well, while i understand sunsetting old online multiplayer games because hosting game servers is a non zero cost, i can't understand the need for singleplayer games to be always connected and rendering them unplayable
this post was submitted on 03 Aug 2024
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The company wouldn't be required to keep their servers online, just to allow other people to host their own. So it has 0 ongoing cost and maybe few hours of coding during game development.
Unless you are a game developer I would hold off on assuming how much work would be required to do what this proposal asks.
Used to be the norm back in the day though. I'm saying 15 years or so before the old internet disappeared with AWS etc.
Self hosted should be an option and I think this is a reasonable requirement tbqh. Yeah it's not 0 work but it's not a hardship either, really, given the many hours that are going to be needed on netcode anyway. Especially if you know this going in to development.
That isn't an unreasonable take. But the language this proposal uses is far too vague and leaves too much in the hands of the government, and could be used by the EU, an organization not really known for their tech savvy, to place some burdensome requirements on developers....especially indie developers who do not have the resources that big studios have.
Indie developers are the only ones doing that, Knockout City devs released their hosting software for the community, it's the AAA developers that wanted to maintain control.
Wat
Building a whole cloud backend is not a few hours work.
Plus I bet most of these companies share cloud tooling so they'll need to make distinct standalone self host code
Most of what they use built-in in game engines, not their standalone code. It's a matter of switching the servers used with some minor tweaks.
Ask any professional senior software developer if they ever maintained an existing or new codebase and made the mistake of thinking "oh easy! it's just a matter of doing this or that and changing a couple of small things. Won't take longer than . " Then ask them how long it really took.
Post results here for our amusement :)
My few hours comment was never exact for a reason, but it reasonably conveys that the work requires is trivial in the full game development cycle and not an insurmountable task that will bankrupt game developers like you try to do.
Bloviating and exaggerating with obvious lies won’t get people on your side dude… at least it shouldn’t, but weirder shits been upvoted.
While simply allowing the game to use a variable for the server URL is easy, the VAST majority of gamers would assume it'd come with a clean server installer and the ability to set the URL in some kind of UI.
Both of those details are very much NOT simple in many cases. Sure, quite a few well written games, it could be done quickly, but as someone who's worked on software for decades ... it's NEVER well written. Especially when video game studio style crunch is involved.
This is still a good petition and good idea, but to assume "just a few hours" is ... simply ignorant.
Does it need to be simple? I think it's pretty reasonable to just release what you have as is, then let the users figure out how to run it for themselves.
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Hah.
There's actually nothing wrong with no longer supporting a game you developed. The problem is these scummy bastards make sure no one can support the game or run it privately after they abandon it.
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If you are a European Citizen, sign it. It takes a minute of your time. Not more.
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I could see this leading to standardizing and outsourcing multiplayer services, which would be interesting.
That being said, before that happens, as a developer I'd be like: here's a zip file with all of our proprietary stuff ripped out. Have fun spending the next few months getting it to work well. Congratulations, you're now supporting a game that did poorly enough for us to drop it.
But seriously, go sign it. Long term it should be a good thing.
The proposal is precisely about not letting your snake ass do that, since it would be no different than spinning a private server, customers shouldn't have to learn how to analyse network packages and break DRM just to play a game they paid for because you turned off your server.
Either sell it as a subscription or sell it as packaged product, not both.
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While this would be great for those "online needed to play" games, wouldn't this also lead to companies preferring subscription models?
I'd assume it's easier to not include multiplayer in the "base" game and just charge a monthly subscription for the online part. Now the proposed law wouldn't apply, since the customer only paid for the base game.
It's pretty obvious what the intention of the writers of the proposal is, but I feel like it could have an opposite effect and push even more to the "games as a service" model those greedy publishers so desperately want.
Still better than the shit we have where Ubisoft just stole my game, The Crew.
That's part of the intention, either make a service or sell a game, companies are getting it both ways without the responsibility of neither.
Prepare for it to be official that you own nothing.
Cool, than I can just stop buying new games.
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The problem is that a lot of companies are already launching dead-on-arrival live service games, so unless they're willing to make something unique, all they will do is saturate the market further and keep burning money. I don't think this law would change those incentives much if at all.
The reality is GaaS is exteremely hard to success. Every one success GaaS, there are probably 20 or 50 failed one that we even never heard.
Just signed it. Took 10 seconds with my ID-Card.
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