Its because they know this will shackle companies with these shitty live service games since they can’t imagine making some self hostable version at EoL. This will essentially kill live service games, I bet execs and investors are that stupid. I fucken pray it passes.
The basic idea is that if your game is designed in such a way that it must be always online to substantially function…
… when that always online support ends, you must provide a final patch and release enough of the server architecture that, if people wanted to, indpendently, they at least could set up their own version of the serverside stuff.
Either that, or, you must refund all microtransactions made in that always online world that is now by definition, impossible to access.
If microtransactions are digital goods, then shutting down the servers without any ability to emulate/run them yourself is the equivalent of half of your closet’s contents disappearing from existence when the clothing brand goes out of business.
It depends on what you mean by “charge money”. Subscription monthly payment? Not affected. One-time purchase? Affected.
Essentially, if your average consumer would understand that you “bought” the game, then that game cannot be rendered completely inoperable. When the studio shuts down their servers, they must provide either a version of the game with multiplayer and server connection disabled, or provide a means for players to run their own servers.
Under the Stop Killing Games proposal, games like Destiny can still be run exactly the way they have been till now, same game, business model, everything. All they would need to do now that they are shutting down the game is to provide source code for the game backend, for the parts that they wrote themselves.
Any third party tool source code cannot be provided, and is not reasonable to ask for, so a working server can’t just be spun up, but the rest of the source code will be enough for fans of the game to get a working third party server going for others that want to enjoy Destiny again.
Just publishing the source code with no further support is legit as far as SKG is concerned. That’s the bare minimum required to allow people to keep playing the games they paid for. If publishers are looking at this basic request of consumer rights from people, and concluding that it’s unreasonable to the level that they can no longer produce these games. Then they shouldn’t be making these games.
Any workable solution will do. The source code request is to counter the argument that adapting end of life plans are too expensive/make the product finiancially unviable. If you release the source code and leave the community to figure it out themselves, it costs you nothing.
Cool. A full specification seems fair. I wonder how much copyright would hinder their goals here for forcing the full code. And I could see companies eventually constructing licensing and other structures that basically mean every bit of the core functionally of the server is actually licensed from or provided by a vendor as a shield.
Could the code be released but encumbered by licenses or copyright? Seems like something else to navigate.
I support the idea of games not being killed. I just find the demands very surprising. And can see why this is an uphill battle.
Its because they know this will shackle companies with these shitty live service games since they can’t imagine making some self hostable version at EoL. This will essentially kill live service games, I bet execs and investors are that stupid. I fucken pray it passes.
I thought the stop killing games was only for games that charge money to play and that live service games would not be affected.
Am I wrong here?
The basic idea is that if your game is designed in such a way that it must be always online to substantially function…
… when that always online support ends, you must provide a final patch and release enough of the server architecture that, if people wanted to, indpendently, they at least could set up their own version of the serverside stuff.
Either that, or, you must refund all microtransactions made in that always online world that is now by definition, impossible to access.
If microtransactions are digital goods, then shutting down the servers without any ability to emulate/run them yourself is the equivalent of half of your closet’s contents disappearing from existence when the clothing brand goes out of business.
Thanks for the breakdown on this!
It depends on what you mean by “charge money”. Subscription monthly payment? Not affected. One-time purchase? Affected.
Essentially, if your average consumer would understand that you “bought” the game, then that game cannot be rendered completely inoperable. When the studio shuts down their servers, they must provide either a version of the game with multiplayer and server connection disabled, or provide a means for players to run their own servers.
But that would ironically be killing a subset of games.
We are pro-life here, right? /s
If that subset of gaming is exesentially tied to the systemtic abuse of consumer rights, then that subset should not exist.
But I liked Destiny.
Good news Bungie doesn’t so it’s a self solving problem.
They are still running Destiny 1. So, they are better than most live service providers in one particular way. At the moment at least.
Destiny 1 came out about a decade ago.
Under the Stop Killing Games proposal, games like Destiny can still be run exactly the way they have been till now, same game, business model, everything. All they would need to do now that they are shutting down the game is to provide source code for the game backend, for the parts that they wrote themselves.
Any third party tool source code cannot be provided, and is not reasonable to ask for, so a working server can’t just be spun up, but the rest of the source code will be enough for fans of the game to get a working third party server going for others that want to enjoy Destiny again.
Just publishing the source code with no further support is legit as far as SKG is concerned. That’s the bare minimum required to allow people to keep playing the games they paid for. If publishers are looking at this basic request of consumer rights from people, and concluding that it’s unreasonable to the level that they can no longer produce these games. Then they shouldn’t be making these games.
Would an API specification be acceptable? I’m surprised they are demanding source code at all.
Any workable solution will do. The source code request is to counter the argument that adapting end of life plans are too expensive/make the product finiancially unviable. If you release the source code and leave the community to figure it out themselves, it costs you nothing.
Cool. A full specification seems fair. I wonder how much copyright would hinder their goals here for forcing the full code. And I could see companies eventually constructing licensing and other structures that basically mean every bit of the core functionally of the server is actually licensed from or provided by a vendor as a shield.
Could the code be released but encumbered by licenses or copyright? Seems like something else to navigate.
I support the idea of games not being killed. I just find the demands very surprising. And can see why this is an uphill battle.