It’s amazing how companies only do things after a “gobernment” scare, the fight does not stop, this isn’t just about The Crew, it’s about every game that won’t work without internet.
Wow who would have thought that single player games were a good thing. Oh wait I did. And so did lots of other people.
You worded it incorrectly. It should be any single player game that requires online to start to game should be fined. They can have multiplayer option. But single player should be able to be played even offline.
but but but, piracy!!!
/s
Pirates are doing God’s work of preserving the digital arts. Heroes every one of them.
I thought I’d see this and was surprised not to.
Please proselytize your EU brethren. Signing this Citizen’s Initiative is the best chance to fix the dead games issue globally.
https://www.stopkillinggames.com/
The guy behind it has a lot of videos explaining the logic. Here is the short version (1 min vid):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHGfqef-IqQ
Call to arms!
While I like and appreciate the campaign, the issue IMO is bigger. IoT devices for example even have environmental impact when services behind them get discontinued.
I would therefore like a more general rule: whenever a product is discontinued for whatever reason, all necessary documents, sources, etc need to be released to allow third parties to take over maintenance (that also includes schematics for hardware repairs).
Remember that perfect is the enemy of good.
I really hope that something gets done about games not being playable anymore. This is really important for the sake of our hobby and clearly not acceptable.
I could understand how multiplayer games would be harder to maintain 20 years after their release, but there is no excuse for solo games.
Who preserves historical artwork? Who makes sure it is available for all to enjoy?
I think governments and nonprofits (like museums) need to consider that archival of an interactive artwork means allowing it to continue being accessible and interactive. That’d be the real preservation.
Laws that say if you create something like this and it reaches some metric, then you are required to turn over all resources regarding it to open source public consumption once you are done actively maintaining it.
Wouldn’t be surprised if stop servicing/selling a game came with a tax write-off (small due to deprecation). If that were the case, I strongly believe they should, at least, release the server and remove all DRM. Let the community make it work again.
Whats funny is that most 20 year old multiplayer games today (at least on PC) are still perfectly playable because the server tech was given to the community, at launch. Battlefield 2 hasn’t been available for purchase anywhere officially in well over a decade, there’s still a dedicated, albiet small community.
I understand that with large, persistent worlds, it’s hard to release that server tech, but at least some form of it should be published. Ie, a smaller variant that maybe just lets a couple people join up as a co-op party, rather than dozens of people running around a large map at random, like in The Crew.
even for MP, allow people to host their own. not hard, even Minecraft offers it lol
This is why I got a PS3. Most games run off disc. One update no more than 60GB and hundreds of offline games. I hate online play
Same. And you can also purchase old gems for a really low price 😅
Yes I returned my ps4 at a vintage game store that died under warranty and traded in my games and I got a ps3 along with 13 titles. Most games were $5
Even though you dislike online play, you can still play online with the PS3. Some servers are still up and running, and for other titles there are custom servers created by some fans. And the best part: you don’t need to pay the online fee that Microsoft created during the 360 days, which Sony and Nintendo followed after.
this is why i aint getting the crew 2 its discounted but NEVER
This is a genuine invitation for disscussion.
Let me tell you, over more than a decade I’ve played a lot of Battlefield Bad Company 2, like a lot a lot.
Last year, in December the servers for it got officially shut down by EA. And you know how I felt? I barely cared. It is still one of my favorite games of all time, and while there are private servers still active, I have no intention to play. And the reason for it that is simple. I’ve played enough of that game, I feel fully unsatisfied with the time I’ve spend with it. Its like 2 people growing apart over time.
Just to play devils advocate here. What is the benefit of forcing developers to provide access to old games that require online functionality indefinitely, instead of just hard limiting them to say 10 years wich is essentially indefinite in terms of non-live service games. If you haven’t managed to get enough joy out of something during a decade of you life, then maybe the developer isn’t responsible for your personal issues.
By this time The Crew 2 would’ve been 6 years old. I agree that’s fairly short time to turn of the servers, but would people be still as frantic about the server shut down in say 2028? Wouldn’t 10 years be enough? Why straight up go for indefinite access.
This isnt about the official servers being online forever, this is about being able to host your own server without having to crack the game in weird ways.
I mostly play new games, but I respect admiration for old games. It’s fun to see people speedrun old SNES games - but it’s disturbing to think an entire generation will just become inaccessible to history, even if a lot of the games in question were kind of bad.
I actually agree with you in the case of online multiplayer games - I don’t think the devs can keep them available forever. But when a game is singleplayer, like The Crew, it feels like planned obsolescence.
It is planned obsolescence
Good for you! You played a game so much you personally stopped caring. But that’s just you and you alone.
There are whole communities out there that are all about retro games. You’re throwing them all under the bus for being perfectly fine about something no longer being playable due to an arbitrary and otherwise avoidable reason.
This citizen initiative, if successful, has the power to change the way games are built from the ground up, and is the sort of “tide lifts all boats” thing that’ll only end up benefiting everyone.
10 years seems fine, but only if they start counting the moment they sold their last copy.
Lol, getting downvoted into oblivion because you offered a different viewpoint. Classic lemmy.
The thing is, nobody really expects the companies to keep the servers online forever ( at least according to the petition ), that would unreasonable. People ask that online games are either patched to allow offline play after delisting, or provide protocol information to allow non-official servers, again after delisting.
Normally I’d agree with you, it’s the developer’s prerogative to schedule games in order to maximize their profits, but for the past decade there have been A LOT of online only games, even single player games that require a connection just because ( see the recent forza motorsport, or simcity 2013 ). There’s a clear tendency in the industry to force this as a form of planned obsolescence and that needs to stop.
And yes, I realize that even if the petition materializes into something the developers will find a loophole. This is why I’d advocate more towards educating gamers to recognize and avoid abusive patterns. See the crew 2, where even if they basically give it away now, it’s still chock full of mtx and dark patterns, and a lot of games that are designed to be online only have those patterns ( I for one learned to recognize these and avoid the game and/or the developerr altogether ).
