[Zambyte]

Counterpoint: "intellectual property" sucks, and is the root of their argument.

> Maintaining servers and infrastructure for games with dwindling player bases is economically unsustainable. Forcing developers to release server binaries or carve off single-player experiences would not only be a massive undertaking but could also leave them vulnerable to abuse and unauthorized monetization of their intellectual property.

If they have the infrastructure to distribute the game client, they have the infrastructure to distribute the game server. Saying it's a "massive undertaking" is a plain lie.

> Furthermore, the initiative’s FAQ fails to provide a realistic solution for large-scale MMORPGs. Running these games requires significant resources and expertise that cannot be easily handed over to players when servers are shut down.

Runescape private servers exist. World of Warcraft private servers exist. Heck, there are some Minecraft servers that can be considered MMOs. The author is juat grasping at straws to justify maintaining power over the people who play(ed) their games.

[armchairhacker]

The problem is the “reasonable means” requirement. Modern MMOs are huge: they almost certainly require more disk space, RAM, and clock cycles than a mere consumer-grade laptop has. Moreover, they’re designed to run on distributed servers, constantly, by professionals; they’re not just an `.exe` that you double click on your laptop.

A consumer-grade laptop can run an OSRS because it released over a decade ago. It can run a Minecraft server because Minecraft also released a decade ago, and was designed for servers to be run by players; even its single-player launches a local server. Running a server for e.g. No Man’s Sky is entirely different.

Publishers can certainly release their server binaries. I don’t see any issue with them being forced to make it possible for a dedicated group to keep the game running. But at minimum, “reasonable” has to be clarified to mean that publishers only have to put in reasonable effort to make the game playable. i.e. publishers can’t make it harder for players to run the server; but if the server is a mess of binaries that only runs on a million-dollar distributed cluster, it's not like that for a stupid reason, and the game company runs it like that, they can release it like that.

[Zambyte]

If it "only runs on a million-dollar distributed cluster", they're probably wrong in that claim, and the community will be able to run it to support how they want to play. I agree that the developers should not be required to put in extra effort to be able to run on deployments other than their own, but I believe it would be reasonable to require the source code be distributed too. With the source code, the game will never die an artificial death.

[viraptor]

Yeah, I don't get the infra cost at all. Especially with dwindling numbers. The cost of running servers for the remaining players is trivial. The staff cost will be higher, but that's self inflicted cost - ensure someone else can run the servers and you don't need to pay for anything.