4 ms·

The game should remain playable, even if via LAN only. How that is accomplished is the responsibility of the studio, not the player - maybe they should think tw

by bakugo 1y ago

The game should remain playable, even if via LAN only. How that is accomplished is the responsibility of the studio, not the player - maybe they should think twice before licensing proprietary components that players cannot run themselves. If the company fails to do this, they are effectively committing theft, and should be punished accordingly by the law. If studio execs think this it's an unreasonable thing to do, then they're free to not release their games to the public and keep their proprietary services to themselves.

Negitivefrags 1y ago
If the company is bankrupt, who would be charged? Or are you saying that the directors of the company would be criminally liable in this situation?
- chii 1y ago
  The game would only be legal to sell if they have the plan ahead of time before the game is on the market.
- scotty79 1y ago
  > Or are you saying that the directors of the company would be criminally liable in this situation? Well, yes. As in any case of any decisions that result in violation of the law by companies.
simsla 1y ago
It's these extreme implications why I, as a gamer and software dev, haven't signed the initiative. A lot of these things are just not feasible. And it'll be so much harder on the indie devs than on the Bungie/Blizzards. I'm afraid if this is pushed through, the studios will just switch all online experiences to be fully subscription based. No more purchasing the game, you just pay for a month of the experience.
- azthecx 1y ago
  As a software developer do you genuinely believe that it is harder for indie game developers to build online infrastructure and pay for its hosting costs rather than build some LAN feature into the game, or to package local server binaries into the game as it was done just a few decades ago?
  - ThatPlayer 1y ago
    Most indie games I've play don't even run their own online infrastructure because of costs. Why bother, when you can just use a storefront's matchmaking for free? And storefronts provide it as a means of soft lock-in. For example one of my favorites, Deep Rock Galatic, doesn't have crossplay between the Steam PC version and the Xbox PC store version of the game. And there's already software to emulate Steam's matchmaking because it's so common.

by bakugo 1y ago

Negitivefrags 1y ago

If the company is bankrupt, who would be charged? Or are you saying that the directors of the company would be criminally liable in this situation?

chii 1y ago
The game would only be legal to sell if they have the plan ahead of time before the game is on the market.
scotty79 1y ago
> Or are you saying that the directors of the company would be criminally liable in this situation? Well, yes. As in any case of any decisions that result in violation of the law by companies.

simsla 1y ago

It's these extreme implications why I, as a gamer and software dev, haven't signed the initiative. A lot of these things are just not feasible. And it'll be so much harder on the indie devs than on the Bungie/Blizzards. I'm afraid if this is pushed through, the studios will just switch all online experiences to be fully subscription based. No more purchasing the game, you just pay for a month of the experience.

azthecx 1y ago
As a software developer do you genuinely believe that it is harder for indie game developers to build online infrastructure and pay for its hosting costs rather than build some LAN feature into the game, or to package local server binaries into the game as it was done just a few decades ago?
- ThatPlayer 1y ago
  Most indie games I've play don't even run their own online infrastructure because of costs. Why bother, when you can just use a storefront's matchmaking for free? And storefronts provide it as a means of soft lock-in. For example one of my favorites, Deep Rock Galatic, doesn't have crossplay between the Steam PC version and the Xbox PC store version of the game. And there's already software to emulate Steam's matchmaking because it's so common.