[furyofantares]

> Every game released whose developers have chosen to complicate its design with a client-server architecture.

Huh? Client-server architecture does make things more complicated to implement but it's not THAT bad. And you (usually[1]) do it in service of multiplayer, not because you're big budget or just want to complicate things.

Among Us was literally a three-person team.

[1] I find there are some major benefits to it, especially in post-LLM-world, and have been strongly considering it for some of my solo-dev single-player projects.

[VorpalWay]

Remember back in the old days when you could just run your own game server, even though it wasn't open source? That would work too. Or peer to peer LAN gaming, why is that not popular any more?

Designing a game to use developer hosted servers is a choice they made. Probably to squeeze money from microtransactions.

[darkwater]

> Or peer to peer LAN gaming, why is that not popular any more?

This. I mean, modern game companies could setup a common (for every game) Headscale or similar solution, let group of friends create their own private VPN between them punching through any NAT and host their own distributed multiplayer game. Yes there is still some involvement server aide from the company but it could be easily shared between games. And if support ends, you still leave players with the option to use their own LAN/VPN system.

[Jach]

Currently one of the features Valve's SDK offers is free use of network relays for P2P gaming without revealing each others IPs. Big and small games have used it. The main downside is if a game wants to offer cross-platform cross-play.

[imtringued]

Offering an .exe download is much less of a burden than open sourcing at gunpoint.

[pjmlp]

Because they cannot profit from it hence why.

Centralised servers allow for subscriptions and other stuff.

[account42]

Subscriptions are so last decade, it's all about microtransactions now. Not that this changes the motivations for having centralized servers.

[gsich]

because real P2P is hard for realtime stuff. Be it timing or network port forwarding issues.

[Denatonium]

Timing and scalability are probably the biggest issues with realtime P2P applications. Scalability is becoming a bit less of an issue; with mid-splits becoming the norm on cable internet services and 5G SA rolling out, there's just a lot more bandwidth to go around.

Timing issues can be worked around and GPS modules are cheap.

NAT problems aren't usually that bad. Only a minority of networks use symmetric NAT implementations, with most seeming to be using port-restricted cone NAT (EIM/APDF), which can still communicate with any other NAT implementation using endpoint-independent mapping (EIM). Most CGNAT implementations that I've encountered use EIM, with some also doing endpoint-independent filtering (EIF). Between UDP hole-punching, UPnP, NAT-PMP, and IPv6, it's usually possible to establish a P2P connection between 2 endpoints.

A game could use a hybrid client/server and P2P model, with the option to run entirely P2P while accepting its limitations.

[VorpalWay]

A self hosted server executable still works fine with that though. Plenty of games had that model.

[gsich]

Yes, but that's not what usually is associated with P2P. That is normal client-server model.

[VorpalWay]

In my original comment I mentioned both options though.

[fluoridation]

A lot of games have tacked-on online features to excuse the existence of the server to enable DRM, and a lot of multiplayer games arbitrarily don't offer a way for clients to double as local servers like in the heyday of arena shooters.

[furyofantares]

Sure, but the existence of such annoying things does not mean that's the only reason to use a client-server architecture and that it would only affect those games.

[fluoridation]

It's not the only reason, but that does cover the vast majority of online-required games.

[account42]

It's the main reason for keeping the server part away from players though.

[Chaosvex]

Among Us is also incredibly simple compared to the services required to support some AAA games and even then, their networking code was riddled with exploits that no professional would have written, including RCEs.

Didn't stop it from being a fun, successful game but there's no comparison to the work and complexity involved in larger games.

[furyofantares]

I'm aware. What's that got to do with anything?

[Chaosvex]

I'm countering your argument that it's "not that bad". If that wasn't your point with mentioning the three person team, what was?

Recap:

> Client-server architecture does make things more complicated to implement but it's not THAT bad. Among Us was literally a three-person team.

The scope of the discussion extends beyond simple games like Among Us and some games require highly complex networked architectures that would be non-trivial to open up.

[furyofantares]

Ah, I see. Well, the post I was responding to reads to me like a denial of the existence of games like Among Us when it says it wouldn't affect three person dev teams making games on a shoestring budget, and gives off the weird implication that it would only affect big budget games.

That said, I don't mind a tangent, and I have built services for large multiplayer games and it really is not that bad.

[Chaosvex]

I've also worked on MMOs and the architectures there can get quite hairy, particularly when they're deeply plumbed into shared services and infrastructure that they couldn't operate without. Those layers occasionally have closed-source licensed tech mixed in there.

Untangling the entire lot to make the game available upon closure would be a nightmare in some cases.

I've also contributed to game server emulation (pre-professionally) to keep them alive, so preserving games is a cause I support, even if I don't think it's necessarily always going to be trivial.

[atq2119]

> Untangling the entire lot to make the game available upon closure would be a nightmare in some cases.

This is only true if the game wasn't architected with open-sourcing in mind. Which affects how this kind of law should be structured.

For example, it makes sense to require the server code to be submitted to an escrow service from the beginning. Part of that process would be a license evaluation, which acts as a forcing function already during the development process.

[furyofantares]

Oh yeah, I definitely agree with you there.

[fluoridation]

A simple multiplayer game like Among Us would also have a similarly simple server. There was never any reason not to have included that code in the client to support LAN play from the start. In concept, the gameplay is no different from a deathmatch game in, say, Quake 3 Arena. It's a small group of players sharing a level and interacting with each other in various ways.

[furyofantares]

> There was never any reason not to have included that code in the client to support LAN play from the start.

Yes there was. It was a 3 person team. That's a good enough reason to not have almost any feature that requires any amount of work, including UI work, because there is always a whole mountain of stuff that you're not doing that you'd like to do as a 3-person dev team.

[Folcon]

Agreed, I'm pretty much doing the same thing for my indie game

It's now a lot more tractable to build a multiplayer game, on the other hand balancing it is a whole other kettle of fish