this post was submitted on 13 May 2024
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How enforceable is this legislation in face of games that simply cannot function without multiplayer? The developers of a game similar to Among Us would be forced to update the game with bots to be compliant?
I signed the petition but can't say I'm hopeful the Parliament will write good legislation on this...
I'm not a programmer or IT specialist or anything but I think the ask would be more like,
They don't need to program bots, they need to open the code enough for fans to keep the game functional. Like when I was a kid I could play multi player games with my friends by typing their phone number into the game. Our computers would connect through the phone lines and we could battle for the fate of Azeroth. I still remember the phone number of the friend I did that with.
That makes sense. Another commenter pointed out that even for defunct MMORPGs people were able to spin up their own servers to keep the game alive. If companies are forced to provide something to help that, it's already a win.
I'm not hopeful Canada would be able to pass legislation forcing companies to open source things, though. Maybe if this was the EU lol our track record of fighting tech companies hasn't been pretty.
It would probably just result in games not being for sale in Canada.
Maybe a progressive tax, not a ban, eg if your game grosses say $1M sales in Canada you pay a higher tax rate if you don't attest that you've set aside enough cash to do this when you sunset the game. Then if you said you'd do it but don't, the CRA can come after you. Revenue from this tax could be earmarked for computer education or indie studio grants or something.
That sounds like a nightmare! I don't think game developers (or any other artist) would want the CRA breathing down their neck, telling them what they can or can't do with their work. I certainly wouldn't program under those conditions.
... then just pay the higher tax rate? You already grossed a million dollars in sales.
Open sourcing it is the solution but there is no enforcement possible
Studios can just shut down unless they are required to hand the source over to enter the market
This would be an issue if the servers use any proprietary code, libraries, or services the developer is not at liberty to distribute.
A studio may also to reuse their networking code for a sequel, and it would suck being forced to release that just because an older title got discontinued - could lead to exploits, or just competitors profiting off of your hard work with no compensation in exchange.
They could just keep the game running to avoid that
But if the source isn’t available then the game will eventually be lost
You pose a good question. There are many ways that it can be implemented and of course it depends on the game. Have a solo/offline mode, replace online multiplayer with local multiplayer or direct connect (for games like Among Us), release a dedicated server (so groups of people can start their own.
At a minimum, it needs to be better than "Could not reach game server, please check your connection and try again." The standard we could hold companies to would be through each province's consumer rights agency, but would have the legislation properly behind their efforts.
I feel the same way regarding whether this legislation would be enforceable or good, but there are a lot of ways developers could make this work that they currently don't. That includes bot players, local multiplayer functionality, dedicated server tools, IP-based connections, etc. Many DRM and anti-cheat implementations also cause problems and would need to be either removed or only used in certain contexts.
Right now in a lot of games if you aren't playing multiplayer on official servers through official matchmaking functions with invasive kernel-level anti-cheat there's no other way to play, but that hasn't always been the case nor does it need to be the case.
Publish the source. Look at id and Quake/Quakeworld. The game is still alive and well after Romero released all source codes to let people iterate their own clients and servers.
I imagine it being basically impossible for MMORPG games. How do you keep an MMORPG alive without removing the MMO part?
There are player-run servers for MMORPGs such as Ultima Online and EverQuest. If the developers released the server software the fans wouldn’t have to implement their own (which they did for those two games). If the company is no longer running their own servers they are no longer making money from subscriptions so they won’t lose money to competition from player-run servers.
Wow, TIL. People are amazing.