[tiledjinn]

> - Put an expiration date on the storefront and make it clear that your software is not guaranteed to continue working after date X.

This software is not guaranteed beyond 0 Unix time.

> - Have your server source code (stripped down of proprietary stuff) ready for public release at EoL.

This isn't viable, and i would expect anyone on this site to understand that. it's roughly equivalent to saying "just make facebook stripped of proprietary code and ready for the public to run"

> - Allow customers to reverse engineer the binaries and communication protocol after EoL.

This is a reasonable path forward, but likely a non-starter in the US for political reasons. I understand that "stop killing games" is an EU thing.

> - Package dedicated server binaries with the game and allow customers to connect to it via a LAN or direct IP option.

See point 2. This is nonsensical.

[freeone3000]

How is a dedicated server nonsensical? There’s a fuckton of games, ancient and modern, with them.

Shoot, how is peer-to-peer nonsensical? Elden Ring (seamless multiplayer) got it tacked on as a mod. It’s insanely doable.

I don’t accept that these are nonstarters. In the slightest.

[gopher_space]

> I don’t accept that these are nonstarters. In the slightest.

It’s a subject you know nothing about and you’re not even curious?

[freeone3000]

No. Because any explanation will come from someone invested in the subject, so will all sound completely reasonable and may even contain aspects of truth.

I want to play games with my friends, not consider how the landscape of always-online services have distributed brokerage connectivity services, global banlists, and whatever powers microtransactions into what should be a game with four little dudes running a kitchen badly. I especially don’t want to consider how rising requirements for stability and cross-platform connectivity which have prompted these services means that P2PoverIP simply won’t work in the face of CGNAT or Sony’s distribution policies or fucking Comcast not having IPv6 yet; and I especially don’t want to think of the lower average technical acumen of the individual gamer has caused dedicated servers to completely fall out of fashion due to user confusion.

I really don’t want to think about the “paradox of polish”, where smaller games can get away with such things like dedicated servers and p2p networking that don’t work sometimes; whereas everything in an AAA title has to work flawlessly out of the gate or it’ll be panned despite the horse’s left testicle contracting appropriately in cold water.

Man, I don’t wanna be sad about market forces encouraging centralization for the efficiency necessary to stay competitive. I just wanna play dead or alive 2 with my bros even tho the dreamcast server’s offline.

[tiledjinn]

Ok; package up Cloudflare, Facebook, or E-Trade and let people host it.

[dpoloncsak]

Isn't that exactly how these companies scale across multiple data centers? They write the code once, package it all together, and host it in multiple areas?

Getting back to games, I still don't see why allowing users to host private servers with their friends is impossible. If anything, it seems like its strictly a DRM issue...but at EOL for a game you no longer find profitable enough to keep the servers online, who really cares about DRM

[secstate]

Wat? E-trade is not an application, it's probably dozens of coordinated services. Meanwhile, a game usually has a single binary and another one for the server.

[andrecarini]

Well, this is about software you bought in advance. The Facebook comparison doesn't really work because you're not paying in advance to use it.

> This software is not guaranteed beyond 0 Unix time.

Grandma goes to the store to buy a game for their grandkid. She sees two game boxes. One says in the front "This game will stop working tomorrow and you will not get a refund" and the other says "This game will stop working in 2030". Which one does she pick?

[tiledjinn]

Either the one little Timmy wanted, or the one the clerk tells her is selling fast (whether or not it's selling fast).

[nirava]

> This is nonsensical.

Nope. This has been done for many "dead" games. Servers have been reverse engineered from nothing. Private servers are a common thing.

> This software is not guaranteed beyond 0 Unix time.

Imagine Apple says that about iOS. Wouldn't you want consumer protection so Apple doesn't do that? Why should anything else be any different?