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2024 was the year gamers really started pushing back on the erosion of game ownership
(www.pcgamer.com)
this post was submitted on 23 Dec 2024
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What online games have existed forever without needing the community to reverse engineer it?
Quake is one of the oldest ones out there. Any game where you can host the server yourself can exist forever. It used to be very common that the server code was provided to you with your copy of the game.
I was referring to live service games like MMOs but thats sort of a good example. Should mmo developers release games with the server code so people can just use their own instead?
Most developers release server code when its a benefit for them and their userbase. Most developers won't when its a benefit for their userbase but not themselves.
The stop canceling games movement is overly broad. Also, how is the crew the game everyones going to bat for? Did noone know of ubisoft before they bought the game? Stop buying ubisoft.
Live service games are just about defined by not releasing their servers. Just because they don't, it doesn't mean they shouldn't. With any luck, a court somewhere will decide that reasonable consumers cannot adequately tell the difference between a game with an expiration date, like the Crew, and a game that will last.
Theres no assumption even physical games will last. Physical copies degrade and are not produced anymore, and companies stop providing servers to download games from as well.
Could you explain why anyone would have an expectation the game they bought would work forever?
Because the copy of Mario they bought 40 years ago still works, as does the copy of Quake they bought 30 years ago.
So the average user, who we are talking about, is the type of person to keep NES carts in working order for 40 years, or to somehow keep their quake CD working for 30 years? And the NES itself surely still works on top of that.
Also, correct me if I'm wrong but quake won't run on modern OSs without an emulator, so I dont know how that helps.
Quake is open source and has about a thousand different ways to run on modern computers, but it will also still run on the computer you ran it on in the 90s. I'd assume the average person expects to put the video game in their console and be able to play the video game. The Crew doesn't function at all when you do that right now, due to no fault of the customer to take care of the thing they bought.
I won't fact check you that quake apparently runs on native windows 10/11, but even so I dont think anyone expected the game to exist or run forever.
I guess I'm the weird one but I expect MMOs to have a shelf life, and a short one at that. Thats one of the downsides of that game type.
I dont think the argument that peoples expectations were broken is valid. I might agree that people didnt expect the game to be removed from their libraries, but thats what happens in any software store when something becomes unlisted. They didnt remove it from peoples computers, just removed the download.
Deceptive, maybe I suppose if ubisoft implied the game would work offline, or if it had ever worked offline.
I also dont think someone discovering a developer/tester "offline mode" means much of anything.