way more expensive for small studios to come out with games that have online features. Good riddance. Online features suck. Make your game multiplayer or make it singleplayer. Don't add pointless online features. PS all you need to make sure it works is release the server once you stop supporting it yourself. > They rely on a huge network of interconnected cloud micro services. Give people the docker…

[deleted]

Re: The gamers taking on the industry to stop it switching off games

#32

Post by vitalyan1234 »

superkuh wrote: post #2

Good cause, but society has rapidly moved passed them just switching off games after people bought them. Now the hardware production companies for gaming are winding down and not producing gaming computer parts because megacorp datacenter parts have a much higher margin. The future of gaming will unfortunately be renting from the cloud; a context in which these "stop killing games" arguments will have much less lever…

fortunately, that's been already attempted and despite the best circumstances imaginable resulted in a much welcome failure.

>On September 29, 2022, Google announced that it would shut down Stadia, citing its lack of traction with users. The service was shut down on January 18, 2023, and Google refunded all purchases for hardware and games made through the Google and Stadia stores.

even more fortunately, further attempts will fail for the same reason - input lag.

Re: The gamers taking on the industry to stop it switching off games

#33

Post by aurareturn »

ryandrake wrote: post #9

The goal is a good one, but it's too specific. It should not be allowed for a developer or device manufacturer to kill or nerf any product remotely, once it was bought and paid for. This problem is sneaking into other non-game software, and even physical devices! If you buy a thing you shouldn't need to tether that thing to the manufacturer, and it shouldn't be possible to make it useless when they decide to turn dow…

  It should not be allowed for a developer or device manufacturer to kill or nerf any product remotely, once it was bought and paid for.
This is silly. No developer should be obligated to support an online game forever.

Imagine a highly complex online game that requires a few people and tens of thousands a month in cloud costs to keep it running. Now imagine that this game is 25 years old and only has 100 players total left. Are you saying that this developer must maintain the exact same quality of online play for 100 people?

Re: The gamers taking on the industry to stop it switching off games

#34

Post by orev »

ryandrake wrote: post #9

The goal is a good one, but it's too specific. It should not be allowed for a developer or device manufacturer to kill or nerf any product remotely, once it was bought and paid for. This problem is sneaking into other non-game software, and even physical devices! If you buy a thing you shouldn't need to tether that thing to the manufacturer, and it shouldn't be possible to make it useless when they decide to turn dow…

Maybe it’s better to start in a smaller, more focused and less controversial topic to set some precedents before trying to boil the ocean.

Re: The gamers taking on the industry to stop it switching off games

#35

Post by zahlman »

aurareturn wrote: post #33
ryandrake wrote: post #9

The goal is a good one, but it's too specific. It should not be allowed for a developer or device manufacturer to kill or nerf any product remotely, once it was bought and paid for. This problem is sneaking into other non-game software, and even physical devices! If you buy a thing you shouldn't need to tether that thing to the manufacturer, and it shouldn't be possible to make it useless when they decide to turn dow…

It should not be allowed for a developer or device manufacturer to kill or nerf any product remotely, once it was bought and paid for. This is silly. No developer should be obligated to support an online game forever. Imagine a highly complex online game that requires a few people and tens of thousands a month in cloud costs to keep it running. Now imagine that this game is 25 years old and only has 100 players total…

The comment you are replying to doesn't argue any such thing, and is pretty clear in its explanation of how your position is perfectly compatible with what is requested.

Re: The gamers taking on the industry to stop it switching off games

#36

Post by zahlman »

cogman10 wrote: post #14
ryandrake wrote: post #9

The goal is a good one, but it's too specific. It should not be allowed for a developer or device manufacturer to kill or nerf any product remotely, once it was bought and paid for. This problem is sneaking into other non-game software, and even physical devices! If you buy a thing you shouldn't need to tether that thing to the manufacturer, and it shouldn't be possible to make it useless when they decide to turn dow…

Yeah, it's frankly ridiculous that "smart" devices need internet access. Why shouldn't my smart oven behave exactly like my Brother printer? There's no reason my oven needs access to the internet, it can do everything it needs to do on my local network. My phone should be able to connect directly to it via a scan of the local network subnet or using any number of service announcement technologies that already exist.…

> About the only grace I give these manufacturers is the fact that google and apple both make it an annoying pain to maintain applications in their app store. A manufacturer can't simply drop "oven app" once and expect it to be available on the store forever.

If the app doesn't use the Internet then the natural way to provision it is to have it pre-loaded on the device anyway. Why should the goal of "avoid needing to hit the manufacturer's servers" involve hitting Google's servers?

Re: The gamers taking on the industry to stop it switching off games

#37

Post by mrob »

aurareturn wrote: post #33
ryandrake wrote: post #9

The goal is a good one, but it's too specific. It should not be allowed for a developer or device manufacturer to kill or nerf any product remotely, once it was bought and paid for. This problem is sneaking into other non-game software, and even physical devices! If you buy a thing you shouldn't need to tether that thing to the manufacturer, and it shouldn't be possible to make it useless when they decide to turn dow…

It should not be allowed for a developer or device manufacturer to kill or nerf any product remotely, once it was bought and paid for. This is silly. No developer should be obligated to support an online game forever. Imagine a highly complex online game that requires a few people and tens of thousands a month in cloud costs to keep it running. Now imagine that this game is 25 years old and only has 100 players total…

Nobody has a problem with rentals. Just be up front with the terms and don't try to pretend it's a sale.

Re: The gamers taking on the industry to stop it switching off games

#38

Post by aurareturn »

zahlman wrote: post #35
aurareturn wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It should not be allowed for a developer or device manufacturer to kill or nerf any product remotely, once it was bought and paid for. This is silly. No developer should be obligated to support an online game forever. Imagine a highly complex online game that requires a few people and tens of thousands a month in cloud costs to keep it running. Now imagine that this game is 25 years old and only has 100 players total…

The comment you are replying to doesn't argue any such thing, and is pretty clear in its explanation of how your position is perfectly compatible with what is requested.

The author is arguing for it.

This is what the post was saying:

1. No nerfing to the game/service whatsoever. This means you can't just kill online play. Ever.

2. Charge a monthly price or significantly increase the purchasing price.

Clearly neither of these are viable for most games and the game industry.

Re: The gamers taking on the industry to stop it switching off games

#39

Post by zamalek »

phyzix5761 wrote: post #22

Why California's New Save Our Games Bill Could Kill Indie Studios: https://arkvis.com/blog/2026-05-15_why-californias-new-save-...

This the lobbyist's FUD, and SKG are so up-front with the reasonable constraints that it makes it pretty obvious that this is a paid piece.

Edit: oh, it's yours. Spend 5 minutes understanding exactly what SKG have said they are not asking for.

Re: The gamers taking on the industry to stop it switching off games

#40

Post by emptybits »

Tell gamers how many months, for the advertised price, they will receive a guaranteed level of service and features for.

Then let gamers decide.

Example: If I'm reminded, at purchase time, that this $70 game will work online for 24 months and single-player offline for 36 months, then I can make an informed decision before I buy. Studios would be forced to bring their business plan into visibility and be held to a level of service, and then gamers can't complain when a game is "switched off" according to plan.

This is already implied, just not explicit and quantified in advance.

Personally, I wouldn't buy a game that had early expiry of online already contemplated. And offline play should be rich and complete indefinitely. But I still live in the glorious console cartridge era in my head and in my emulators.

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