this post was submitted on 12 Dec 2024
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Stop Killing Games
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[EU] Stop Killing Games:
The grassroots movement to prevent game publishers from disabling older games with kill switches after official support ends.
Milestones:
(41.40%) Petition
7/7 Countries reached.
Statistics
Current: 2,650 signatures weekly
Target: 23,440 signatures weekly
Safe Target: 31,440 signatures weekly
Goals:
(48%) of the signatures will be reached at this rate.
175 days / 25 weeks / 6 months left.
Final Day: 31/7/2025.
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No “running the servers forever” is a bad faith argument against the initiative making it seem “unreasonable”
It's also subtly re-enforcing capital's position games need to operate on a centralised server model. I look back at many old multiplayer games where all I need to play with my friends is a local network. These days we get sold single player games that can't run under those conditions.
They aren't scared of being made to run servers forever. Quite the opposite, they are scared of us not needing them to.
Doesn't even have to be local.
Still plenty of Enemy Territory servers going around. No need to set up a VPN or anything to play with your friends.
Why else would you want to play their new games if they can't force restricted access on your old games.
For real though, I miss games that could sync up multiplayer over LAN.
I mean, it could be interpreted as such. Easiest way to deal with this interpretation is by providing clear and concise explanations what precisely is being fought for. Not for those of us who are keeping an eye on things, for those who hear about it suddenly or purposefully use bad faith arguments.
Gotta communicate STRONGLY nowadays.
i think the simplest explanation is this:
If your game requires a server component to be played, let players run the server. Ideally from day 1, but at least as part of shutting down your game.
it's really not hard, that's how multi-player games worked until lootboxes took off and replaced modding.
WoW was server side long before that… RuneScape…
Don’t make shit up, it doesn’t help get people on your side of the argument, it actually pushes them the other way.
i am not making shit up, I promise I've ran many game servers over the years. I am obviously generalizing as of course there are counter examples especially MMOs.
But then there is warcraft 1 through 3 that were peer to peer and quake, half life, unreal, painkiller, enemy territory, and just about every fps game of the era that came with the software to run your own dedicated server, or could host a listen server while playing.
If you want to just look at a single very mainstream example, look at call of duty. Everything up to and including cod4:mw came with the software to run your own server. nothing after it did, though a few let you 'run your own server' by paying their approved hosting provider to run a copy for you, but it was always under their control and not something you could just set up on hardware you already have.
Absolutly!!! Dedicated servers was and is the bomb. Gives you a way to build community around your servers.
i bring you, the incredible concept of a dedicated server.
A few games, small ones, like minecraft, have discovered that you can just release a server binary, and people will figure everything else out, regardless of whether or not you document anything, or tell anybody how to do anything.
Even if you have a huge MMO with a centralized server, i see no reason you shouldn't have a dedicated server infrastructure.