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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

#411

Post by Dylan16807 »

tyleo wrote: post #402
Dylan16807 wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Issues like that are part of why the law is only going to apply to new releases. If you still choose to license something you can't release later, and it's critical to the game's operation, then that's a deliberate liability and you'll need to replace it.

That sounds like a bad incentive. Lots of games license software like Photon to run game servers. For many games, building something like that is a non-starter.

It's not like it specifically has to be open source. Photon can license their software in a way that allows for free servers that are still tied to the specific game. And then companies can buy that.

And it's not expensive for Photon to do that, so I don't see why they wouldn't add that feature for a modest price or even free. (And that's assuming the license doesn't already allow it.)

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

#412

Post by 7jjjjjjj »

Akronymus wrote: post #325
aero_code wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In addition to the sibling comment, even Minecraft server has an "online-mode" setting, and if it's set to false, it doesn't authenticate players. Whenever my family has played on LAN, we've never used any auth servers (which is clear because we don't give Minecraft any credentials). The setting only applies to LAN players, but that should be easy enough to work around with a VPN or something.

Doesnt the client need an initial authentication to microsoft servers?

You need to authenticate to download the game, but then you can play it as much as you want even offline. This is true for Prism Launcher, anyway. I haven't used the official launcher in years.

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

#413

Post by rgoulter »

techteach00 wrote: post #129

I'm on the treadmill so this may appear jumbled. Bought PGA Tour 2k21 for $50. In October the servers shut down completely neutering the game. I think you're allowed to play a few courses still. But the career mode, which is why I originally bought the game, was completely turned off. Mind you that career mode had zero Internet needed features. It's like a sports franchise mode. So good on this bill. 2K should rot fo…

> I think you're allowed to play a few courses still. But the career mode, which is why I originally bought the game, was completely turned off. Mind you that career mode had zero Internet needed features.

I suspect this is the same as IO Interactive's "Hitman: World of Assassination".

99% of the game is single player. The game allows you to unlock additional things in the game (different starting locations in a level, more equipment).

But, if you play the game offline, all of that progression is completely blocked off.

I guess what happened is the progression ties to the saving, which is heavily coupled to online syncing. And so the logic is like `if (offline) { useSafeMode() }`. But it's so lame.

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

#414

Post by unethical_ban »

summerlight wrote: post #232
Dylan16807 wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What a fucked situation where a company that fails who took money from people on the premise of a service existing no longer offers that service, says it's against the first amendment to enable people to continue having access to the product they paid for.

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

#415

Post by VorpalWay »

gsich wrote: post #387
VorpalWay wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A self hosted server executable still works fine with that though. Plenty of games had that model.

Yes, but that's not what usually is associated with P2P. That is normal client-server model.

In my original comment I mentioned both options though.

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

#416

Post by pjmlp »

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…

That is already the case in enterprise projects for many years now.

Since around 2010, that in most projects I am involved, the CI/CD pipelines can only talk to internal repos with vetted dependencies.

You can still do whatever locally, however the build will break when using non authorised dependencies.

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

#417

Post by pjmlp »

VorpalWay wrote: post #302
furyofantares wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Remember back in the old days when you could just run your own game server, even though it wasn't open source? That would work too. Or peer to peer LAN gaming, why is that not popular any more? Designing a game to use developer hosted servers is a choice they made. Probably to squeeze money from microtransactions.

Because they cannot profit from it hence why.

Centralised servers allow for subscriptions and other stuff.

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

#418

Post by dgellow »

techteach00 wrote: post #391
dgellow wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you knew exactly what you were buying. It’s not hidden to you that an internet connection is required when you buy the game. Game developers are generally pretty terrible and do a lot of really shady things to extract value from their players. But that one isn’t one. The terms are clearly stated before your purchase

If the TOS said the game would be destroyed in 5 years I would not have made the purchase. You're making my point. Why didn't the TOS tell me the plan?

Because that’s not at all what terms of services are about, there is no expectation of providing a public roadmap

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

#419

Post by dgellow »

rileymat2 wrote: post #350
dgellow wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you knew exactly what you were buying. It’s not hidden to you that an internet connection is required when you buy the game. Game developers are generally pretty terrible and do a lot of really shady things to extract value from their players. But that one isn’t one. The terms are clearly stated before your purchase

I’d debate that there are “clearly stated terms” when the result is completely unpredictable, will it work for 10 years or 3 hours? Reading the terms you have no idea. The original sin is selling a product that has an ongoing cost for a fixed price without creating an ongoing trust to pay those costs. Imagine I had a gas station that sold all you can use gasoline for a car for 4k. Then I sell a bunch of memberships a…

> Reading the terms you have no idea.

If a game says clearly a constant internet connection is required, I don’t see how you would expect it to work when their servers are down. It would indeed be nicer if they would provide a local experience, but is it really something that should be enforced through regulations? That feels very wrong to me. I personally dislike EA business model and wouldn’t engage with it, I think it’s a pretty shitty corporation. But when buying diablo games where a connection is required, even if I always only play them solo, at no point do I have expectations I will be able to continue playing if servers are shut down. The deal is clear from the get go, I can decide to engage or not. There a lots of other games to play if I care more about local experience.

The arguments to “stop killing games” feel very entitled to me and the slogans disingenuous

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

#420

Post by dgellow »

techteach00 wrote: post #392
rileymat2 wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d debate that there are “clearly stated terms” when the result is completely unpredictable, will it work for 10 years or 3 hours? Reading the terms you have no idea. The original sin is selling a product that has an ongoing cost for a fixed price without creating an ongoing trust to pay those costs. Imagine I had a gas station that sold all you can use gasoline for a car for 4k. Then I sell a bunch of memberships a…

I'll just play Civ 4 Beyond the Sword forever. Or whatever is available on the Internet archive.

Which is the sensible thing to do. There are a lot of local games available, if people don’t like online requirements just look at the rest of the massive catalog of games available
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