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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

#161

Post by skotobaza »

Rohansi wrote: post #138
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.

It's not just clouds systems. SKG might not cover it but what happens if Steam hypothetically shuts down? Many games are built on the Steamworks API for things like matchmaking and networking. Those will stop working if Steam is gone which could bring down many multiplayer titles with it, even if the games have local servers.

> what happens if Steam hypothetically shuts down?

Valve themselves could make a solution (a server emulator for instance). Or publishers that use Valve servers for matchmaking can just replace them. The first solution is for games that are no longer supported. The second one is for those that are.

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

#162

Post by skotobaza »

knollimar wrote: post #51
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's hardly a whim if a game runs 15 years, they announce "our active playerbase is 60 people" and the game shuts down. I think we need to stop treating it as a dichotomy. There's an understanding it won't last forever, when you buy a multiplayer game, ans making devs make offline versions in the cases where its trivial is going to bite indie game studios. Gamers have repeatedly shown they dont like subs. Its hard to…

But it's not about multiplayer games or modes. You can't play some single-player games offline as well. And some were even shut down, so you can't play them at all anymore.

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

#163

Post by skotobaza »

dudinax wrote: post #139
Accacin wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, what's silly is that you haven't even taken the time to read the initiative. You're coming out with the same incorrect arguments as PirateSoftware did. What they're saying is (for games that would come out in the future only), is that they need to have an EoL plan for the game. Let people host their own servers. That used to be a standard feature of multiplayer games.

Why do gamers need protection? Games aren't essential resources. There's zero reason you have to buy a game that doesn't allow users to run servers. Why would you prevent gamers who don't care from buying these games?

Nobody asks to "protect gamers"...

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

#164

Post by skotobaza »

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…

First of all, as other already pointed, no, nobody expects a publisher to support their game forever. Just give us the tools to do so ourselves. Second of all, it's not just multiplayer games that do that. Single-player games and modes can also be designed this way, so when the servers get shut down, you can't play the game at all. Not ever the single-player. There is no reason for this scheme to exist, plain and simple.

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

#165

Post by Rohansi »

skotobaza wrote: post #161
Rohansi wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just clouds systems. SKG might not cover it but what happens if Steam hypothetically shuts down? Many games are built on the Steamworks API for things like matchmaking and networking. Those will stop working if Steam is gone which could bring down many multiplayer titles with it, even if the games have local servers.

> what happens if Steam hypothetically shuts down? Valve themselves could make a solution (a server emulator for instance). Or publishers that use Valve servers for matchmaking can just replace them. The first solution is for games that are no longer supported. The second one is for those that are.

> Valve themselves could make a solution (a server emulator for instance).

I haven't read all the details but wouldn't SKG pin this responsibility on the game developer/publisher instead? Meaning you can't rely on a third-party to release a solution because they might not do it.

> Or publishers that use Valve servers for matchmaking can just replace them.

Steamworks makes a lot of systems available to developers (DLC, microtransactions, inventory, server browser, lobbies, authentication, networking/datagram relay, P2P networking, input binding, UGC/workshop, cloud sync, ...). It could take a long time to replace it all, especially if your game only shipped on Steam. And when you're done you get to worry about how you ship that update to players, because you might not be able to do it via Steam!

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

#166

Post by skotobaza »

Rohansi wrote: post #165
skotobaza wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> what happens if Steam hypothetically shuts down? Valve themselves could make a solution (a server emulator for instance). Or publishers that use Valve servers for matchmaking can just replace them. The first solution is for games that are no longer supported. The second one is for those that are.

> Valve themselves could make a solution (a server emulator for instance). I haven't read all the details but wouldn't SKG pin this responsibility on the game developer/publisher instead? Meaning you can't rely on a third-party to release a solution because they might not do it. > Or publishers that use Valve servers for matchmaking can just replace them. Steamworks makes a lot of systems available to developers (DLC…

> wouldn't SKG pin this responsibility on the game developer/publisher instead?

Yes, since they have the publishing rights. To my knowledge, Valve specifically has been fairly open in terms of keeping games alive on their store. So I think that if things come to this, they will offer publishers some easy solutions. Of course, we don't know what will actually happen, that's why holding publishers responsible is a better approach, since it doesn't rely on goodwill of a single entity (Valve in this case).

>It could take a long time to replace it all, especially if your game only shipped on Steam

That's correct, but if a publisher has just shipped a game, they have the motivation to keep the game running and make money from it, so they will spend some time adjusting the game. It's only an issue when a publisher does not want to make money from the game anymore (hence they shut it down). In this case transition will indeed be less justifiable for them, and that is exactly what SKG wants - to have them do this using legal basis.

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

#167

Post by skotobaza »

aurareturn wrote: post #158
RugnirViking wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

are you aware that people do regularly run private servers of world of warcraft? It might pose problems for their monetisation model, but nobody says they have to release the server code on launch day, just that it should be released eventually, before they shut everything down. Though note that games like TF2 are famous for pioneering loot boxes etc yet have large cultures of private server hosts. Similarly, counter…

I'm aware. So you're proposing that Blizzard should legally allow alternative servers to their own? That doesn't seem like a good idea. I get what problem you're trying to solve. But it's honestly a much more difficult problem than you think it is. It's not as simple as just allow others to run servers.

> you're proposing that Blizzard should legally allow alternative servers to their own?

Nobody is proposing that. Subscription based games are not the covered by SKG and never were. Even if WoW was not subscription based, it would still be required to do something only when Blizzard decides that they don't want to keep WoW online anymore. Not before that. Nobody asks to voluntarily allow competing servers.

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

#168

Post by RugnirViking »

aurareturn wrote: post #158
RugnirViking wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

are you aware that people do regularly run private servers of world of warcraft? It might pose problems for their monetisation model, but nobody says they have to release the server code on launch day, just that it should be released eventually, before they shut everything down. Though note that games like TF2 are famous for pioneering loot boxes etc yet have large cultures of private server hosts. Similarly, counter…

I'm aware. So you're proposing that Blizzard should legally allow alternative servers to their own? That doesn't seem like a good idea. I get what problem you're trying to solve. But it's honestly a much more difficult problem than you think it is. It's not as simple as just allow others to run servers.

it's really not. Thousands of game companies have already done this for decades. As I said, theres no need for blizzard to allow competing servers, this is about what happens after they don't want to run or pay for their own official server. The game just needs to be built such that they can release the server source (or even just a built image) at that point

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

#169

Post by skotobaza »

shantnutiwari wrote: post #154

The article is a bit misleading-- it doesnt make it clear that par of the problem is even single player games stop working when access to a server is lost

Exactly! And most people who comment on this topic seem genuinely oblivious to it. Which tells me they don't play videogames and don't know the current state of the industry.

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

#170

Post by knollimar »

skotobaza wrote: post #162
knollimar wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hardly a whim if a game runs 15 years, they announce "our active playerbase is 60 people" and the game shuts down. I think we need to stop treating it as a dichotomy. There's an understanding it won't last forever, when you buy a multiplayer game, ans making devs make offline versions in the cases where its trivial is going to bite indie game studios. Gamers have repeatedly shown they dont like subs. Its hard to…

But it's not about multiplayer games or modes. You can't play some single-player games offline as well. And some were even shut down, so you can't play them at all anymore.

Yeah the movement muddies the two things together, presumably to avoid adding token multiplayer modes to prevent skirting by bad actors.

Single player ones are a no brainer.

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