338
Stop Killing Games throw weight behind California bill that would force companies to either keep games working independently after server shutdowns or issue refunds (www.rockpapershotgun.com)
submitted 7 months ago by [B] to c/gaming@lemmy.zip
28 comments fedilink hide all child comments
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 4 points 7 months ago (7 children)

Yeah that's not how online games work though. Servers cost money, probably way more than you would expect, which is why online games used to use monthly subscriptions until people decided they didn't like that so they moved to free-to-play with micro transactions instead. Guild Wars 2 is a good example of how an MMO can be run without needing a monthly sub by making everyone by each individual expansion, in the beginning you even had to buy the content for each story patch but the newer patch content is free with the expansion afaik. Online games don't have to be predatory with their pricing but they do need to make a lot of money to keep the lights on.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 7 child comments
    •
  • [–] 4 points 7 months ago (2 children)

    I think the point is more that when they decide they don’t want to run the servers anymore they should have to release the server code or in some other way allow the server to be run locally so that the game isn’t useless.

    Also, until about 15 years ago, it was completely expected that you would buy a software once and they would still run their servers. That’s why windows used to cost like $350 in mid 2000s dollars, you could still reasonably expect to get online updates for it years later.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago (1 child)

    Yeah but do you think people will pay $350 up front for a video game?

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
    •
  • [–] 2 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

    People already pay that much just as a subscription. Given that that $350 came with like 10 years of support; Yes I honestly think that people would pay a couple hundred dollars for a game like RuneScape or something that came with a 10 year guarantee.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 4 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    But those studios could still provide tools necessary to keep the games playable after they no longer want to support it.

    No one is asking for laws that force studios to foot the bill for indefinite support. But games don't have to built in such a way that access can be entirely removed at the whim of a dev or publisher.

    Lots of MMOs have private servers already. It's not a revolutionary ask.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
    •
  • [–] 3 points 7 months ago* (1 child)

    It's not up to me to pay extra for servers, they should take the costs of them into account when deciding to make an online game.

    Games like World of Warcraft make you pay for DLC and a subscription, which is ridiculous. OSRS just asks for a monthly subscription, is that a model I want to see expanded? Absolutely fucking not. On topic though, games with that model should still have to release the entire game for free after they close the official servers.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
    •
  • [–] 2 points 7 months ago

    So do you think people would happily pay possibly hundreds of dollars upfront to play an MMO to "account for server costs"? Players have to pay extra no matter what, if the customer isn't paying for the server costs who is? You also have to keep in mind that WoW expansions are massive compared to most OSRS updates and are released on a fairly short schedule, that kind of dev cycle takes a lot of money to maintain.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent