For centuries stories have never been owned by one person.
Bards would re-tell them, adding their own twists and artistic choices.
Stories where never meant to be owned.
For centuries stories have never been owned by one person.
Bards would re-tell them, adding their own twists and artistic choices.
Stories where never meant to be owned.
TimothyOilypants@lemmy.ca 2 days ago
You mention bards adding their own twists. That actually proves my point. The audience didn’t “own” the bard’s unique performance or get to take it home; they just experienced the bard’s specific intellectual labor for the evening. A video game or software platform isn’t a public myth; it’s a highly specific, unique execution of labor.
Furthermore, you’re right that books and paintings have been sold for centuries, but those are static objects. When a painting is sold, the artist’s work is done. Modern digital ecosystems are living things that require active servers, database management, and ongoing engineering. If you demand perpetual ownership for a single $60 payment, who is morally obligated to provide the uncompensated labor to keep those servers running for the next twenty years?
magic_smoke@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 days ago
Maybe stop treating private server owners like criminals, and get back to releasing server binaries like we used to?
The original developers of these games aren’t the only ones capable of hosting them.
Furthermore, for many games, these are tacked on features to an already competent single player that doesn’t need online support.
This argument falls apart for anything that isn’t live service, which is basically everything I play…
TimothyOilypants@lemmy.ca 2 days ago
You are conflating predatory always online DRM with actual live-service architecture. You are entirely right that tacking forced online requirements onto a single-player game is a terrible product choice, but it doesn’t change the underlying reality of ownership.
If a classical painter decides to hang their masterpiece in a pitch-black room, or a sculptor insists their work only be viewed through frosted glass, it makes for a miserable audience experience. But it is undeniably their right to do so. The creator always dictates the terms of engagement. Even if you are playing a completely offline game, you still do not own the code. You only bought a license to execute it. Feel free to go look at the EULA from ANY video game you’ve EVER purchased; you never owned the game, only a license.
Furthermore, demanding that developers just release server binaries treats backend architecture as if it is public property. Backend infrastructure is full of proprietary code, licensed third-party middleware, and security architecture that a studio cannot legally or safely hand over to the public. When a developer chooses to release server tools, that is a generous decision they made regarding their own intellectual labor. You do not have a moral or legal right to demand the keys to a developer’s proprietary backend just because you want to host it yourself. Whether it is a live-service giant or an offline indie game, the creator still gets to choose how their work is distributed.
magic_smoke@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 days ago
Anyone who puts their own art on a pedastol deserves the anguish that comes from people enjoying it the “wrong” way.
I say this as someone who’s been making games since their early teens.
Furthermore, as much as they are the norm in gaming, proprietary software licenses where a fucking mistake, and I’d staple my ballsack to the ceiling before I’d license any code I care about with one.
Even if that means not getting cutting edge toolkits.