“It’s a weird, challenging problem, though, because I think that at the same time, if we’re going to have any games that are sincere live services, it seems mutually exclusive to have something that’s going to be a living thing that can’t be allowed to die. I don’t know how to get around that.”
Dedicated servers. Let people host their own servers. How is this so fucking hard to understand? When the company is ready to move on and retire their official servers they can do so without invoking ire from the playerbase.
Or keep the live service model, but label things correctly:
You’re getting a subscription to the service that’s guaranteed to last at least until [planned minimum end date]. Make it illegal to label anything using “buy” that doesn’t grant a permanent, non-expiring license to the software or digital good.
There’s nothing wrong with charging for a subscription. If that’s their product, and the only way they can offer the product, then clearly market it that way and there’s no legal problem under the proposed rules.
Granted, that still sucks for videogame preservation, but at least it’s honest. And I’m not sure how many people will be willing to shell out $80+ for a “minimum 24 month subscription” to a new game, or pay $9.99 for a "micro"transaction they’re guaranteed to keep access to for
8 7 65 months.Yup. Even just release the match matching server as a Linux app would be better than what they do now which is just kill it all.
The problem (for them) with that is that the server is what keeps the live service shit locked down so you have to pay for it. If you control the servers, you also control the unlockable items. They don’t want that. They want to nickel and dime you with skins.
I know what you mean, but they’re going to abandon it eventually, right? What matters is how they abandon it; what they leave behind. Currently, they leave nothing for the playerbase.
If they need to retire the live service to move forward, so be it. But if I wanna boot up a server for a night of gameplay with friends on some retired game I should be able to do so.
Allowing dedicated servers after said live service retirement is the fix.
They don’t want it to be competing with their new releases, even if it’s only a small theoretical competition that doesn’t actually occur in the real world, so they currently have a small incentive to kill it. This is why there needs to be regulations introduced to ensure the server software is released when they shut it down.
are you even allowed to host dedicated servers for console games? i don’t think we’ll ever get those sadly, they’re stuck on offical ps/ms/nintendo/game company hosted servers without a way to spin one up and have users join those (which completely goes against online subscription fees for the consoles).
They used to have them for some OG xbox games and PS2 games.
I mean hosting a game via a server binary you’re hosting, not your game console acting as a dedicated server. I believe Mecassault for Xbox had lobbies you would manually join because it was pre-matchmaking and some players would mic check you too.
I mean hosting a game via a server binary you’re hosting, not your game console acting as a dedicated server.
What do you think the game console is doing when you are running a dedicated server on it? 🤨
Well only in 8th gen there was dedicated servers, before that I know it was all peer to peer.
“CEO veers off-topic into existential crisis.” Cool but what about some promise of people actually owning their games, Randy?
“Sorry, best I can do is some half-assed magic tricks”
And shitty guitar + singing
I can still find Unreal Tournament 99 game servers to play on. Now remind me Randy. What game engine are you licensing and using for your games? Unreal Engine?
Shut the fuck up Randy.
This is the most softball-assed “interview” I’ve ever seen. PC Gamer is full of clowns
And all things end
All that we intend
is scrawled in sand
It slips right through our hand
And just knowing
That everything will end
Should not change our plan
Whеn we begin againI think that a solution is a “warranty” of sorts. They have a clearly define date which the are promising the game will be playable until. If they end the game early they have to offer a prorated refund for the “time lost” or provide a solution so you can play without their servers.
I would additionally want this to be required to be communicated outside the ULA and must be presented in language that even children can understand. Preferably both before and after purchase.
