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The problem is the cost and knowledge base required to keep servers running. A game server is a big proprietary ball of spaghetti with hundreds of API endpoints
by dtagames 1y ago
The problem is the cost and knowledge base required to keep servers running. A game server is a big proprietary ball of spaghetti with hundreds of API endpoints and only the people who built it really know how it works[0]. It's expensive to keep those folks around and expensive to pay for the cloud services and SaaS tools they need to do their jobs.
All software has a "lifecycle" and has to be turned off at some point because no one is willing to pay the costs of keeping it running (with hosting and client changes as ongoing moving targets). We see this even with games that have sales! So ones that don't have sales are not likely to attract anyone to pay for such staff.
[0] Source: I spent 2 years inside a studio owned by "big gaming."
- proc0 1y agoIt could be paid by taxes, and run by government. Something like the Internet Archive (not sure if that's public but the entire Internet is much larger than all games put together).
- jerjerjer 1y agoGames with single-player mode must be playable in a fully offline mode. Would solve your (very valid) issue for a large chunk of games.
- tgsovlerkhgsel 1y agoThere is a petition that would require publishers to leave games in a playable state at end-of-life (https://eci.ec.europa.eu/045/public/#/screen/home https://eci.ec.europa.eu/045/public/#/screen/home), but it doesn't look like it will reach the threshold that would require the parliament to respond. It is one of the bigger petitions though, so it might still trigger some action.
- solardev 1y agoWait, in the EU you can just petition the government and they have to respond after some threshold?
- LM358 1y agoYes, both at the EU level and also in many countries (EU and non-EU), see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Citizens%27_Initiative https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Citizens%27_Initiativ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popular_initiative https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popular_initiative
- tgsovlerkhgsel 1y ago"Some threshold" is doing a lot of work here, since the requirement is a million signatures (which also need to be from multiple countries). I made a small mistake, the response will be from the Commission, not Parliament, because only the Commission can propose laws anyways - but you do get a hearing in parliament. But essentially, even crossing the million signature threshold doesn't win you anything but a slightly bigger soap box and the promise of the Commission giving you a "no" in writing rather than just ignoring you. There is no requirement to actually act on it, and no way to force it (unlike e.g. in Switzerland where actual binding popular votes can be initiated with enough signatures).
- nly 1y agoWe have this in the UK too,but it's a waste of time. You just get a stock/automated response to most petitions. That said, they are required to set aside some parliamentary time for it and for petitions to be "debated".
- codedokode 1y agoThis might be solved in future by more advanced LLMs as long as binaries are preserved.
- ldng 1y agoWhat your saying is true BUT. Your are talking about keeping servers (plural ?) running but, for conservancy, you should not need a full fledge cloud. It not about keeping it running for millions of customers. It's about being able to run for research to study games in the long run. One server that can handle a couple or two clients should be enough for conservancy.
- dtagames 1y agoPeople are the harder problem. A game server is not a box you turn on and it just runs. The platforms themselves change under you all the time as do all the SaaS tools you rely on. Clients change all the time, too, and one missed update can make your game unrunnable. Folks don't want to train or pay the humans needed to keep server-based games alive.
- Nullabillity 1y agoEasy; if you don't want to pay for keeping up with SaaS, don't use SaaS! This is an entirely self-inflicted problem, and it's on you (as in, the gamedev) to fix it.
- trinsic2 1y ago> All software has a "lifecycle" and has to be turned off at some point because no one is willing to pay the costs of keeping it running (with hosting and client changes as ongoing moving targets). We see this even with games that have sales! So ones that don't have sales are not likely to attract anyone to pay for such staff. [0] Source: I spent 2 years inside a studio owned by "big gaming. You mean SAAS has a life cycle. Software itself can be run by people willing to keep it running. The whole "software should be turned off" comment is you trying to change perception about what software is.
- musicale 1y agoThe comparison is vs. games on physical media. Many Atari 2600 game cartridges still work, more than 40 years after they were originally manufactured. You can still use them in a new Atari 2600+/7800+ console.
- kubb 1y agoThen how do unofficial WoW, Diablo 2 or Lineage 2 servers exist? Enthusiasts run them for free.
- jsheard 1y agoDue to huge reverse engineering efforts which few games get, especially after the official servers have already shut down so there's no reference implementation anymore. For every game which gets unofficial servers, a few dozen never will.
- kubb 1y agoSo people can run servers even without the server source code, and the problem preventing leaving the server code to the Library of Congress, etc. is not "the cost and knowledge base required to keep servers running".
- mpalmer 1y ago...therefore it shouldn't be preserved at all? This doesn't follow. No one mentioned running the code, just persisting it for the future public good