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Didn’t watch the video but I read his response comment and it basically boils down to “wah, devs will have to spend money and effort to make the game playable after shutdown”.
Yeah, because we fucking paid for it.
But it wouldn’t even take that much effort, despite what he says. They already have a server executable. They literally could just give us the exact binar(y/ies) that’s running on their servers (plus database schema I guess) and let us figure it out from there.
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And his “solution” is to make it clear before purchase that you’re only buying a license and it can be revoked or made useless at any point. Except companies can argue they already do that. It’s right there in the EULA, you did read it, right? You were supposed to. If not, it’s your fault you thought you were actually buying something.
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Aside from that it completely ignores that half the point is to preserve the games. When a company shuts down a (live service) game’s server, it’s dead. No one can ever play that game again. But people liked that game and want to keep playing it. They saw entertainment and artistic value in it and that value has been destroyed (well, locked away). It’s like the movies Warner Bros Discovery shitcanned despite pretty much being complete.
You can argue against the artistic value of games (and the WBD “capeshit” movies that were scrapped) and I know a lot of people here would. But the fact is some people see artistic value in it, even a lot of people, therefore it is an art.
Lmao yeah it's definitely small indie dev houses pushing this live service bullshit and not giant publishers who actually have the resources to maintain the servers for that sort of thing
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Does No Man’s Sky count as an indie dev making a live service game? It’s basically a live service game, just not a greedy money sucking one.
But yeah, a vast majority live service games are coming from large corporations squeezing every last penny they can out of you.
You're greedy.
Who's greedy, the consumer or the heartless art destroying corporation lol?
The desire to preserve art isn't greed. And quite frankly the live service model was greed-driven from the outset. So if corpos have to suffer a bit for it, great, love that for them.
Oh won’t someone think of all of those poor cash-strapped small indie devs self-publishing live service games
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Do you just not understand the ask here? We’re not asking companies to host servers forever on their own dime. We’re asking them to give us the binaries so we can host the servers ourselves. It costs them nothing except maybe the one time effort of preparing the binary for public release.
Or you get what you want and all you'll get is a protocol the game because the rest of it is proprietary and puts other games at risk of being compromised
The whole game is proprietary, but we still get the client software (for now…). It’s perfectly reasonable to ask for the server software to go along with it, and many games do provide that (Minecraft for example). And if someone having access to your server’s code - either through reverse engineering the binaries or even it being source-available - is a security issue, you’ve got shit security. Security by obscurity isn’t security.
You’re greedy.
You say in defense of multi-billion dollar corporations that are trying to squeeze every last penny out of people through various methods including psychological manipulation tactics taken straight from the gambling industry. Only to then cut it all off and leave them with nothing because it’s no longer profitable.
You're greedy.
Yeah, I expect the thing I paid $70 for to keep working despite it being marginally inconvenient for the people that sold me that product. How selfish of me.
We'll see how well you handle being taken to court after burning through all your cash, I'm sure you'd regret signing that petition.
Limited liability corporations are called that because their liability is limited by how much money they have, lmao. The accusation would simply lose their money, the court cannot force blood out of a stone. What are you talking about.
Or you get what you want and all you'll get is a protocol the game [...]
Or you can make server.exe (or god forbid, server.elf) runnable locally, like literally every other multiplayer game under the sun that allows public servers.
You better brush up on [...]
I'm sorry overpaid consultants set you up for a scam infrastructure setup. That sounds like a skill issue.
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Or... just give the players a server download, or make a singleplayer game, or make it work over lan or...
There's so many possibilities as soon as you get out of the vampire mindset
How about you spin up a live service game or a game with online components requiring constant support and updates
How about everybody stops making slop like that, instead?
How about people make actually good games instead?
You better brush up on c++, kubetneties, load balancing, AWS, encryption, writing net code, etc.
Actually, I am doing or planning to do stuff like this in the coming weeks, in addition to making assets for a game I'm making. I am not making live service garbage, though.
Also, how about people stop simping for some of the worst and richest monsters on the planet?
I just posted this comment in this thread:
He and his Reddit fanboys believe that the campaign is meant to force companies to host servers forever, and it will apply retroactively to every game to exist, and every publisher will have to give the games away for free forever, and Ross Scott will come and take your toothbrush. Or, he doesn't believe this and is just trolling and slandering.
And here we have an example of exactly what I mean. Let me type it out so that you can understand: THE WHOLE POINT OF THE CAMPAIGN IS THAT GAMES SHOULD WORK WITHOUT SUPPORT FROM THE PUBLISHER. THE SERVER SUPPORT CAN END AT ANY TIME AS FAR AS IT IS CONCERNED. Seriously, where the hell do you fucking morons even get this idea that the publisher is being asked to support the game forever? Every video from Accursed Farms has SUPER DUPER EXTREMELY clear about this. The website is SUPER DUPER EXTREMELY clear about this. And this shouldn't even need to be explained, because NOWHERE has it been implied that the publisher should support the game forever, and it has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with the campaign.
because the rest of it is proprietary and puts other games at risk of being compromised
Wow, not the customers fucking problem.
and pay for all of the server infrastructure to get it working.
Not the publishers problem and none of your business.
nobody wants your opinion and nobody values it either.How come so many of you effin low-info simps use the same painfully stupid line? Is it the only copypasta you can read?
Goddamn just look at this mess... Look! the idea that someone should suffer this insultingly stupid opinion for 3 full paragraphs is just fucking rude. Tighten your shit up.
I was hoping i could get your attention. Make sure you don't "forget" again or ill rip another hole in that useless baggage you call an ego.
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You are a very stupid person who is unable to form their own opinion about anything. Despite this you still need to feel superior, so you regurgitate the most common mainstream arguments whenever you run into anything that disagrees with what your peanut mind has been told is correct. When you receive pushback you think it is because the other side is triggered or full of shills, this too is something you've been told to think and it is much more comfortable to you than the idea you might have to actually research something before you can speak on it.
You are a massive dumbass and your parents failed in raising you
I really don't get that guy's deal. He goes by "Pirate Software" but his world view seems entirely opposed to piracy and even software ownership.
I remember him bragging about baking Steam achievements deep into his game so it couldn't be pirated, or something like that.
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He was a Nepo hire at blizzard who then failed his way upwards to work cybersec where he oversaw the period with the largest amount of cybersec scandals. He then quit his job in order to spend 6 years to develop a half-assed earthbound clone that's still not finished. At some point he started streaming where he would tell made-up stories about how he didn't suck at his at blizzard.
Or so I'm told.
Let's not pretend that Blizzard doesn't treat their workers like shit or that Blizzard has competent management. We have proof that they are run horribly and allow abuse to run rampant.
I remember him bragging about baking Steam achievements deep into his game so it couldn't be pirated, or something like that.
I remember someone on r/gamedev bragging about doing that, only to get immediately dunked on by people pointing out that making a game dependent on steam achievements not bugging out is dumb and risky and that the literal exact same program used to bypass steam DRM in the first place can also emulate its achievement API if you just check a box asking it to do that while applying the crack.
he's the john oliver of internet hacker libs. he zeroes in on one kinda relevant issue but then never connects it to anything else and just repeats the default "common sense" knowledge.
People got to like him because he had some funny clips going around in meme channels but really he's just a nepo baby with skin in the game on this issue who refuses to look outside of the box of the mindset that gives him.
At one point he made a video complaining about muh politics in his community and both sides-ing Israel/Palestine. Complete lib cope.
Stopkillinggames.com is a campaign against video game publishers scamming customers by remotely disabling always-online games. The guy in the picture is PirateSoftware, who owns a video game company and is a weird libertarian. He and his Reddit fanboys hate the campaign, and they make up absurd arguments and lies against it.
Some guy named PirateSoftware is campaigning to defend game publishers and limit access to abandonware games?
"Live services" are among the most disgustingly exploitative and art-destroying (the game vanishes the moment they feel like it) concepts that corpos have come up with in recent years, and like so many of their most recent "innovations" they weren't asked for, weren't wanted, and yet here they are anyway.
lmao I love how even if I was interested in playing Destiny 2 for the story content, I literally cannot as chunks of it have been removed from the game and are inaccessible thanks to the Live Service treadmill. Including DLC people paid separately for, apparently!
I still remember the live service Ace Combat game, Ace Combat Infinity. Basically the developers of Ace Combat (Project Aces) were broke because they decided to turn their narrative driven, fictional universe, fighter jet videogame into Call of Duty with fighter planes, with United States vs Russia WW3 nonsense to top it off. This game, Assault Horizon, pretty much killed the franchise. So Ace Combat Infinity was created as a free to play live service game in a desperate attempt to raise funds so that the franchise could continue with a new mainline game eventually. (Spoilers, the plan succeeded, Ace Combat 7 came out and was a big it).
The gameplay of Ace Combat Infinity basically consisted of single player missions from the Playstation 2 Ace Combat trilogy, remastered to PlayStation 3 graphics and played online with other players acting as your teammates. There were two competing teams, and whoever got the highest score won. While it was fun, the free to play elements were a rip off financially, and there was little new content. The playerbase didn't really mind though, because Project Aces were very transparent about their intentions with Infinity. But there was some value in re-playing classic missions live Stonehenge and Avalon Dam with friends online with HD graphics. But now that's all shut down and it's impossible to play the game. So all that is lost. (Ironic for a game with Infinity in its name).
But the point is for me, that this really reveals the nature of live service and free to play games. They exist to make the most money possible first, and as art second, if at all. The only reason Project Aces even made a game like this was as a last ditch attempt to keep the lights on and their game series alive. They saw this game genre as an emergency cash injection. And they show no intentions of making another live service or free to play game in future. Thst to me really speaks to the nature of these live service games. That game developers see this type of game, the same way we say cheap and dirty ways to get money.
Infinity was also when Bamco decided to go all in on f2p games, which resulted in such games as Ridge Racer Unbound, and I don't remember all of them. All I remember is this giving bamco the reputation of being even more money grubbing than either EA or Activision infamously was, which somehow Bamco kept on being incredibly money grubbing which may be the reason a simple ass frame data thing for T7 was a paid dlc.
He and his Reddit fanboys believe that the campaign is meant to force companies to host servers forever, and it will apply retroactively to every game to exist, and every publisher will have to give the games away for free forever, and Ross Scott will come and take your toothbrush. Or, he doesn't believe this and is just trolling and slandering.
and it will apply retroactively to every game to exist
No but in all seriousness if some sort of like, forced art preservation measure were to apply to live service games that have already shut down I would be behind that lmao. I want a full release of all of Final Fantasy Record Keeper's content. Or at least for the means for fans to put that together themselves to be released. Idk, I'm not expert. But I know I'm pro art preservation.
This despite the fact that over every single video he was proposing this in, Ross was explicitly clear that this isn't forcing server owners to do anything other than make it possible for other people to host servers on their own dime. Something currently impossible for most live service games
Man I keep seeing clips of this guy around and was immediately put off by his I'm-so-smart-and-cool affectation straight out of the bowels of an undergrad compsci program so I'm glad he's also tangibly a loser nepo baby liberal grindset failson too. And worse, a streamer.
His dumb videos keep showing up on youtube despite clicking "don't show this channel" or w/e.
All his little shorts are just like variations of "Chat do you wanna know why I left blizzard? Chat... Do you wanna know why I left Blizzard? I left Blizzard because it sucked dude."
like why do they all have millions of views
His dumb videos keep showing up on youtube despite clicking "don't show this channel" or w/e.
He pretty open about how he uses his knowledge of how algorithms work to manipulate the YouTube algorithm so that his short form content gets more views.
God yesss I get so irritated whenever I see him pop up and this articulates it perfectly.
The real question is, is the Streamer Gulag separate from the Gamer Gulag or do we put them in the same re-education facility
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Streamers are a kind of idolatrous figure to Gamers and so it's safest to keep them apart lest the Streamers form actual cults
Same lol knew nothing about this guy before this thread but there was just something about his affect that just rubbed me raw
thank god im not the only one who hates this fucking nepo baby god i hate how much the algorithm has been pushing him
I'm glad everyone here hates him too lol. Hes so fucking boring on twitch; I thought i might like him initially just cause I'm also a programmer but I noped out within like 5 minutes of his stream. I also get fucking bombed with his tiktoks all the time cause he keeps making new accounts, which i constantly have to go and block.
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Tangent: the current discourse focuses on leaving the game in a playable state, but we still lose a lot in the form of timed events that are gone forever when the event ends and sometimes “updates” that completely ruin the game, like Overwatch 2.
Oh yeah completely agreed. Event limited content sucks ass. Been beating that drum for a long time.
Just found out you can edit a file in No Man's Sky to give you all the event items. That game is goat at this point.
Reminds me of how you can unlock all the PS4 exclusive content in the PC version of Control by opening the .exe in a hex editor and editing a few values
Oh yeah lol I did that with a save editor (that I use liberally already because I dont like how normal progression works and just want to sandbox) long time ago.
Yeah this is why I kinda can't take the whole thing very seriously.
As soon as a game updates, the original experience is gone. For certain multiplayer games, once people lose interest, you'll likely struggle to find players, and the ones you do find are likely already experts at the game rather than noobs, so you don't get the same experience as when the game released.
Multiplayer games are by their nature a very time limited thing. I can't really go back to Quake 3 and experience the game the way it was played in the early 2000s. That culture is permanently gone, no matter whether you can host your own server or not.
I can’t really go back to Quake 3 and experience the game the way it was played in the early 2000s.
True, but hosting your own lobby with bots can at least give an impression of what the game was like. Modern games don't have lobbies and they don't have bots.
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But it’s significantly better to have something playable than for it to be totally gone. I’m sure you could find a couple active Quake servers if you looked hard enough, probably within some close knit community. Or there’s always the opportunity for a resurgence. It’s not the same but it’s still good and a taste of what once was. If there weren’t self hostable servers, that wouldn’t be even be a possibility.
Plus one of the games used as a catalyst for this campaign, The Crew, had a single player campaign that is also no longer available. This affects more than just online multiplayer.
As for updates, that’s trickier, but at the very least a major rebrand like Overwatch 2 or CS2 should require the old version to stay available.
I really don't have any concrete intuition as to what the stop killing games initiative is trying to achieve. can someone help? do they want companies to keep up the servers forever? or force them to distribute all parts of their software necessary for thr game to function? or just more disclosure in advertising material about how the support of the game is not indefinite?
Look up the FAQs in their website. Basically they want devs to release the server host tools so that community servers can be set up
Accursed Farms just published a FAQ video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEVBiN5SKuA, but the first announcement should explain it pretty well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w70Xc9CStoE
I found YouTube links in your comment. Here are links to the same videos on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
Link 1:
Link 2:
I like live service games. I played hundreds of hours of Sea of Thieves and No Man's Sky with my girlfriend. I played Overwatch with friends from work. I still play PUBG with my friends who have moved to different countries, it's an amazing way to keep in touch.
So I cannot support the take that "killing live service games is good".
At the same time, I don't think signing the petition will lead to that. Louis Rossman gave a very measured response[1], which I almost completely agree with.
I also agree with Asmongold's response, and even with his relatively radical take on IP rights[2,3].
Finally, I think everyone has the right to voice their opinion without being doxxed, sent life threats and other extremely shitty things that the internet at large is capable of.
[1] https://youtu.be/TF4zH8bJDI8 [2] https://youtu.be/AhVsyhjcndw [3] https://youtu.be/ib012R40yto
Liking live service games dosent contradict the Petition tho, as far as I understand. According to what I understand, that dude only wants to have a Server binary provided once the service goes down, and it would in no way interfere with the games that are still being supported
I found YouTube links in your comment. Here are links to the same videos on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
Link 1:
Link 2:
Link 3:
Yeah it's kind of funny how the petition is called "Stop killing games" yet people (not Ross in this case, but the author of the meme for instance) are completely fine with killing live service games.
Like it or not, millions of people enjoy these kinds of games, and specifically the ever-changing aspect (be it in Splatoon, TF2, Sea of Thieves...), so saying that it's "wrong" to like these kinds of games reeks of the usual, chud-adjacent gamer elitisms (like with PC master race, "mobile games aren't real games", etc.)