LAN hosted games are the golden area. Online game servers are a really interesting example of brittle software. When the server is shut down, the game breaks a

LAN hosted games are the golden area. Online game servers are a really interesting example of brittle software. When the server is shut down, the game breaks and the software _is_ unusable. This often happens because of the misaligned incentives of the business to not release the server code. This disappoints both the original developers and the consumers. I'd argue that this is not only a software problem, but mostly an problem of copyright distorting the incentives of publishers. One could imagine a client hosted game or alternative architecture that removes the central dependency on the company could be the way to build software that is built to last to last longer. In the online game I'm developing - I make sure that every client can also run as a game server. This way if my servers are shut down players can play without depending on me. My decision to remove myself as a dependency directly goes against the incentives I have as a publisher. I slightly narrow the possible monetization options for the game. Mostly I'm trying to explain why developers/publishers decide to make brittle software, even if I don't agree personally.