Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Stop Killing Games

jxself.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

271–280 of 287 posts

Re: Stop Killing Games

#271

Post by skotobaza »

lowbloodsugar wrote: post #260
skotobaza wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the moral argument is "I want to be able to (re)play the experience ten years from now". If the servers aren't available in any form (so I can't event self-host), then it's an issue. That is the moral part, not the financial one.

“What you want” isn’t a moral issue. It’s an entitlement issue. I want a Ferrari. $70 doesn’t buy a Ferrari just like it doesn’t buy unlimited expense running a server or the intellectual property of that server. Fascinating to me that, on the one hand, so many people up in arms about AI stealing work from poor devs but then here you are demanding free use of their work because you made a one time payment ten years a…

When I buy a game, I do not expect the developer or the publisher to keep the servers open for unlimited time. But since I paid for the game, I expect to be able to play it. Like it always has been. You see it as entitlement, I see it as a normal thing. If you buy a Ferrari and it stops working just because some servers got closed, I expect you to be "entitled" as well. It's absolutely normal to expect things that you paid for to keep working. And knowingly disable the servers rendering a game (or a car) unplayable is immoral. It already happened multiple times. And it will happen again.

Regarding the argument about modification of the assets - I don't see the issue. Nobody will hold the publisher responsible for what other people do. You can already do that with e.g. Counter Strike - host your own server, take an official Valve map and replace some textures with something inappropriate. No one will blame Valve for this, since they do not host those servers.

So I have thought it through. Also, AI has nothing to do with this, not sure why you bring it up...

Re: Stop Killing Games

#272

Post by dijit »

duped wrote: post #269
dijit wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

idk, lets use things you know. Why do you use Ruby on Rails, why not rewrite it so you can release it without relyig on that?

I'm not interested in hypotheticals. In AAA games that you have worked on, concretely what 3rd party code did your servers rely on that would prevent you from distributing either the server itself or sufficient description of the servers' behavior to allow a reimplementation? And even if we're talking hypotheticals: stupid example. I haven't worked on a backend where the actual server infrastructure wasn't open sourc…

I don’t care.

Get a job in industry and see for yourself.

I’m not going to break confidentially to sate your ignorance.

Re: Stop Killing Games

#273

Post by dangus »

MYEUHD wrote: post #253
dangus wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are at least partially reinforcing my point here. Two of your three examples had a delayed release on GOG, and that's pretty telling especially considering one of those two was developed and published by GOG's former parent company. Two of the three examples are solidly in the realm of indie titles. Yes, there are big release games on the platform. I see, for example, that Silent Hill f is on GOG. I will…

> Two of your three examples had a delayed release on GOG, and that's pretty telling especially considering one of those two was developed and published by GOG's former parent company. It turns out I was wrong about Cyberpunk. It was released on GOG on day 1. https://www.gogdb.org/product/2093619782#details The price chart on gogdb mislead me.

Ah I see. Yeah I actually thought that would be pretty strange since it was CD Projekt Red’s store.

Re: Stop Killing Games

#274

Post by adamrezich »

skotobaza wrote: post #219
adamrezich wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That... basically kills the entire gaming industry. > Am I missing something serious here Only just that the video games industry as we've known it for the past few decades is basically already dead—at best, it's a hollowed-out husk of what it once was.

"Few decades" is a stretch I think. More like one decade.

I meant that the games industry is a few decades old, and it's been dead for about a decade and a half or so now.

Re: Stop Killing Games

#275

Post by tempaccountabcd »

joegibbs wrote: post #199
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…

But why? Both the programmer and the artist have to eat, they both take pride in their work. What is the rationale for treating one side differently to the other?

[dead]

Re: Stop Killing Games

#276

Post by duped »

dijit wrote: post #272
duped wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not interested in hypotheticals. In AAA games that you have worked on, concretely what 3rd party code did your servers rely on that would prevent you from distributing either the server itself or sufficient description of the servers' behavior to allow a reimplementation? And even if we're talking hypotheticals: stupid example. I haven't worked on a backend where the actual server infrastructure wasn't open sourc…

I don’t care. Get a job in industry and see for yourself. I’m not going to break confidentially to sate your ignorance.

I'm actively trying to remove my own ignorance of the domain which is why I posed the question! You're not breaking confidentiality by saying "I need X to solve Y problem which is offered by Z and we can't expose even the application layer interfaces." Right now it sounds like you don't have an answer, or even understand the question.

Getting all defensive and not answering it doesn't really help your industry's case here.

Re: Stop Killing Games

#277

Post by ZeWaka »

wtetzner wrote: post #154
ZeWaka wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dwarf Fortress is a modern example of that paradigm.

As far as I know Dwarf Fortress is entirely closed source.

I was speaking in the sense that the base game is free and you can buy it with non-ascii graphics for a price.

However,

The "raws" that drive the game are completely configurable and accessible by a user.

It's more like the engine being closed source and the gamedata being source-available. Modding isn't quite the right word - that implies it being less open.

You can delete stuff from being present in your game, add new plants or objects, new diseases, etc.

Also related, the game has been opened up with Lua scripting thanks to Putnam's efforts, for even more powerful procedural addons.

https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Raw_file

Re: Stop Killing Games

#278

Post by trinsic2 »

delichon wrote: post #33
ryandrake wrote: post #22

If I subscribe to a service for $M/mo, I expect that service to work as long as I pay for it. If the maintainer of that service decides to turn it off and no longer charge me money, then so be it. I subscribed with eyes open about the lifetime that $M got me. If I buy a product for $N one-time charge, I expect that product to work basically forever, until it physically breaks or wears out. I have woodworking tools ov…

Because we don't have a right to a continuing service that requires their labor unless they agreed to it. A buyer should discount the value of products that rely on ongoing services accordingly. See also 'Juicero'.

Then switch to a subscription model. nobody is forcing you to operating your service indefinitely. Just don't sell something, the say you are not supporting it any longer and remove the ability to use a purchased product.

Re: Stop Killing Games

#279

Post by trinsic2 »

preommr wrote: post #200
cwillu wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They are either turning off their servers …that are unnecessarily being checked by the local software before the local software will run the local offline functions.

That is irrelevant to the topic of ownership since you bought the product, you can now update the code. If you want, you can now change that behavior. Whether that's allowed by the TOS and what the consequences to that are is also a separate issue. At that point, people shouldn't buy the product if they disagree with the conditions.

No you should be clear that its not purchased product but a subscription. Don't expect people to buy into the model that people can take away your right to use a product as you wish.

Re: Stop Killing Games

#280

Post by dijit »

duped wrote: post #276
dijit wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t care. Get a job in industry and see for yourself. I’m not going to break confidentially to sate your ignorance.

I'm actively trying to remove my own ignorance of the domain which is why I posed the question! You're not breaking confidentiality by saying "I need X to solve Y problem which is offered by Z and we can't expose even the application layer interfaces." Right now it sounds like you don't have an answer, or even understand the question. Getting all defensive and not answering it doesn't really help your industry's case…

So when you told me that games use web tech on the backend, that was you getting rid of your ignorance?

Ok, lets talk about the kinds of things we need.

Networks have latency, so we need to smooth/correct for that.

Our connections need to be authenticated, so we need middleware to handle tokens, because we don’t hand-roll that. On a binary protocol.

Our physics engines are complicated: we don’t usually write our own from scratch; and the server needs physics to simulate the world.

Shall I continue?

Post reply on HN