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That’s exactly the benefit of a law - it’s a forcing measure to require businesses to invest in processes to understand open sourcing, and to go forward when ot

That’s exactly the benefit of a law - it’s a forcing measure to require businesses to invest in processes to understand open sourcing, and to go forward when otherwise no one would make a business case for approval.

brobdingnagians 5mo ago
And makes it more expensive. There is the seen benefit and then the unseen cost. Every game released will have to account for the possibility of it, and will create issues for people who really didn't want those issues. After awhile people will forget there are associated issues and costs, but they will still be there.
- sowbug 5mo ago
  Putting on my Pollyanna hat... Or it could make it a lot cheaper, if the server were developed entirely on open-source infrastructure from the start. Hopefully the actual game logic would be developed entirely in-house, making it easier to audit before releasing.
  - jurgenburgen 5mo ago
    Most likely the engine providers would spin off their server components as OSS for this express purpose so their customers can easily comply. This regulation could be a huge win for making the game industry adopt more OSS.
- fluoridation 5mo ago
  Every game released whose developers have chosen to complicate its design with a client-server architecture. It's not like this is going to hurt the little three-man teams making games on shoe-string budgets. Yeah, it's going to make big budget games a little more expensive, just like how cars with seatbelts are a little more expensive to build, and like how it's a little more expensive to do proper waste management instead of dumping sludge into a river.
  - hparadiz 5mo ago
    What? This a mandate in law that requires a company to do work in order to comply. Studios will spin out LLCs for a game so that if it fails it doesn't end up as a liability. Unintended consequence: more dead games.
    - fluoridation 5mo ago
      It's impossible for the law to cause more games to die, because already the default fate of online games is for them to die. If, with the law, a studio chooses to use an LLC to create the game to conditionally release sources once it shuts down, that was a game that without the law would have died anyway because the studio wouldn't have chosen of its own volition to release sources.
      - hparadiz 5mo ago
        If a studio on it's last legs is required to service a failing product instead of working on a new one the studio will simply close and not comply. That's what tends to happen with forced regulations like this.
        fluoridation 5mo ago
        And it's what would have happened anyway without the law. How is this difficult to understand? It's not like it's only a few games that shut down without recourse for the players. Ross Scott already did the research on this. Something like 95% of all online games that shut down do so without providing any way for the players to continue playing in some way or without issuing refunds.
        Defletter 5mo ago
        Different person here, it's probably because they defensively reject anything that forces anyone to do anything, or would increase prices outside of market forces. Every argument that's used against this kind of legislation was also used against putting airbrakes on trains. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
- varispeed 5mo ago
  Middle ground could be completely open API from the start, so community could build alternative server from the ground up.
  - account42 5mo ago
    Having a documented API and the game actually abiding by it would probably be way more expensive than ensuring you can dump the source code on the community on end of life. The latter is only (sometimes) costly now because the industry is not built around it.
- rexpop 5mo ago
  Not everything that makes a product more expensive to release is the end of the world.
- Dylan16807 5mo ago
  If you plan for it from the start, it's a small cost. And the simpler the game development process the cheaper it gets.
  - socalgal2 5mo ago
    It is not. Most of the full online game stacks are not open source and most of the open source ones are poor and under featured
    - fluoridation 5mo ago
      That could change once a law comes out requiring all new developments to be designed differently. Besides, no one is talking about open sourcing the server code. Releasing binaries and patching the client to talk to a local instance is perfectly acceptable. A developer would then just need the ability to redistribute compiled builds.
      - lowdude 5mo ago
        That was my initial thought as well, but on second thought it does not seem like such a good idea to provide binaries that will never get patched for a public-facing service. Sure, not the company’s issue anymore, but still… It might make a community rewrite of the server code easier, but that would likely only be attempted for very few games.
        fluoridation 5mo ago
        It doesn't need to be public-facing. The point is not to be able to continue playing as if the game was still being supported, it's to be able to continue playing at all, in some way. You can set up a box at home and let two or three of your friends in through a VPN. Security is not a concern.
        lowdude 5mo ago
        That’s a fair point
- hedora 5mo ago
  The beauty of making it a criminal issue is that those costs go away. When the library vendor licenses some proprietary crap to a game server vendor, they take on the risk that their library may fall under the open source requirement when the game server shuts down. At shutdown, criminal law says the library vendor must open source. Since criminal law preempts contract law, no amount of weasel words in the software license change that. Even if the upstream vendor is out of business or something and did not provide source, surely, the binaries fall under the the open source clause. Problem completely solved, and no lawyers need to be paid after the fact. (Library vendors might want to pay lawyers to tell them not to license to game servers, or not. Either way, that's not the customers' problem.)
- account42 5mo ago
  The costs won't be high if doing things that way are industry standard as required by law so all middle ware is already certified for it. And its not like its a bad thing for a company to calculate in the full cost from the start rather than offloading it onto society when they drop the product.
socalgal2 5mo ago
Yes, an many indie devs will not be able to clear it.
deleted 5mo ago
[deleted]
duxup 5mo ago
Seems like it would it would put smaller developers in a bind / limit what games even bother with server side systems.

brobdingnagians 5mo ago

And makes it more expensive. There is the seen benefit and then the unseen cost. Every game released will have to account for the possibility of it, and will create issues for people who really didn't want those issues. After awhile people will forget there are associated issues and costs, but they will still be there.

sowbug 5mo ago
Putting on my Pollyanna hat... Or it could make it a lot cheaper, if the server were developed entirely on open-source infrastructure from the start. Hopefully the actual game logic would be developed entirely in-house, making it easier to audit before releasing.
- jurgenburgen 5mo ago
  Most likely the engine providers would spin off their server components as OSS for this express purpose so their customers can easily comply. This regulation could be a huge win for making the game industry adopt more OSS.
fluoridation 5mo ago
Every game released whose developers have chosen to complicate its design with a client-server architecture. It's not like this is going to hurt the little three-man teams making games on shoe-string budgets. Yeah, it's going to make big budget games a little more expensive, just like how cars with seatbelts are a little more expensive to build, and like how it's a little more expensive to do proper waste management instead of dumping sludge into a river.
- hparadiz 5mo ago
  What? This a mandate in law that requires a company to do work in order to comply. Studios will spin out LLCs for a game so that if it fails it doesn't end up as a liability. Unintended consequence: more dead games.
  - fluoridation 5mo ago
    It's impossible for the law to cause more games to die, because already the default fate of online games is for them to die. If, with the law, a studio chooses to use an LLC to create the game to conditionally release sources once it shuts down, that was a game that without the law would have died anyway because the studio wouldn't have chosen of its own volition to release sources.
    - hparadiz 5mo ago
      If a studio on it's last legs is required to service a failing product instead of working on a new one the studio will simply close and not comply. That's what tends to happen with forced regulations like this.
      - fluoridation 5mo ago
        And it's what would have happened anyway without the law. How is this difficult to understand? It's not like it's only a few games that shut down without recourse for the players. Ross Scott already did the research on this. Something like 95% of all online games that shut down do so without providing any way for the players to continue playing in some way or without issuing refunds.
        Defletter 5mo ago
        Different person here, it's probably because they defensively reject anything that forces anyone to do anything, or would increase prices outside of market forces. Every argument that's used against this kind of legislation was also used against putting airbrakes on trains. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
varispeed 5mo ago
Middle ground could be completely open API from the start, so community could build alternative server from the ground up.
- account42 5mo ago
  Having a documented API and the game actually abiding by it would probably be way more expensive than ensuring you can dump the source code on the community on end of life. The latter is only (sometimes) costly now because the industry is not built around it.
rexpop 5mo ago
Not everything that makes a product more expensive to release is the end of the world.
Dylan16807 5mo ago
If you plan for it from the start, it's a small cost. And the simpler the game development process the cheaper it gets.
- socalgal2 5mo ago
  It is not. Most of the full online game stacks are not open source and most of the open source ones are poor and under featured
  - fluoridation 5mo ago
    That could change once a law comes out requiring all new developments to be designed differently. Besides, no one is talking about open sourcing the server code. Releasing binaries and patching the client to talk to a local instance is perfectly acceptable. A developer would then just need the ability to redistribute compiled builds.
    - lowdude 5mo ago
      That was my initial thought as well, but on second thought it does not seem like such a good idea to provide binaries that will never get patched for a public-facing service. Sure, not the company’s issue anymore, but still… It might make a community rewrite of the server code easier, but that would likely only be attempted for very few games.
      - fluoridation 5mo ago
        It doesn't need to be public-facing. The point is not to be able to continue playing as if the game was still being supported, it's to be able to continue playing at all, in some way. You can set up a box at home and let two or three of your friends in through a VPN. Security is not a concern.
        lowdude 5mo ago
        That’s a fair point
hedora 5mo ago
The beauty of making it a criminal issue is that those costs go away. When the library vendor licenses some proprietary crap to a game server vendor, they take on the risk that their library may fall under the open source requirement when the game server shuts down. At shutdown, criminal law says the library vendor must open source. Since criminal law preempts contract law, no amount of weasel words in the software license change that. Even if the upstream vendor is out of business or something and did not provide source, surely, the binaries fall under the the open source clause. Problem completely solved, and no lawyers need to be paid after the fact. (Library vendors might want to pay lawyers to tell them not to license to game servers, or not. Either way, that's not the customers' problem.)
account42 5mo ago
The costs won't be high if doing things that way are industry standard as required by law so all middle ware is already certified for it. And its not like its a bad thing for a company to calculate in the full cost from the start rather than offloading it onto society when they drop the product.

socalgal2 5mo ago

Yes, an many indie devs will not be able to clear it.

deleted 5mo ago

[deleted]

duxup 5mo ago

Seems like it would it would put smaller developers in a bind / limit what games even bother with server side systems.