[skotobaza]

> The groups hit hardest by this are going to be small-medium developers who are just trying to build a game

How so? Smaller developers don't usually build games that require huge online components that will be hard to release to the public. That's mostly AAA publishers that do so (at least I can't remember the opposite from the top of my head).

[hobofan]

> Smaller developers don't usually build games that require huge online components that will be hard to release to the public.

Yes, they do. Small developers disproportionally have to rely on online services to make their multiplayer games work to a playable standard acceptable to the users, as they can't afford to write them from scratch (and couldn't even afford to do the devops work that comes with a self-hosted alternative).

Example: PEAK, on of _the_ multiplayer hits of last year from a small studio is built on top of Photon[0] for their multiplayer. If you were to remove that component you might as well completely rewrite the game.

[0]: https://www.photonengine.com

[skotobaza]

> Small developers disproportionally have to rely on online services

I'm not convinced that that's the case. If you're talking about cloud providers then the cost can become very high very quickly, so smaller developers have to carefully manage the budget. To my knowledge, cloud services are usually used for simple stuff like logs and analytics, and games don't really need that to play the game.

Also, don't forget that it's not just multiplayer games. Singleplayer games suffer from this as well.

[maccard]

Most of the cloud providers have generous enough free tiers that small developers fit into them. Look at EOS, Playfab, Steam. You can run a backend for free for < 5k players with lambda and dynamodb.

edit:

> To my knowledge, cloud services are usually used for simple stuff like logs and analytics

Respectfully, you’re wrong here and this is the problem that me and many others have with this line of defense for SKG. No small developers who are managing their budget tightly are storing logs on AWS for analysis after the fact and paying for it. They’re using services like Sentry that do it for free or for $19/months. They’re using services like playfab for parties, vivox for voice chat, flex match for Matchmaking. Those services are free for small amounts of use that 90% of games would fit under.

[skotobaza]

The question remains - how does any of this prevent small developers from releasing either the binary or the code in the modified form? Again, that has already been done with variety of games (not just popular ones as you assume), so it's not something extraordinary. The developers definitely have the resources to do so since they were getting money for the game, and the least they can do for their game and its community is to give it to them after they stop supporting it themselves.

[hobofan]

> The developers definitely have the resources to do so since they were getting money for the game

There is no guarantee that they did!!! Yes, the examples we are pointing out (typical "friendslop" games from the last years) made bank, and should be able to afford to afford and EOL path.

However for every successful game that uses those technologies there are ~100 that "didn't make it", or barely broke even that are now also forced to do additional work on something they either post-hoc now was financially unfeasible, or have to do up-front work on something where it's a gamble whether it will be financially feasible.

In my personal opinion, completely downplaying the effort and financial reality that comes with making games compliant, and based on that creating carveouts for e.g. sub-$100k-revenue games was the downfall of SKG. If they would have made an effort to recognize that, they would be able to mobilize a large base of the indie developer community as well.

[skotobaza]

I get what you mean - if the developer stops supporting the game then they might run out of money to make the changes. This can even happen spontaneously in some cases. But I'm still expecting at least some effort in preserving their product, their legacy. Some people might call it naive (and it probably is), but for me personally the baseline is that games should be playable at least in some way. Maybe the experience will not be the same, maybe there will a lot of lag, maybe something will break. But it is still better than not being able to play the game at all.

I don't think anyone is downplaying the effort of making a videogame that is both easy to host for the small developers and for the community. But unfortunately developers themselves often choose to pursue financial goals disregarding everything else. So it's understandable that gamers are not happy and demanding some solution. And that the industry is trying to push back.

[sph]

> PEAK, on of _the_ multiplayer hits of last year from a small studio is built on top of Photon[0] for their multiplayer

How did studios deal with multiplayer in the 1990-2010? That's right, server binary and in-game server browser. These days you don't even need to enter an IP address, just use Steam to invite/join friends. Using third-party or cloud online services is just pure laziness/convenience, and allowing for players to host their games is not rocket science.

[hobofan]

Yes, and it was an awful experience with a fraction of the playerbase. WC3 Battle.net browser is an experience that I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. TF2 server browser, where many of the good servers were also not publicly listed and head to be discovered outside of the game is also not really a tractable option.

[BlitzGeology91]

> Yes, and it was an awful experience with a fraction of the playerbase.

“awful experience”? That’s a very very surprising thing to read. My personal experience has been the exact opposite. I’ve personally experienced two types of games:

1. Games where you can choose a server manually (i.e., by using a server browser or by manually entering an IP address).

2. Games where you have let some sort of matchmaking system choose a server for you.

For games in the first category, I end up building up a favorites list of servers where I fit in and am appreciated. For games in the second category, I am not able to do that. As a result, I get a lot of hate.

I love being cheery and spreading positive vibes in voice chat. Some people like it when I do that. Other people hate it when I do that because they think that my behavior is gay and because they hate gay people. For games in the first category, I am able to avoid the haters by playing on servers where haters are not welcome. For games in the second category, I have to just hope that I get lucky. In practice, I end up being unlucky so often that it makes me never want to play games that fall into the second category.

So from my perspective, the older way of doing things was not an awful experience. It’s the newer way of doing things (the way that allows for games to be killed) that has been an awful experience.

> TF2 server browser, where many of the good servers were also not publicly listed and head to be discovered outside of the game is also not really a tractable option.

I love TF2. I play it all the time. I didn’t know that there was a bunch of good servers that are not publicly listed and had to be discovered outside of the game. Could you link to some of them? I would love to check them out.

[sph]

Somehow other multiplayer games deal with it just fine (Squad, Arma, Satisfactory, Minecraft off the top of my head) and let players host their game.

You're just spreading FUD.

[hobofan]

ARMA has famously awful netcode.

Minecraft has mandatory hosted servers that are so non-trivial to host that it spawned a $XXmillion industry of third-party hosting, and first party hosting is also a paid service. Also bad netcode in the Java edition.

I'm not sure if I'd call either of those "just fine". That system also only works for games that are able to attract some minimum viable community where some enthusiasts volunteer to host any servers at all. Great for a really long-lived community, bad for any new game trying to make a splash.

[sph]

Minecraft targets kids. Of course they would rather use mom's credit card to host a server than learn Docker. I have a Minecraft server running for my friends, it took all of 15 minutes to set up.

And what the hell has netcode to do with who runs the servers? So all the cloud-hosted games never suffer from jitter, latency, bad routing, network congestion? Again, it's just FUD.

[suddenlybananas]

If the law were to be passed, surely Photon would be incentivized to make a self-hosting alternative, no? Something that uses the same API but is self-hosted.

[hobofan]

There is no indication that a self-hostable alternative that to what Photon is providing is even feasible, as a lot of what they are doing includes tuning network settings, setting up CDN-like structures, etc.. Even for their enterprise offerings they are targeting a managed cloud approach, and not an independently deployable binary.

If the law were to be passed, Photon would at the maximum be incentivized to produce a self-hostable API-compatible alternative that would be neutered to such a degree that Games still qualify as "playable" on paper but would be unenjoyable to actually play. More likely, they won't do anything, as they are not the game developer and not responsible for compliance.

[maccard]

Those games are unaffected whether or not SKG is written into law. If ojr of those games has an optional multiplayer component all of a sudden it can come under the purview. One of the things SKG has pushed down the line is what is “playable”. There is a very small but very active online community for a bunch of games that would call the online part of their game a requirement. The last of us and uncharted had very unpopular multiplayer modes off the top of my head.

Small multiplayer “friendslop” games - things like Lethal Fompany, Peak, Totally Reliable Delivery service. They’ve been smash hits, wildly popular but I can definitely see a world where those games just don’t get made when you add a new layer of liability, potentially in perpetuity.

[sph]

Are you aware that you don't need turnkey cloud services for indie multiplayer right? Even Godot lets you ship a server binary that allows people to host their own games. Many other indie multiplayer games do, we've been doing this since Doom. We're not talking about MMOs here.

There is literally zero reason that Lethal Company needs cloud services for their servers, or for it not to allow players to host their games. EOS & co. are golden handcuffs, and designing the multiplayer system from day 1 with preservation in mind is not that much more work. Of course Epic wants you to use their easy solution, it's called vendor lock in.

[skotobaza]

Regarding the "friendslop" games - I don't see an issue, the companies that provide those game with online services will adapt to the new requirements to keep getting money from those game developers.

Regarding the optional multiplayer modes - the developers will probably not use some complex architecture for this, so giving it to the community will not be that hard. Also there are multiplayer games that do support community servers out of the box, so it's not an issue to make a game like this.