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Bill to block publishers from killing online games advances in California

arstechnica.com

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Re: Bill to block publishers from killing online games advances in California

#271

Post by vasachi »

tyleo wrote: post #208
thayne wrote: post #196

> the act would not apply to completely free games and games offered “solely for the duration of [a] subscription. Any other game offered for sale in California on or Well, I predict we'll start seeing more games offered "solely for the duration of a subscription". And also games spun out into their own subsidiary that will just go bankrupt and not comply.

Subsidiary is what I was thinking too. Imagine you were just some indie dev freelancing and all of a sudden you have a big shutdown bill.

You wouldn’t get one if you followed the law and released the server.

Re: Bill to block publishers from killing online games advances in California

#272

Post by Chaosvex »

furyofantares wrote: post #269
Chaosvex wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm countering your argument that it's "not that bad". If that wasn't your point with mentioning the three person team, what was? Recap: > Client-server architecture does make things more complicated to implement but it's not THAT bad. Among Us was literally a three-person team. The scope of the discussion extends beyond simple games like Among Us and some games require highly complex networked architectures that wou…

Ah, I see. Well, the post I was responding to reads to me like a denial of the existence of games like Among Us when it says it wouldn't affect three person dev teams making games on a shoestring budget, and gives off the weird implication that it would only affect big budget games. That said, I don't mind a tangent, and I have built services for large multiplayer games and it really is not that bad.

I've also worked on MMOs and the architectures there can get quite hairy, particularly when they're deeply plumbed into shared services and infrastructure that they couldn't operate without. Those layers occasionally have closed-source licensed tech mixed in there.

Untangling the entire lot to make the game available upon closure would be a nightmare in some cases.

I've also contributed to game server emulation (pre-professionally) to keep them alive, so preserving games is a cause I support, even if I don't think it's necessarily always going to be trivial.

Re: Bill to block publishers from killing online games advances in California

#273

Post by LightHugger »

motoxpro wrote: post #235
speedylight wrote: post #224

I love California for these laws because even though their jurisdiction is technically limited, it makes no sense for the companies to not make the changes available nation wide.

its such a bummer that because of laws like this, less games will be made. Most games dont ever make money and dont succeed. The alternative to companies shutting games down without supporting them is not them supporting them, it is them not making them in the first place or making them very expensive (price, ads, pay to play, etc.). The customer now has to pay a tax becasue of the cost this puts on game makers. This…

this is absurd and untrue. this is like being told you have to pour a concrete pillar 2 meters to the left of where you were planning so that you're not destroying some vital infrastructure, then bemoaning the loss of the concrete pillar industry.

Stop building games to self destruct. Once you fix your bad practices (which, you should not have been doing to begin with, pay for them once with some retooling and moving forward you don't need to pay more, then get some ethics and you will incur fewer costs like this going forward) there is no ongoing cost here.

Re: Bill to block publishers from killing online games advances in California

#274

Post by LightHugger »

tyleo wrote: post #208
thayne wrote: post #196

> the act would not apply to completely free games and games offered “solely for the duration of [a] subscription. Any other game offered for sale in California on or Well, I predict we'll start seeing more games offered "solely for the duration of a subscription". And also games spun out into their own subsidiary that will just go bankrupt and not comply.

Subsidiary is what I was thinking too. Imagine you were just some indie dev freelancing and all of a sudden you have a big shutdown bill.

the idea of a "shutdown bill" is absurd and irrelevant to the law being discussed unless you are a scammer being forced to refund people.

Re: Bill to block publishers from killing online games advances in California

#275

Post by LightHugger »

bitbasher wrote: post #10

Most "gamers" don't want to pay $5 for a game you spent 10,000 hours slaving to make. They will complain the game was too short when Steam shows they spent 10+ hours playing it. Now they want more.

There is no reason to reply like this unless you are some kind of scammer with no ethics. I hope this bill bankrupts your business model.

Re: Bill to block publishers from killing online games advances in California

#277

Post by LightHugger »

phendrenad2 wrote: post #105

I don't see any world in which these "stop killing games" laws result in anything close to what the proponents are asking for, for multiple reasons, one of the biggest being that the proponents don't have a clear, coherent, cohesive vision that takes into account all of the side-effects, and everyone you talk to in this space has a slightly different idea of what they want, and even the main proponent, Ross Scott, ha…

Ross has had a consistent vision for years and i'm not sure where this delusion otherwise is coming from. At this point i'm wondering if people like you are just astroturf bots funded by the ESA.

Re: Bill to block publishers from killing online games advances in California

#278

Post by furyofantares »

Chaosvex wrote: post #272
furyofantares wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, I see. Well, the post I was responding to reads to me like a denial of the existence of games like Among Us when it says it wouldn't affect three person dev teams making games on a shoestring budget, and gives off the weird implication that it would only affect big budget games. That said, I don't mind a tangent, and I have built services for large multiplayer games and it really is not that bad.

I've also worked on MMOs and the architectures there can get quite hairy, particularly when they're deeply plumbed into shared services and infrastructure that they couldn't operate without. Those layers occasionally have closed-source licensed tech mixed in there. Untangling the entire lot to make the game available upon closure would be a nightmare in some cases. I've also contributed to game server emulation (pre-…

Oh yeah, I definitely agree with you there.

Re: Bill to block publishers from killing online games advances in California

#279

Post by LightHugger »

1123581321 wrote: post #80
ssenssei wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why do you have to be negative? currently there's a huge risk Marathon might get shut down like high guard or concord because of player numbers. If they shut it down, nobody could play it anymore. If there's a system in place for us to be able to host our own servers, or... I don't know? OWN the game we bought and play it because we OWN it because we PAID for it. Then yeah, that's good and it's a good movement and I…

The main no argument is that it makes risky games riskier for the developer, publisher and IP holder. Games like Marathon never get approved.

what's the risk? "Oh no we might have to provide the product we sold!" Lmao. That's the right kind of risk to force on sellers in a market. Sellers risk getting penalized for not providing what they have paid for. Great. Fanastic. Sounds healthy for any market and may even increase average customer confidence enough for a surge in sales, one that can't be created by one company alone.

Re: Bill to block publishers from killing online games advances in California

#280

Post by throwaway85825 »

mrandish wrote: post #104
georgeecollins wrote: post #40

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…

> 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…

If the market is big enough licensed libraries will just change their terms.
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