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

Bill to block publishers from killing online games advances in California

arstechnica.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

421–430 of 506 posts

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

#421

Post by rcxdude »

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…

More likely, those commercially licensed libraries will wind up needing to adjust their terms to allow for this kind of release.

(Also, legal will basically never give an 'all clear'. That's not their job, their job is to inform you of the risks, and so it's extremely rare that they will not come up with some)

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

#422

Post by strags »

Ukv wrote: post #125
strags wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That way the community has the opportunity to run their own servers if they want to. That might be fine for very small titles - where the "game server" is a relatively simple binary that can be run anywhere. Larger titles depend on a huge amount of infrastructure, for authentication, progression, matchmaking, etc... It's not feasible to open-source all of that, especially given that it may well still be in use for…

> It's not feasible to open-source all of that, especially given that it may well still be in use for more recent titles If they're still running their authentication server (for example), then they wouldn't need to release that service. Patching the game to no longer contact the authentication server would also be acceptable, for services that aren't a core part of the game. It's pretty likely the game already allow…

Authentication is an interesting example - it sounds like might be the easiest component to remove. But without authentication, you don't have identity. And without identity you have no viable notion of accounts - and without accounts you don't have persistence, entitlements, progression, achievements, or any of the meta aspects that are deeply entwined with modern games. Not to mention how extensively identity ties into Matchmaking - another fairly complex backend service.

This legislation might be more persuasive if it were tied to a reasonable time limit, but I don't see anything of that nature in the text. An obligation to support or refund customers that lasts for a fair timespan (ie. preventing rugpulls) is far less onerous than an obligation to release your code to satisfy someone's nostalgia.

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

#423

Post by summerlight »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #299
summerlight wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

99% of the server code doesn't deserve trade secret protection, and fulfilling the goal of games continuing to work doesn't require releasing the other 1%. They can keep their matchmaking algorithm secret while releasing the code that lets people straightforwardly connect to each other. They can keep most of their code secret.

> 99% of the server code doesn't deserve trade secret protection,

Unfortunately, it is not you define whether it deserves. It's a court, ultimately SCOTUS.

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

#425

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#426

Post by hedora »

brobdingnagians wrote: post #123
gbear605 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s exactly the benefit of a law - it’s a forcing measure to require businesses to invest in processes to understand open sourcing, and to go forward when otherwise no one would make a business case for approval.

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.

The beauty of making it a criminal issue is that those costs go away.

When the library vendor licenses some proprietary crap to a game server vendor, they take on the risk that their library may fall under the open source requirement when the game server shuts down.

At shutdown, criminal law says the library vendor must open source. Since criminal law preempts contract law, no amount of weasel words in the software license change that.

Even if the upstream vendor is out of business or something and did not provide source, surely, the binaries fall under the the open source clause.

Problem completely solved, and no lawyers need to be paid after the fact. (Library vendors might want to pay lawyers to tell them not to license to game servers, or not. Either way, that's not the customers' problem.)

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

#427

Post by extraduder_ire »

k12sosse wrote: post #101
Melatonic wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How were they shut down? Like as in the old software refuses to start or they cant renew maintenance / no security updates?

Adobe turned the license servers off that the installers used to verify your CS6 installer key. No check pass, no install. Of course, you can just use an LLM to build a patch, or pirate a copy, but it's the principle I suppose.

CS6 verifies keys locally if it can't reach adobe's servers. Are they specifically blocking that?

Blocking CS6 from accessing the internet in your firewall and using a key somoene posted online was a common practice back in the day.

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

#428

Post by Ukv »

strags wrote: post #422
Ukv wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's not feasible to open-source all of that, especially given that it may well still be in use for more recent titles If they're still running their authentication server (for example), then they wouldn't need to release that service. Patching the game to no longer contact the authentication server would also be acceptable, for services that aren't a core part of the game. It's pretty likely the game already allow…

Authentication is an interesting example - it sounds like might be the easiest component to remove. But without authentication, you don't have identity. And without identity you have no viable notion of accounts - and without accounts you don't have persistence, entitlements, progression, achievements, or any of the meta aspects that are deeply entwined with modern games. Not to mention how extensively identity ties…

For many games (and software, IoT devices, etc.), persistence/progression is tied to save files on your own device, and any authentication is more to the publisher's benefit of making sure you have an authorized copy - that's where it should be fine to just patch out the authentication check.

Even for games with centralized server-side progression, if you don't want to release the authentication service when you stop running it, then it could still be acceptable to patch out authentication by default and let those running community servers substitute in their own access system (like cracked/leaked unofficial servers already do).

> This legislation might be more persuasive if it were tied to a reasonable time limit, but I don't see anything of that nature in the text. An obligation to support or refund customers that lasts for a fair timespan (ie. preventing rugpulls) is far less onerous than an obligation to release your code to satisfy someone's nostalgia.

Should we be able to read books and watch movies that were released over, say, 20 years ago - or is that just satisfying someone's nostalgia? Maybe you don't think this matters for games, but with DRM it seems other media isn't far behind.

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

#429

Post by tyleo »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #411
tyleo wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.)

I’m not sure what you mean. Photon makes money running game servers as a service. It wouldn’t surprise me if their business wasn’t viable selling software alone.

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

#430

Post by buellerbueller »

collingreen wrote: post #82
tombert wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Companies are forced to expend resources just so a few niche hobbyists are not inconvenienced. Yeah those poor companies. They should just be allowed to take our money and then stop providing a service we paid for. Won't someone please think of the corporations???? What kind of weird argument is this? If I pay for a game then I, you know, want to be able to play the game. You know what I don't care about? Whether o…

I take your point and also don't give a damn about corporate profits but it is a little bit "talking past" the parent. To me the important part of parents point was the next step: therefore the companies will just avoid selling to California which is an unintended consequence. I think this can be argued with directly on its merits - 1. maybe, 2. also that's probably fine, 3. also that's not what happened with car emi…

Forego the 4th largest economy on the planet? Hardly.

(Only US, China and Germany are bigger)

Post reply on HN