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Why old games never die, but new ones do

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Re: Why old games never die, but new ones do

#61
The biggest problem today is ownership.

There are dozen of games that made headlines 5 years ago that you can't play today because servers are down. Some of those games are single player only.

You can't host these games like you could Quake or CS back in the day, because you never owned them in the first place.

I own couple hundred games on Steam and similar ammount on Epic but when I die no one will find an obscure CD_ROM in the attic that will urge them to find an old system they could try it on. My accounts will likely be wiped out after short period of inactivity.

Carmac made a historical move when he hosted a Quake tournament and offered his Ferrari as a reward, because he cared. Or maybe he sold his soul and the devil told him that esports will be a thing in the next 10 years. Point is - developers cared. But today, with the mcdonaldization of the industry you have countless situation like with the recent Rollerdome. Game had a stellar reviews but it didn't matter, because the moment before the game was launched the whole studio got sacked. Every single on of them.

Sure, we had issues in the past, the famous "spouses of Maxis employees vs Maxis", but today it's on a whole new level. People are naming their companies "Respawn" to indicate that they still have willingness to fight the system. And google how it turned out for them.

And then, when you finally thought there's a light at the end of the tunnel you have an endless stream of vaporware on kickstarter or projects that are - like Tarkov - for 8 years in "early access" (hey, don't be a dick, sure it's rough around the edges, but it's still in beta, bro).

All in all it was fun and games, but now it's a multi billion business now.

I've spent some time in the industry and when asked I always say it's a great adventure if you're young and have no major obligations, but god forbid you from making that your career choice.

Re: Why old games never die, but new ones do

#62
post #61

The biggest problem today is ownership . There are dozen of games that made headlines 5 years ago that you can't play today because servers are down. Some of those games are single player only. You can't host these games like you could Quake or CS back in the day, because you never owned them in the first place. I own couple hundred games on Steam and similar ammount on Epic but when I die no one will find an obscure…

> Some of those games are single player only.

Like which?

Re: Why old games never die, but new ones do

#63
I jailbroke my Kindle recently, because I am a little frustrated that Amazon can just decide that a book isn't mine anymore, even when I have ostensibly "bought" it.

I know I could just buy physical books and sidestep this issue, but I have a lot of trouble reading small print as I get older [1] so the Kindle just works better for me since I can make the font gigantic, and the Amazon store is super convenient to buy books.

But these megacorps can just take my shit away from me, whenever they want. Fuck that.

Turns out that it's cartoonishly easy to jailbreak the Kindle Paperwhite, install KOReader, and then just drag and drop EPUB files on there. Now Amazon doesn't have the ability to steal my stuff.

Games are another issue that I'm going to have to figure out how to deal with. I have over 700 games on Steam, and Steam has been a great, reliable service for me going on twenty years now, but there's no reason to think that this will last forever, or even that much longer.

GOG is DRM free, so I have every installer (for every platform) of my ~100 games backed up on my RAID in the event that they start yanking stuff, but as far as I am aware there's no way to do that with Steam.

It's bullshit. I hate DRM, I hate that I didn't push back against this sooner.

[1] Not a vision thing, I can distinguish the letters fine, just have a lot of trouble keeping my place on the line with small print.

Re: Why old games never die, but new ones do

#64
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like for example you can play every GameCube game that was ever released for the system. There's readily available archives you can download and well-known console mods available to play them. This kind of thing just isn't possible for newer games. Self-contained, offline, drm free (or at least breakable drm) will probably be immortal but that's a shrinking segment of games.

You can't play Phantasy Star Online for the GameCube anymore.

There are private servers that you can connect to, no? I remember reading about it not that long ago!

Re: Why old games never die, but new ones do

#65
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like for example you can play every GameCube game that was ever released for the system. There's readily available archives you can download and well-known console mods available to play them. This kind of thing just isn't possible for newer games. Self-contained, offline, drm free (or at least breakable drm) will probably be immortal but that's a shrinking segment of games.

You can't play Phantasy Star Online for the GameCube anymore.

https://github.com/fuzziqersoftware/newserv

Re: Why old games never die, but new ones do

#66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should everyone have the right to play NES games for free?

Why shouldn’t old art be permitted into the public domain to encourage improvement and innovation? Draconian Mickey Mouse copyright law has likely stifled more innovation that we could possibly imagine. Much like patent law there should be a strict, non-renewable period where a company can recoup their cost and make profit. Then it is introduced to the public domain. Not “allowing people to play NES games for free” i…

The grandparent specifically rejected letting the Mario IP enter the public domain. So whether or not it should, that's a completely different discussion from the one being held here.

You can share a game you own even if it is still under copyright.

Re: Why old games never die, but new ones do

#67
post #63

I jailbroke my Kindle recently, because I am a little frustrated that Amazon can just decide that a book isn't mine anymore, even when I have ostensibly "bought" it. I know I could just buy physical books and sidestep this issue, but I have a lot of trouble reading small print as I get older [1] so the Kindle just works better for me since I can make the font gigantic, and the Amazon store is super convenient to buy…

How does reading EPUB files from a non-Amazon source stop Amazon from yanking your Amazon purchases?

Re: Why old games never die, but new ones do

#68

We're lacking a middle ground in copyright law that would allow people to play Mario Bros 3 on the NES for free, but doesn't give everyone the right to use the Mario IP, or to resell it en masse. (It's only possible right now because of incomplete law enforcement.) The purpose of copyright is to encourage creation, but rent-seeking on a decades old game is not it. Copyright and patents encourage creation and inventio…

Why should everyone have the right to play NES games for free?

Why should copyright last 70/95/120 years after death of the author/publication/creation (depending on the situation)?

Extension of copyright is theft from the public domain in a way that non-commercial piracy has never and will never be.

Re: Why old games never die, but new ones do

#69
post #67
post #63

I jailbroke my Kindle recently, because I am a little frustrated that Amazon can just decide that a book isn't mine anymore, even when I have ostensibly "bought" it. I know I could just buy physical books and sidestep this issue, but I have a lot of trouble reading small print as I get older [1] so the Kindle just works better for me since I can make the font gigantic, and the Amazon store is super convenient to buy…

How does reading EPUB files from a non-Amazon source stop Amazon from yanking your Amazon purchases?

I hypothetically did a few things to back up my Kindle book collection and read them with KOReader

Hypothetically of course, because breaking DRM is a crime and I would never commit any crimes.

Re: Why old games never die, but new ones do

#70
post #62
post #61

The biggest problem today is ownership . There are dozen of games that made headlines 5 years ago that you can't play today because servers are down. Some of those games are single player only. You can't host these games like you could Quake or CS back in the day, because you never owned them in the first place. I own couple hundred games on Steam and similar ammount on Epic but when I die no one will find an obscure…

> Some of those games are single player only. Like which?

I know Command and Conquer 4 and Sim City (2013) both required server access at launch to run single player.

CnC4 never removed that requirement, and the servers did go offline. Ironic because older games obviously still run SP just fine, and updating to a new MLS shouldn't be impossible - honestly, it should be a basic setting exposed to the user in every MP game.

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