5 ms·
The biggest problem today is ownership. There are dozen of games that made headlines 5 years ago that you can't play today because servers are down. Some of th
by zeroq 1y ago
The biggest problem today is ownership.
There are dozen of games that made headlines 5 years ago that you can't play today because servers are down. Some of those games are single player only.
You can't host these games like you could Quake or CS back in the day, because you never owned them in the first place.
I own couple hundred games on Steam and similar ammount on Epic but when I die no one will find an obscure CD_ROM in the attic that will urge them to find an old system they could try it on. My accounts will likely be wiped out after short period of inactivity.
Carmac made a historical move when he hosted a Quake tournament and offered his Ferrari as a reward, because he cared. Or maybe he sold his soul and the devil told him that esports will be a thing in the next 10 years. Point is - developers cared. But today, with the mcdonaldization of the industry you have countless situation like with the recent Rollerdome. Game had a stellar reviews but it didn't matter, because the moment before the game was launched the whole studio got sacked. Every single on of them.
Sure, we had issues in the past, the famous "spouses of Maxis employees vs Maxis", but today it's on a whole new level. People are naming their companies "Respawn" to indicate that they still have willingness to fight the system. And google how it turned out for them.
And then, when you finally thought there's a light at the end of the tunnel you have an endless stream of vaporware on kickstarter or projects that are - like Tarkov - for 8 years in "early access" (hey, don't be a dick, sure it's rough around the edges, but it's still in beta, bro).
All in all it was fun and games, but now it's a multi billion business now.
I've spent some time in the industry and when asked I always say it's a great adventure if you're young and have no major obligations, but god forbid you from making that your career choice.
- squigz 1y ago> Some of those games are single player only. Like which?
- ThunderSizzle 1y agoI know Command and Conquer 4 and Sim City (2013) both required server access at launch to run single player. CnC4 never removed that requirement, and the servers did go offline. Ironic because older games obviously still run SP just fine, and updating to a new MLS shouldn't be impossible - honestly, it should be a basic setting exposed to the user in every MP game.
- tempodox 1y agoIt's the same enshittification trajectory as everywhere else. It starts with a product that serves its users and once the money starts flowing in, users are turned into cattle to be milked and shorn.
- chii 1y agoso apparently, these 'users' are so lacking in agency that they willingly get milked. If so, they deserve it. There's still plenty of good games, esp. in the indie sphere, that aren't like the modern live-service-shit.
- komali2 1y agoI think it's time we as a society let go of this 7,000 year old tendency to place all blame for people suffering from how a society is set up, on individuals. Don't you think we can find a way to do that without taking away people's agency? For example, I can find news articles from the 1600s where people lament how "the newest generation just doesn't want to work anymore." So, we've tried pinning it on individuals for a while, it's clearly not the right angle. What else might be? Could it be that the systems analysis is on the right track?
- anonymars 1y ago100% agree - I usually use obesity as a simple example to make the point: "Our society became obese in a span of 50 years, how amazing that so many individuals lost their willpower!" Maybe there's a little more to it than that, eh?
- Nasrudith 1y agoThe reason why blaming individuals is so popular is because everything else is ultimately some degree of obfuscation. The most problematic part of bureaucracies of all sorts (be they government or corporate) is the ability to arrange a structure so that nobody is at fault. Even systems analysis, if such a thing could be done cleanly would reduce to "It is the fault of <X> who is capable of changing things for not doing so.".
- rjbwork 1y agoYou can host them though, if you really want. Look at https://freeinfantry.com/ https://freeinfantry.com/ These guys wrote a custom server from scratch and have hacked up the original game itself as well. It's hosted completely by the community.
- veunes 1y agoThe whole industry's sprinting toward short-term gains at the cost of legacy, and the result is a graveyard of great games barely a few years old.
- AEVL 1y ago> "spouses of Maxis employees vs Maxis" where can I read more about this?
- frameset 1y agoHere - https://ea-spouse.livejournal.com/274.html https://ea-spouse.livejournal.com/274.html
- 3abiton 1y agoThat's why I love GoG. No bs, no drm, straight up good games.
- pasta67 1y agoI really disliked Quake when it came out. Aestetically it was not pleasing and graphically even step back to DOOM2 imo. But there were players that had different views and played it... also probably they had shooter genre in higher priority while it was not on my top genre list - after racing, rpg and strategy games.