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Game publishers respond to Stop Killing Games claim it curtails developer choice

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Re: Game publishers respond to Stop Killing Games claim it curtails developer choice

#281

Post by spacemadness »

mystraline wrote: post #148
calibas wrote: post #137

Video games publishers don't want you to play the same game for too long without spending more money. They don't want to make games like Terraria where you have a $10 game you can play for a thousand hours. They'd much rather you buy multiple $60+ games, plus expansions, "micro"-transactions and subscriptions. They don't want games that last forever, they want to pressure you into constantly buying the next big thing…

[flagged]

By playable do you just mean new content? It will be perfectly playable in 10 years just like all the other classic CRPGs. It would be amazing if modding in content was easy like NWN, if that’s what you mean, because it obviously isn’t. It does seem like such a waste. I’m in a second replay and it’s enjoyable but just so long and will become more repetitive. There are certain sections in Act I that I can’t see myself enjoying a third time at all. Some smaller modules would be amazing. I think the closest thing to that will be Solasta II in the modern era.

Re: Game publishers respond to Stop Killing Games claim it curtails developer choice

#282

Post by dragonmost »

conductr wrote: post #157
chickenzzzzu wrote: post #139

I work for a game company. I am ardently opposed to this idea. All you will end up with, in the best case scenario that isn't even guaranteed to happen, is extremely mediocre games for which you will have the server executable along with the client. Whether you like it or not, thanks to piracy and competition (and yes I've heard Gabe Newell's quote on piracy), server authoritative video games that are eventually turn…

I think there’s a mid ground where industry does nothing except slap a sticker on warning people that game features will sunset in the future, making parts of the game unplayable, perhaps making some commitment like no sooner than December 31, 2030. It will essentially be the similar thing as the Surgeon General’s warning on a pack of cigarettes or the Parental Guidance logo on an album. The are US things, not sure i…

This is already one of the proposed solutions. Although you would have to state a specific date as not to mislead consumers. I would then have to decide if paying 80$ for a game I won't be able to play in the next 5 years is worth it.

Re: Game publishers respond to Stop Killing Games claim it curtails developer choice

#283

Post by calibas »

vinkelhake wrote: post #252
calibas wrote: post #137

Video games publishers don't want you to play the same game for too long without spending more money. They don't want to make games like Terraria where you have a $10 game you can play for a thousand hours. They'd much rather you buy multiple $60+ games, plus expansions, "micro"-transactions and subscriptions. They don't want games that last forever, they want to pressure you into constantly buying the next big thing…

That kind of reasoning makes sense if you have a single publisher controlling the entire market and they don't want to undercut their own business. But that's obviously not the case. There are plenty of publishers that want to publish games like Terraria, especially if they go on to sell more than 60 million copies.

I think the market is actually much more segmented than your comment implies. There's publishers who absolutely dominate certain niches, especially sporting games, and the only realistic competition they have are themselves.

Re: Game publishers respond to Stop Killing Games claim it curtails developer choice

#284

Post by chickenzzzzu »

skotobaza wrote: post #273
chickenzzzzu wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the only thing that this initiative seeks to achieve is clear and fair labeling when purchasing something, I'm all for it. If in the future, if anyone (including this initiative) requires the release or maintenance of server builds or code, I am against it.

> if anyone (including this initiative) requires the release or maintenance of server builds or code, I am against it Why? What do you personally lose because of that?

There is a competitive advantage for being able to hold onto your code and builds. It currently requires quite a lot of effort and skill and persistence to resurrect live service games. This allows us to make money by re-releasing games and remastering them and so on.

If you require us to release server builds and or code "while still respecting copyright", the result will be that countries like Russia and China will offer competing services against us and we will not be able to make nearly as much money anymore.

Re: Game publishers respond to Stop Killing Games claim it curtails developer choice

#285

Post by nickthegreek »

mystraline wrote: post #148
calibas wrote: post #137

Video games publishers don't want you to play the same game for too long without spending more money. They don't want to make games like Terraria where you have a $10 game you can play for a thousand hours. They'd much rather you buy multiple $60+ games, plus expansions, "micro"-transactions and subscriptions. They don't want games that last forever, they want to pressure you into constantly buying the next big thing…

[flagged]

My understanding is that WOTC wouldn’t extend their d&d license to be used in bg3 with that full set of modding that you want.

Re: Game publishers respond to Stop Killing Games claim it curtails developer choice

#286

Post by theptip »

SpaghettiCthulu wrote: post #270
theptip wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> to leave said videogames in a functional (playable) state. Yeah, I like the general goal, but I worry about the corner cases; is an MMO “functional/playable” if you just release a localhost server? Are we forcing indie shops to pay for servers indefinitely now? Great way to ensure no more indie MMOs get built if that ends up being the text interpretation. And, as you say, the question you should always be asking ab…

> is an MMO “functional/playable” if you just release a localhost server? Are we forcing indie shops to pay for servers indefinitely now? The man behind Stop Killing Games has made it perfectly clear that they do not want to force game developers to continue operating servers. Rather, as you suggest, releasing server binaries would be acceptable. Although a mere "localhost" server would likely not be sufficient, beca…

> I think it would be reasonable to require developers to release online multiplayer capable server binaries.

Not a game dev but would there be concerns about forcing devs to ship binaries for a codebase that was previously purely SaaS and proprietary, and likely containing logic that is a reusable for future games? The edge cases here seem a little gnarly. (Maybe it’s not a big deal in the grand scheme of things, how much competitive advantage comes from the MMO server code? I gather it can be tricky to do some things well like AoC pushing high player counts.)

Re: Game publishers respond to Stop Killing Games claim it curtails developer choice

#287

Post by skotobaza »

throw10920 wrote: post #274
thrance wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look where decades of "voting with our wallets" led us. How some people can still utter that sentence unironically is beyond me at this point.

Your claim that there has been "decades of voting with our wallets" is laughable. Nobody I know who plays games decides to buy them or not based on ideological reasons - they just buy the things that are popular or that their friends play. There's extremely little engagement on these issues.

But it's true. Most people pay for what's being currently promoted. So "voting with wallet" doesn't really work, because you will be outvoted by majority of people who don't know what they're getting into. That's why gacha games and other lootbox-heavy ones are most profitable. This is where "vote with your wallet" brought us.

Re: Game publishers respond to Stop Killing Games claim it curtails developer choice

#288

Post by techjamie »

theptip wrote: post #184
throw10920 wrote: post #143

I think very few people (outside of the industry - important caveat) are opposed to the stated goals of the initiative: > This initiative calls to require publishers that sell or license videogames to consumers in the European Union [...] to leave said videogames in a functional (playable) state. The concern that I have is that I have no idea what the actual text of the law is going to be. You can look at laws like t…

> to leave said videogames in a functional (playable) state. Yeah, I like the general goal, but I worry about the corner cases; is an MMO “functional/playable” if you just release a localhost server? Are we forcing indie shops to pay for servers indefinitely now? Great way to ensure no more indie MMOs get built if that ends up being the text interpretation. And, as you say, the question you should always be asking ab…

Ross addresses these things in his videos on the initiative. For one, the game doesn't have to be 100% functional, it just has to do a bare minimum.

They might not even need to release server binaries, even. I would think releasing documentation on how the network commication runs, and adding a box to enter a server IP into the client at EOL would be sufficient. The community, if enough people care, would then be empowered to write their own server implementation without needing the reverse engineering step.

Re: Game publishers respond to Stop Killing Games claim it curtails developer choice

#289

Post by theptip »

_aavaa_ wrote: post #219
theptip wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s pretty easy to solve static content like ebooks and video games; just legislate that your license is transferrable between services and media. Then I can legally torrent a game that is unsupported. Content subscriptions like Netflix are different because you are not paying face value for one title. The better analogy here would be the game streaming services like XBox online. It’s clear you are not doing anythin…

> legislate the that your license What we should be doing is applying the laws that already exist: when I purchase a physical book I own a copy of it and can sell it, lend it, modify it. Amazon and the publishers have zero say in the matter. Buying a digital copy should be no different. I more of this stupid “you bought a license to access a copy” crap.

Thing is, you are by default allowed to write mostly any contract / ToS you like (within the broad rules of contract law). So to implement this you need to explicitly ban “license for things that could be purchases”. And as I noted above the edge cases and market pressures make that non-trivial; do you also ban subscription services like Audible?

Re: Game publishers respond to Stop Killing Games claim it curtails developer choice

#290

Post by xeonmc »

SpaghettiCthulu wrote: post #270
theptip wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> to leave said videogames in a functional (playable) state. Yeah, I like the general goal, but I worry about the corner cases; is an MMO “functional/playable” if you just release a localhost server? Are we forcing indie shops to pay for servers indefinitely now? Great way to ensure no more indie MMOs get built if that ends up being the text interpretation. And, as you say, the question you should always be asking ab…

> is an MMO “functional/playable” if you just release a localhost server? Are we forcing indie shops to pay for servers indefinitely now? The man behind Stop Killing Games has made it perfectly clear that they do not want to force game developers to continue operating servers. Rather, as you suggest, releasing server binaries would be acceptable. Although a mere "localhost" server would likely not be sufficient, beca…

Perhaps mandatory Docker container packaging for EOL multiplayer games?
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