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 legislate that games be left in a playable state after they're no longer supported by the developer.
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(40.17%) Petition
7/7 Countries reached.
Goals:
(44.40%) of the signatures will be reached at this rate.
217 days / 31 weeks / 7 months left.
Final Day: 31/7/2025.
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Are people actually advocating for game publishers to have to keep the servers running forever? That would seem a bit of an unreasonable ask. I think a reasonable compromise would be that if they plan to shut down the servers, the publisher should have to release the server side software.
No “running the servers forever” is a bad faith argument against the initiative making it seem “unreasonable”
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.