Game can't run without a server and server owner decided to shut them down? Then game is a defective product and customer is eligible for full refund of the game. Those servers will be running forever or should not be necessary at all.
They did let people know that it relies on a server. Every online game has the disclaimer that the services may be terminated. Large game companies have their bases covered there.
Step back and think about how ridiculous this ask is. Most new businesses don’t even last 10 years never mind guaranteeing a service being rendered for a decade. Imagine if Netflix was to predict a shutdown date for their DVD service the day they started offering it.
This was a free multiplayer server being run for a 6/10 game that was averaging less than 50 players a day on Steam.
Maybe it would be nice of them to provide a dedicated server on their way out but they don’t really have any moral or legal obligation to do so.
Heard from inside source through a friend, take with a grain of salt, but that particular server was running ancient software (think very obsolete windows server version) and would have a peak of less than 10 concurrent users, worldwide. I don't think there is a business case to make here.
It's a maintenance nightmare. Poor, rushed together server components. Noone still around the company that still knows how it was built. No automated tests whatsoever, so any code changes or recompile with newer libs would require important QA efforts..
I'm not saying this justify anything. It's still very bad business practice and consumers are right to be mad. Kinda was predictable though, and game publishers should have a clear EOL policy when selling a game.
I've recently gotten back into some C-64 retro gaming, and I can't help but think how impossible this would be if the technology were available back then that lets game developers "tether" their game's functionality to their own servers and kill the games by killing the servers.
Fully agree with the article. Ideally it should be a warranty return if the game stops working due entirely to a decision by the developer. It's simply a defective product. If the game really requires a server, there should be a way for end users to run the server if the game developer no longer wants to run it.
> Your friend is not hosting a server and they are not incurring damages due to having trouble connecting to the internet.
But they are, right? Whoever is hosting the multiplayer match is running a server. And damages come in the form of being rendered unable to enjoy the video game they paid money for. "Damages" do not have to come in the form of lost customers.
Can't run your own server? I don't want the game, no matter how great it is. Nothing like having your game and DLC go poof when the servers get the old rug pull.
a) When it was in beta, there was presumably much less server load.
b) The fact that a small bug in the unnecessary server/DRM part of the game could take the whole game down like this is precisely the point. You can certainly blame the whole entity for deciding to require a net connection and a server even for single-player use of the game.
No. Their terms are highly unlikely to have promised to run said servers forever. If they never got the servers running, you'd have a case for a refund.
At least then you could run your own server with whatever settings you wanted. Now instead you are left with unplayable games because the developer or publisher decided to shut down the servers.
Yes, totally clear. Except that when the server is not available your game crashes. How is that any different from the game depending entirely on the servers being ON?
The game depends on the servers, either for DRM or for game saves. But when they are off-line, it doesn't matter the true reason for game crash.
The fact is - the game needs the servers being ON.
Not much to be done about that with community ran servers for a lot of games. Its a thing when the game developer runs a ton of servers but usually that only lasts a few years after release before these are shut down by the game developer.
> [copyright owner] has issued an affirmative statement
indicating that external server support for the video game has ended and
such support is in fact no longer available or, alternatively, server
support has been discontinued for a period of at least six months
One of the reasons: if you want people to buy your next thing. (I was fairly highly ranked online in one of the Ace Combat fighter pilot franchise games, and had built a stable of planes in another one. But when they shut down the servers for the previous installment, after introducing a new one, I found I couldn't get interested in investing in the new one, if it was only going to get ripped out from under me like the previous.)
Practically, it doesn't seem like there is any way to force a company to keep their servers running to support a game forever, no matter what the policy is.
When something like this happens they should be required to hand over the server software. Even better would be to have to open source the code but atleast give out the server. Then the company would have a choice; either you pay for the server but can keep the game harder locked down for Intellectual property reason or whatever. Or you can cut the server cost but risk loosing a bit of your control over it.
It's why we need self hosted servers. If not at launch then at some point during its life cycle so that buying a game means it's playable indefinitely.
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