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

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

#71

Post by eskori »

mystraline wrote: post #44
cogman10 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Here's a device we sold you, but when you first turn it on you need to sign this 30 page contract which says you actually don't own the device, if you are mad at us you have to go to our preferred arbitration, and we reserve the right to turn your device off at any time on a whim because you left a bad review somewhere. Sign it or enjoy your worthless brick which we will not refund. Oh, and now every single manufact…

My opinion is that is a fraudulent rental masquerading as a sale. And any and all EULAs or similar documents presented after a sale should be completely null and void. But any corporation attempting to that should be fined a signficant portion of their revenue. Past that, dissolution of company. But no, we live in a shit society that someone who signs up for a demo of Disney+ and then has his wife die due to bad food…

1. Yes.

2. It's not just a country. Sadly this is a worldwide problem, this is the global standard. And it's sickening.

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

#72

Post by ryandrake »

junaru wrote: post #49
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…

That game is called World Of Warcraft. It had its server reimplemented by enthusiasts [1] with no access to this "one of a kind cloud" for decades now. Heck it even supposedly had game client ported to new engine [2]. > B-but we can't release the binaries due to licensing... Release the source. As a developer you should be able to write code that allows to stub out all the propriety parts. The community will replace…

> excuses

Exactly!

If you ever want a clear demonstration of the phrase "litany of excuses", all you have to do is post online calling for a game company to provide any kind of post-sale support or user-friendly EOL plan for their game.

1. "Game companies don't make any money, so they can't provide any development support after the sale, which barely pays for initial development!"

2. "Game companies are under immense time pressure so they can't waste time on EOL plans or developing the server to be eventually severable and releasable!"

3. "Game companies cannot release the server binaries because of vague licensing reasons!"

4. "Game companies cannot release the server source code because of other vague licensing reasons and secret sauce IP!"

5. "Game companies cannot release the server source code because of cheating!"

6. "Game companies might not even have the server source code when it's time to EOL the online service! You can't expect them to save a backup!"

7. "The game company might shut down and that means they have to just suddenly pull the plug!"

8. "Servers are expensive and complicated to run, and surely the community wouldn't be able to do it!"

9. "The server source might not compile anymore, and surely the community wouldn't be able to fix it!"

You'll hear variations of these excuses and others whenever you suggest these guys lift even a finger to non-disruptively turn down their game.

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

#73

Post by tetha »

aurareturn wrote: post #66
tetha wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So release the server code as OSS, data necessary to function & support community servers. Even in a crappy hard-to-support way, the community will usually figure out a way. IMO, the move from community servers over to matchmaking & vendor only servers being the only viable option was a huge disservice to the long-levity of games. If I find the code around here, I could still get a Tremulous server running today for…

Releasing the server code isn't always ideal. There's likely a ton of secrets, hardcoding, and exploits.

Regarding 1 and 2, my pity is mild if this requirement forced companies to follow principles of secure software development, configuration and deployment. Injecting stuff from deployment config is not hard.

3 is valid and can be tricky, as it would depend on when in the software lifecycle the release would be mandatory. If it's in a wind-down or bankruptcy situation, it would be tricky. Though that discussion is similar to the responsible disclosure discussion, isn't it? Exploiters usually already know them.

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

#74

Post by vitalyan1234 »

bpavuk wrote: post #42
vitalyan1234 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 atte…

some timing-sensitive games such as Clair Obscur (parry) or I Am Your Beast (movement)? sure, they depend on low latency. that said, GeForce Now is, sadly, pretty good nowadays. enough to play a moderately fast paced game such as DEATHLOOP. Ukraine, streaming from Germany. 5 GHz is basically required, but in slower-paced games, on a phone, with 720p streaming, you can get by with 4G. even games are not really a moat…

it is possible to adapt to input/network lag, sure. I played Doom 3 at 10-15 FPS in 640x480 and Warcraft 3 with 300ms latency, and I enjoyed it at the time, but I don't think I could endure such underwhelming experiences after many years of much better ones.

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

#75

Post by vblanco »

cm2012 wrote: post #55
vblanco wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Im a professional gamedev. There is pretty much no indie on earth who actually depends on cloud systems to work, because that stuff is expensive and indies dont have money. Thats a megacorp thing particularly from AAA publishers. Indies are either singleplayer (this is 0 problem) or they have local servers. That article is paid for by the lobbysts and completely incorrect and wrong.

Two of my favorite games of all, Chivalry 2 and Hell Let Loose, are indie studio games and this law would make more expensive to make.

Im not sure for Hell Let Loose, but Chivalry 2 is a Unreal game and all unreal games come with a server.exe that works by default and works through direct IP connection. It would cost them 0 and im sure the game could just host servers with the normal client build like all unreal engine games do by default.

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

#76

Post by aurareturn »

tetha wrote: post #73
aurareturn wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Releasing the server code isn't always ideal. There's likely a ton of secrets, hardcoding, and exploits.

Regarding 1 and 2, my pity is mild if this requirement forced companies to follow principles of secure software development, configuration and deployment. Injecting stuff from deployment config is not hard. 3 is valid and can be tricky, as it would depend on when in the software lifecycle the release would be mandatory. If it's in a wind-down or bankruptcy situation, it would be tricky. Though that discussion is simi…

Try open sourcing a code base that is built up over the last 15 years and most of the devs no longer work there. Thats what you’re asking for many online games.

Not to mention open sourcing the code will subject the company to legal liability if there’s something weird in there like discrimination of some form.

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

#77

Post by bpavuk »

vitalyan1234 wrote: post #74
bpavuk wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

some timing-sensitive games such as Clair Obscur (parry) or I Am Your Beast (movement)? sure, they depend on low latency. that said, GeForce Now is, sadly, pretty good nowadays. enough to play a moderately fast paced game such as DEATHLOOP. Ukraine, streaming from Germany. 5 GHz is basically required, but in slower-paced games, on a phone, with 720p streaming, you can get by with 4G. even games are not really a moat…

it is possible to adapt to input/network lag, sure. I played Doom 3 at 10-15 FPS in 640x480 and Warcraft 3 with 300ms latency, and I enjoyed it at the time, but I don't think I could endure such underwhelming experiences after many years of much better ones.

honestly I'd still throw a penny for at least a day pass if I'm e.g. traveling. getting that Duollistes or Locust fix on a train looks irresistible

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

#78

Post by dylan604 »

_aavaa_ wrote: post #47
mysterydip wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Ah, but you didn’t buy a thing, you bought a license to temporarily use a thing in ways we deemed acceptable!” -publishers somewhere

That’s the exact excuse used by the publisher in the article.

As well as any audio or video physical media ever made.

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

#79

Post by the8472 »

knollimar wrote: post #65
3eb7988a1663 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gaming companies did not need to insert themselves into the process in the first place. I could conceivably continue to locally run Doom, Quake, Unreal Tournament, etc forever because there is no external server component.

Not every game has a server architecture like that. There's been a Renaissance of indie multuplayer due to good libraries and third party dependencies. Pretending that not doing that is bad design would have a chilling effect on novel games. I'd be 100% for "if your game has an easily releasable server you have to release it on EoS" but this bill isn't it.

If you have add a "easily releasable" clause then the game companies could just do something that makes it not-so, e.g. a shell company that owns the code and they only "licence" it without permission to release it or whatever would fly under that law.

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

#80

Post by dylan604 »

Devasta wrote: post #68
emptybits wrote: post #40

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 lev…

That's fine if "gamers" are my age, but 3 years for a 12 year old is an eternity. This isn't a thing which can be handled like the cookie consent popups.

Maybe the parental unit of said 12 year old should be involved in there somewhere
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