This is overstating the (very real) problem. While there are certainly classes of games for which this is true, the majority of games work totally fine offline forever.

Your example, Overwatch, is an online-only multiplayer game. Yes, it's bad you bought a disk that's now just a coaster. But, I don't think it's representative of the vast number of single-player games for which servers don't even exist. There are certainly single-player exceptions (GTA V, the recent Hitman trilogy, etc), but.

There's also a set of PC games from the early aughts that depended on the now-defunct Gamespy servers to run. There's a fairly complete list here (https://old.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/22fz75/list_of_games...). While that's certainly not 0, it still doesn't strike me as "almost everything".

Also worth noting that I'm not defending these systems - just nothing that it's not as bad as you make it out to be.

Of course there is. Many modern multiplayer games are unfeasible without dedicated servers, and many games are multiplayer by default as a design and production choice. Making a game that is designed for multiplayer first and foremost also able to run on a player's computer is not always a trivial task.

I was a lead at an open-world game that was supposed to run without dedicated servers on players PCs, and it was a very FUN task to actually get it there. Changing it to run on dedicated servers from the very beginning would save a LOT of production costs and time, I honestly wish this was the case.

This means nothing, there have been piles of single player games that have required a connection check before working. Sim City 4 was an example of this.

And, even buying it and not having that check doesn't mean that it won't be updated to require a server (you have an actual disk to reinstall right, because the original installer may disappear too).

I don't think this is ideal by any means, but I do think it's a reasonable compromise.

For better or worse, many/most modern multiplayer games are architected to use a centralized, company-run software. The server software is not built to be deployed by end-users, and getting it to that state would involve very significant engineering effort. It's just not a reasonable ask.

Well, if the players still had to be connected to the servers (always-on) to play, maybe the same problems would arise even though the players wouldn't be interacting.

The strange aspect of this is that their infrastructure seems to be static. In this modern age of cloud computing, why not make the number of game servers elastic? That would bring safety to them and savings by reducing the number of idling servers when demand is low.

A lot of titles are more or less serverless peer-to-peer.

It was a single player game. There was never anyone to play against. The online aspects were for DRM only.

This is brought up often but it appears some basic multiplayer is possible over websockets (I've written a very simple game using them). If UDP is that necessary, people will push for it and we'll eventually see it (or something equivalent) in the browser.

> With TVs you have the added issue that people probably don't want to replace their whole TV every couple of years just to upgrade the graphics or whatever.

This is turning out to be less of the case though as older PC hardware can still run newer games. The need for graphics is no longer growing faster than the resources to power them. This is especially noticable in the indie game market where rather simple graphics games have become very popular. Even high-end games don't "need" new power as much as they once did, the PS3 is what, 7 years old now?

How else would online multiplayer work? I suppose there's the community-run server model, but you're asking vendors to potentially do some pretty major re-architecting.

GOG's games are entirely DRM-Free for single-player and local multiplayer. For experiences that are inherently tied to online services, the concept of DRM-Free ownership doesn't really work.

That's no longer the case. I'd say about now, there are more multiplayer games that you can play, as opposed to ones you can't play.

See: https://areweanticheatyet.com/ as reference, but it's not very up-to-date, so https://www.protondb.com/ would probably be a better reference.

The problem is that most people's perception is that it really doesn't need to, that the core engine could have been implemented to run entirely locally and the online-only features would be optional.

It's all well and good if the game has social features or other enhancements that are only enabled if you are online. But could the game have been implemented such that the core single-player gameplay is available without an internet connection?

Most people perceive the answer to that question to be "yes". If the answer truly is yes, then implementation of the game in this way is DRM.

>> this is a primarily multiplayer game

If that's true, I'd say the one-star reviews are just as justified. This game was marketed as the continuation of a series that has been predominantly single-player. I'd say there's a reasonable expectation that the game should work without an internet connection. I wouldn't expect World of Warcraft to work without an internet connection, but I expect SimCity to. I wouldn't expect Dead Space 3's co-op to work without an internet connection, but I would expect the single-player campaign to work without one, and it does.

IIRC from a discussion in their official Discord (by one of the people who work there) that is basically Zoom Platform[0]'s approach - if a game has a multiplayer component it has to allow you to run your own server.

[0] https://www.zoom-platform.com/

Games with a live multiplayer element certainly are. That's my meaning in saying many games (rather than most games).

Right, because I said "multiplayer", obviously I meant "multiplayer over the internet".

Multiplayer would work by letting you connect however you want.

> you're asking vendors to potentially do some pretty major re-architecting.

From a game architecture perspective, there is no difference between connecting to someone else over the internet, and connecting to someone else over a LAN. As far as the networking stack is concerned, the difference is that in the second case, you're most likely using IP addresses that are reserved for non-internet use.

But wait, there's more!

> How else would online multiplayer work?

You could just... NOT require a registration when connecting to the internet. Remember what I said about requiring a serial number? Try thinking of a more iconic, prototypical example of DRM.

> GOG's games are entirely DRM-Free for single-player and local multiplayer.

No, they're not, this is just false.

Multiplayer has always been included with D3. And singleplayer mode still exists. But, let me add a different examples.

Doom Eternal's campaign can be played offline, but only after you've signed into your account.

Genshin Impact is online only, even though you can play it alone.

AFK Arena, a mobile singleplayer-only game, requires you to be online.

Crash Bandicoot 4, a singleplayer-only game, requires you to be online.

> That system applies only to online games.

I don't know a lot about the system, so you are likely right. But I have to ask, is there anything that restricts it to multiplayer online games only - aside from the current policy?

What do you mean by this? A lot of game developers seem to be obsessed with the term "LAN" but I don't really understand how that has anything to do with application level network protocols that build on IP, which does not care about physical network topology.

It is very irritating because each developer seems to have their own made-up definition of "LAN." For example, there are games that won't let you connect to IP addresses outside the private ranges. There are games that won't let you enter an IP at all, and instead require the host to be found by broadcasting on your subnet. There are games that won't let you connect across subnets for other, arbitrary reasons. And then there are many games where they use the term LAN but it has nothing at all to do with LAN and works exactly like online multiplayer in any old game -- select the host (or enter its IP) and bam you're connected, whether the connection is local or intercontinenal is none of the game's concern (this is how it should be).

I have no idea what I'm buying whenever I see a game that sells "LAN multiplayer."

Or the many FPS games, basically all of them, that now require online servers ran by the company rather than letting users run their own the way all fps games used to. (and a dishonorable mention to the subset of CoD games that let you 'run your own server' but only by paying them to spin up another game server in their existing data centers)

Ultimately, for business reasons:

1. A good LAN-play UX requires game/host discovery; solutions involving network broadcast will only work in small (i.e. home) LAN environments where everyone is in the same broadcast-domain - but this won't work in larger networks, which then means players will need to manually type-in IP addresses (which is acceptable for IPv4, but less-so in IPv6). Using an internet-based matchmaking and host/game directory service eliminates this problem when, and thesedays it's incredibly unlikely that a user will have a LAN available without Internet access. Internet-disconnected LAN-parties haven't really been a thing since ~2005 (excepting military/naval/antarctic scenarios) so the business-case just isn't there.

2. Providing technical support for games costs money; speaking from my second-hand experience with a major console game publisher: when a (console) game features LAN-play (with discovery/broadcast/manual-IP-addresses) it's inevitable the company will receive support calls/tickets from people having issues with their home networks that the company can't really do anything about; even if there's an explicit warning to users that the game's technical support team won't assist with local network problems they'll still receive those calls and need to triage (and reject) them, which all costs money.

3. The vast majority of a game's players aren't interested in such a feature; so when a game has a dev budget, it's just good business-sense to spend that budget on things that bring the most revenue, such as fixing bugs/glitches (which directly lead to bad IGN review scores and purchases legitimately demanding costly refunds) instead of netplay features (and omitting LAN-play isn't going to lose them that many potential customers; I suspect no-one already in the market for a AAA game is going to not buy it solely for that reason alone).

I'm tempted to believe that due to the simulation grunt work being done server-side. But people also said the same thing about WoW and Starcraft II, yet you can easily play either of those for free with fully functioning multiplayer (just not on Battle.net).