Bill to block publishers from killing online games advances in California

Post by Chaosvex » Sat, May 16, 2026, 5:34 AM UTC

furyofantares wrote: post #256

fluoridation wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every game released whose developers have chosen to complicate its design with a client-server architecture . It's not like this is going to hurt the little three-man teams making games on shoe-string budgets. Yeah, it's going to make big budget games a little more expensive, just like how cars with seatbelts are a little more expensive to build, and like how it's a little more expensive to do proper waste management…

> Every game released whose developers have chosen to complicate its design with a client-server architecture. Huh? Client-server architecture does make things more complicated to implement but it's not THAT bad. And you (usually[1]) do it in service of multiplayer, not because you're big budget or just want to complicate things. Among Us was literally a three-person team. [1] I find there are some major benefits to…

Post by rbits » Sat, May 16, 2026, 5:41 AM UTC

Terr_ wrote: post #84

weberer wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

Post by jurgenburgen » Sat, May 16, 2026, 5:47 AM UTC

sowbug wrote: post #135

brobdingnagians wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And makes it more expensive. There is the seen benefit and then the unseen cost. Every game released will have to account for the possibility of it, and will create issues for people who really didn't want those issues. After awhile people will forget there are associated issues and costs, but they will still be there.

Putting on my Pollyanna hat... Or it could make it a lot cheaper, if the server were developed entirely on open-source infrastructure from the start. Hopefully the actual game logic would be developed entirely in-house, making it easier to audit before releasing.

Post by Chaosvex » Sat, May 16, 2026, 5:51 AM UTC

furyofantares wrote: post #265

Chaosvex wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Among Us is also incredibly simple compared to the services required to support some AAA games and even then, their networking code was riddled with exploits that no professional would have written, including RCEs. Didn't stop it from being a fun, successful game but there's no comparison to the work and complexity involved in larger games.

I'm aware. What's that got to do with anything?

Post by mrgaro » Sat, May 16, 2026, 6:06 AM UTC

umvi wrote: post #218

mrandish wrote: post #104

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> open source server code if you are going to cease support When I was a senior exec at a big public tech company, there was a product we decided to discontinue and we thought would be nice to just open source. Somehow I ended up in charge of managing that process and was shocked at how complex, time-consuming and expensive it was in a multi-billion dollar, publicly-traded corp vs some code my friends and I wrote. Le…

Better to just publish the protocols/APIs and let the community roll their own