[techteach00]

I'm on the treadmill so this may appear jumbled.

Bought PGA Tour 2k21 for $50. In October the servers shut down completely neutering the game. I think you're allowed to play a few courses still. But the career mode, which is why I originally bought the game, was completely turned off. Mind you that career mode had zero Internet needed features. It's like a sports franchise mode.

So good on this bill. 2K should rot for deprecating a game I bought for $50 only 5 years ago.

[rgoulter]

> I think you're allowed to play a few courses still. But the career mode, which is why I originally bought the game, was completely turned off. Mind you that career mode had zero Internet needed features.

I suspect this is the same as IO Interactive's "Hitman: World of Assassination".

99% of the game is single player. The game allows you to unlock additional things in the game (different starting locations in a level, more equipment).

But, if you play the game offline, all of that progression is completely blocked off.

I guess what happened is the progression ties to the saving, which is heavily coupled to online syncing. And so the logic is like `if (offline) { useSafeMode() }`. But it's so lame.

[account42]

In some cases the online dependence is purely business decision to be able to sell you "micro" transactions.

[techteach00]

Can any smart hackers crack this so I can play career mode again lol? Please?

[rgoulter]

I think the Peacock servers are what you're looking for. https://thepeacockproject.org/

[dgellow]

But you knew exactly what you were buying. It’s not hidden to you that an internet connection is required when you buy the game. Game developers are generally pretty terrible and do a lot of really shady things to extract value from their players. But that one isn’t one. The terms are clearly stated before your purchase

[rileymat2]

I’d debate that there are “clearly stated terms” when the result is completely unpredictable, will it work for 10 years or 3 hours? Reading the terms you have no idea.

The original sin is selling a product that has an ongoing cost for a fixed price without creating an ongoing trust to pay those costs. Imagine I had a gas station that sold all you can use gasoline for a car for 4k. Then I sell a bunch of memberships and pay myself then go bankrupt. That’s straight up fraud.

[techteach00]

I'll just play Civ 4 Beyond the Sword forever. Or whatever is available on the Internet archive.

[dgellow]

Which is the sensible thing to do. There are a lot of local games available, if people don’t like online requirements just look at the rest of the massive catalog of games available

[account42]

But for players to make such a decision in an informed manner they need to actually know the deal they are getting into with modern games and contrary to your original assertion it is far from clear now.

[dgellow]

> Reading the terms you have no idea.

If a game says clearly a constant internet connection is required, I don’t see how you would expect it to work when their servers are down. It would indeed be nicer if they would provide a local experience, but is it really something that should be enforced through regulations? That feels very wrong to me. I personally dislike EA business model and wouldn’t engage with it, I think it’s a pretty shitty corporation. But when buying diablo games where a connection is required, even if I always only play them solo, at no point do I have expectations I will be able to continue playing if servers are shut down. The deal is clear from the get go, I can decide to engage or not. There a lots of other games to play if I care more about local experience.

The arguments to “stop killing games” feel very entitled to me and the slogans disingenuous

[rileymat2]

You could frame the regulation in a variety of ways:

1. Require a clear labeling of sunset date.

Or

2. Require an independent trust created from a portion of the initial payment to fund ongoing operation.

Or

3. Ban fixed payments for things with ongoing known operating costs.

Or

4. Provide local mechanisms to continue to run the game.

The original sin is a fixed price for an ongoing expense as a business model.

[techteach00]

If the TOS said the game would be destroyed in 5 years I would not have made the purchase. You're making my point. Why didn't the TOS tell me the plan?

[dgellow]

Because that’s not at all what terms of services are about, there is no expectation of providing a public roadmap