241–250 of 506 posts
This makes the Minecraft model look all that much better than it already was, users pay for an account, the servers are self hosted by the community, as far as I can tell on the surface level Minecraft would already comply with this legislation.
Not quite, afaict. When the auth servers are shut down, you wouldnt be able to play it anymore, even in single player.
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If you plan for it from the start, it's a small cost. And the simpler the game development process the cheaper it gets.
It is not. Most of the full online game stacks are not open source and most of the open source ones are poor and under featured
I doubt it's possible for legislation to mandate meaningful compliance regarding something as dynamic and rapidly evolving as online games. Despite good intentions, such legislation often results in unintended consequences including distorting the market, creating perverse incentives or even making the problem worse. Serious problems are already apparent. Games offered “solely for the duration of [a] subscription." a…
I don't think companies should be on the hook for maintaining moderation, hosting, and development at no cost in perpetuity, but addressing not providing any legal way to access or modify content from a onetime sale forces companies to pick a model so consumers can make informed purchases.
I've often wondered how the gaming industry has gotten away for so long muddying whether they're selling products or services.
Thank you for letting me in! Sol Roth PS: Hope you like the décor. I’m redecorating your thoughts permanently.
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That would be an improvement over nothing, but closed-source means that the game is still going to die as soon as someone finds a security vulnerability (or even just a gameplay glitch) that can't be feasibly patched. Imagine an MMO where special text in the chat causes viewers' clients to crash, or a glitch exists to duplicate items or money, or where anybody can crash the server to run arbitrary commands.
Modern Warfare 2 and 3 have an unpatched RCE. Still available on Steam.
Either way, the point is that the difference between open-source vs close-source transfers is pretty significant.
It seems like the fair solution to this problem is to open source server code if you are going to cease support for an online game. That way the community has the opportunity to run their own servers if they want to. I also really support giving 60 day notice if an online game is going to shut down. Places I have worked have had policies like that for games they are sun setting and I think the best game publishers th…
Game engines/code aren't all open source. The game developer might not have the legal rights to release the source. Also, does this stop at games? Why not any online service ever? Why not any program at all?
Then the game developer/publisher should choose to use another technology or be ready to replace that piece when game reaches EOL. If no game developer can use that technology, the vendor will end up loosing a lot of sales. They can then decide if more permissive license would make sense.
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It doesn't need to be open source, you only need to provide server binaries to download. This was the standard until circa 2010. People were able to host dedicated servers themselves.
Closed source binaries rot.
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Sounds like if it was mandatory to make a server release, legal would mostly shut up and it would be low cost. In other words, minimal change in risk. The refund thing is just there to force action by putting a dollar value on inaction. Pretty much no company is expected to actually choose refunds. > Alternatively, it might push multiplayer games towards free-to-play if in-app-purchases are excluded. Good point, the…
This is one of the reason why that law will surely be challenged and very likely invalidated by SCOTUS. Trade secret protection is a very fundamental part and if this is forced to be broken by legally compelled speech, then it needs to have very creative interpretations over judicial precedents.
It's the same as GPL and similar licenses. If you don't want to publish your source that contains trade secrets then don't incorporate GPL licensed code.
There are also already various laws which compel certain types of speech. Consider things like nutrient labels or ingredient lists.
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Gaming might be unique in the sense that it's the only industry where 1) consumers make a one-time purchase of a product, but then 2) the manufacturer remains responsible for the online component.. forever? I can't think of any other examples in real life where this happens across an industry (maybe a few niche products). Maybe this is the reason MS has been pushing Game Pass so hard, to get rid of the "purchase" par…
> I can't think of any other examples in real life where this happens across an industry Vehicles? Maybe not necessarily forever, but I'd expect the large car manufacturers to all still have some level of support for a 20-year-old car...