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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

#491

Post by account42 »

thewebguyd wrote: post #49
rrego wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You want the "community" to reverse engineer the game server, where all the game logic lives, from the game client? This is the state of many online only games. Of course it should be legal to reverse engineer software you own, but you have to actually have access to the software to reverse engineer it.

People did it for World of Warcraft, and continue to do so with each expansion. I can host and play a WotLK server locally, offline on my desktop with AI player bots with minimal issues thanks to the work of the community

WoW is slightly more popular than the average abandoned game. These kind of reverse engineering efforts (re-implementation really without access to the original server) are possible but require huge efforts and thus rarely happen.

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

#492

Post by account42 »

phendrenad2 wrote: post #116
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…

Yeah I have no sympathy for companies, but unfortunately companies just pass their costs along to the consumer, and I do have sympathy for those.

So what's your argument, to never have any consumer protection laws?

Even if companies pass on the cost, companies that make better decisions like not adding arbitrary online requirements in the first place, will be at an advantage with a change like this.

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

#493

Post by account42 »

dminik wrote: post #70
phyzix5761 wrote: post #20

So now it becomes way more expensive for small studios to come out with games that have online features. This is a huge win for big studios who will suck up all that market share. Handing over a standalone server to the public is a massive engineering, financial, and legal headache. Modern multiplayer games rarely run on a single isolated program. They rely on a huge network of interconnected cloud microservices. A s…

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive was a game running all of these things (matchmaking, skins, anticheat ...). After Counter-Strike 2 was released, the servers for CS:GO were shut down. Yet, the game remains mostly playable. Sure, the skins no longer work and there's no official matchmaking, but third parties have stepped up. That's because Valve released (and have always released) server software. I find this argument…

> Sure, the skins no longer work

Hey, that actually sounds like a positive. Might have to try the game again.

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

#494

Post by account42 »

dminik wrote: post #322
knollimar wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CS:GO's server architecture makes perfect sense for a game that would be easy to release server software. What do you do for, say, a failing MMO built on a proprietary game engine you're trying to make a sequel for?

This is such an overstated issue. There's not really that many MMOs. It's hard to say, but I would estimate that there are ~600-1000 MMOs total. Many of them are quite simple (like Club Penguin, MapleStory, ...) or already have third party servers running (WoW, City Of Heroes, ...). Also, your example doesn't really make sense. First, no one is arguing that companies should right now go revive all past MMOs. This is…

Yeah I remember this argument from decades ago where people claimed that WoW required specialized hardware to run that would be far out of reach of community server operators. What a bunch of bs that turned out to be.

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

#495

Post by rileymat2 »

dgellow wrote: post #419
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…

> 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 thin…

You could frame the regulation in a variety of ways:

1. Require a clear labeling of sunset date.

Or

2. Require an independent trust created from a portion of the initial payment to fund ongoing operation.

Or

3. Ban fixed payments for things with ongoing known operating costs.

Or

4. Provide local mechanisms to continue to run the game.

The original sin is a fixed price for an ongoing expense as a business model.

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

#496

Post by phendrenad2 »

account42 wrote: post #492
phendrenad2 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I have no sympathy for companies, but unfortunately companies just pass their costs along to the consumer, and I do have sympathy for those.

So what's your argument, to never have any consumer protection laws? Even if companies pass on the cost, companies that make better decisions like not adding arbitrary online requirements in the first place, will be at an advantage with a change like this.

Perhaps my argument is that black & white are useless colors and we should use all the colors in-between, and people who only know black & white need to get out of the way before they ruin the painting.

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

#497

Post by phendrenad2 »

fyredge wrote: post #431
phendrenad2 wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't think of any cases where unintended consequences dominated the equation and made the initiative completely detrimental? I can. The cookie consent popups we all have to click on every website started out with good intentions, wouldn't you agree? And how has that overall turned out? Are we educating people about privacy or are we just producing pointless pixel updates and burning the ozone layer?

Then table a bill to remove that legislation, that is entirely possible. The point being that all legislation have consequences, but it is better to move forward with the best step we could take than to stand still and do nothing. Just as there is iteration in software, we should iterate our laws. That is what a functioning government looks like.

I don't have the time money or energy to introduce my own competing law, but I can post and try to spread my point of view, which seems to be very effective. And I agree with you, we should iterate laws, but starting with a good one is a lot better than starting with a bad one wouldn't you agree?

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

#498

Post by tyleo »

account42 wrote: post #484
tyleo wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not sure what you mean. If you shut down a game and a law demands extra work to stand up a F2P server, who pays for that work? That’s the “shutdown bill” I’m talking about.

Yes, the law encourages you to act responsibly from the start. This is like a chemical plant complaining that they have to pay for cleanup when they shut down because they didn't follow proper procedures to prevent environmental harm while operating.

So an indie dev just trying to make a multiplayer game with no budget and no graceful shutdown plan may be acting irresponsibly?

Is the world really better if those people face additional burden? Does it create a fairer system that helps indies succeed? Does it encourage creativity?

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

#499

Post by tyleo »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #432
tyleo wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

As far as I can tell, you can have Photon run the servers or you can license them to run yourself. Though they clearly prefer the former. Either way, there's not much revenue coming in to most games by the time the developer wants to abandon them, and Photon's not getting paid much either. There's a lot of ways to make this work out monetarily.

It’s not that simple. Many of the newer products are designed cloud-first.

I’d love to see you rise to the challenge. If you think there’s an opportunity to make money here, “lots of ways to make this work,” perhaps take it up yourself.

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

#500

Post by techteach00 »

rgoulter wrote: post #413
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 leve…

Can any smart hackers crack this so I can play career mode again lol? Please?
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