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Stop Killing Games

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Re: Stop Killing Games

#201

Post by hodgehog11 »

dijit wrote: post #123
tayo42 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We used to have player run servers for years. Is it some lost skill to write software that way?

It's not a lost skill. Spinning up a binary and replicating actors across two computers that both have a connection string to a server is.. for all intents and purposes: easy. Where it falls down is when you start to have complex interactions with AI that's serverside, or you have a dynamic world that changes based on player behaviour, or you have cross platform requirements, integrations with companion apps and abov…

This is the whole spirit of the "Stop Killing Games" argument though: you don't need to keep any of that stuff once support drops. It just needs to be "functional", in the most basic possible sense. If there are no players, no economy, no advanced AI, because it was all disconnected, that's considered fine.

The response of "but that isn't any fun!" is totally irrelevant; you can't preserve the initial experience, but you can preserve the basic software itself so that players still have something to mess with.

Programming-wise, this requires a little more emphasis on a modular implementation that needs to be considered from the start. Otherwise, it seems pretty straightforward. Or am I missing something?

Re: Stop Killing Games

#202

Post by joegibbs »

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 don't think there are any major problems with the current system except the length of copyright. If copyright got reduced to 20 years after the creation of the work I think that we would have a more dynamic economy. Old games could have their servers reverse-engineered (in 5 years this will undoubtedly be incredibly easy unless AI hits a wall for no reason). Companies would have to work on something new - no more 50 years of a franchise. Enough resting on the laurels!

Re: Stop Killing Games

#203

Post by duped »

mvdtnz wrote: post #171
duped wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Genuinely curious - what third party closed source dependencies are they using? Like what is their purpose?

Web servers, message brokers, physics engines, anti cheat, fraud detection, flood mitigation, ranking systems, chat moderation, match making systems. There are thousands of possible components which may have been licensed in any given game server system. In some cases the entire game engine runs on the server.

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 trying to solve.

Re: Stop Killing Games

#204

Post by doctorpangloss »

saghm wrote: post #137
doctorpangloss wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what power, exactly? that nintendo doesn't care about these guys for some idiosyncratic reason?

The power to have a game natively on platforms it was never implemented on before but look identical to the original. To me, that's honestly cooler and more desirable than emulation; the fact that it's also more defensible from an IP standpoint is just a nice bonus. I also wouldn't say that "respecting the limits of IP law" is particularly idiosyncratic either; you can make the case that IP owners like Nintendo often…

IP law is peak law nerd, regular lawyers can't make any definitive statements about IP situations, what makes you think that you could?

Re: Stop Killing Games

#205

Post by throwaway85825 »

dijit wrote: post #37
felipellrocha wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, the legislation also kills any sort of multiplayer games, so it's in the same spirit. It just takes the idea to its logical conclusion. As a game developer, if this thing passes, I would just not build multiplayer ever anymore.

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…

A game that can no longer be played at all is very simple but also not very fun.

Re: Stop Killing Games

#206

Post by throwaway85825 »

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…

If the game is being sold it has to be supported, and if it's supported no legislative requirement applies.

Re: Stop Killing Games

#207

Post by throwaway85825 »

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…

Maybe the product stops working tomorrow maybe 10 years from now. Consumers shouldn't have to gamble. If sellers don't like it they need to tell consumers the end date like a subscription does. That's at least honest.

Re: Stop Killing Games

#208

Post by throwaway85825 »

mattbis wrote: post #83

Stop playing games ; Can't see how an independent developer would ever be able to do this. We need more independent things not less... this would be my concern. Better legislation would be to force developers to at least allow people to run their own servers.

That's more or less what this is.

Re: Stop Killing Games

#209

Post by trinsic2 »

dangus wrote: post #120
F3nd0 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That... basically kills the entire gaming industry. > > Am I missing something serious here or is this really trying to advocate for that. What you might be missing is that the author advocates for free software (which is framed differently from open source), while games typically aren’t pure software, but rely very heavily on art assets. The movement for free software traditionally draws a distinction between soft…

This is largely how open source game engines like OpenMW or OpenTTD work: the game engine is reverse engineered, and the art is something the end user provides by downloading/owning a legitimate retail copy. And that’s really great, but this model is ultimately not realistic for most game developers. It’s not like productivity software where the code of the product isn’t the majority of the value being delivered. Git…

I'd argue that games being open source and being pirated does mean you can't make money. I think you are looking at this backwards, like the rest of the industry. You don't need to force people to buy your stuff by making it closed and preventing people from getting at your stuff for free.

THe people that matter will compensate you if you make something that matters to them.

The whole idea that you need to force people to by your stuff through restrictions is a perverse way of looking at the world.

Re: Stop Killing Games

#210

Post by trinsic2 »

runevault wrote: post #145
stale2002 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What are the legal consequences of not releasing a functioning server if for some reason you can't? How about "the government forces you to release the code"? That's seems fair. Unless you hid your source code in USB drives under your bed, the government can probably just force GitHub (or similar )to release it. I bet they've got it backed up.

So you're assuming game devs write every line of code in their server infrastructure. First, could be using a third party library you have license to use on a limited number of machines that make up your backend servers. Second you could be paying for third party API access to something like snowflake. You either have to rip out the code (which may or may not break the server, but still requires developer time to do)…

I think this will bring everything back to where it needs to be. We depend way to much on third party stuff as it is.
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