Comment on How important is owning your own video games to you?
Pratai@piefed.ca 4 days ago
People are totally fine paying for MMO games that eventually pull the plug. (think Asheron’s Call, Dark Age of Camelot). I don’t really see what’s different.
Not in defense of it at all, just not understanding why one is totally fine while the other is not.
It’s not fine when they do it to games that don’t need servers. It’s not fine when they do it for games with content outside of multiplayer. It’s not fine when they arbitrarily decide to destroy a game because they don’t want to maintain the Always Online services they decided to put in games with campaigns.
You don’t understand because you don’t know what you’re talking about.
This would have been a completly fine discussion if you didn’t make the ignorant decision to accuse me of not knowing what I’m talking about. The question itself represents the fact that I do.
I bought and paid a premium for those games. They pulled the plug. I didn’t get my money back. Neither did the millions of others that once played them.
No complaints.
But you suggest that the only difference is that there were servers involved? Yeah…. I’m the one that doesn’t know what I’m talking about. I asked a serious queue and you come back with childish insults.
Gonna block you now and get ahead of the stupid response you’ll have.
Of course all of these games ought to still be preserved somehow, and I don't think they're saying it's somehow a good thing for them to be shut down.
But you asked why some people are okay with it, and they gave you a valid answer to your question. There is a distinction to be drawn between games that had a legitimate reason to be always online versus games that don't, and that distinction is the reason why some people are okay with it.
For MMO players, most of them understand that these are always going to be ephemeral experiences, this is inherent to the genre. It's even baked into the way that many of them rely on subscription fees rather than a purchase.
The real tragedy with MMOs is that even if servers were to stay up, the playerbase may not, so the game will never be the same if the MMO simply drops to MO. Usually by the time the plug gets pulled, it's because the game had already faded away from what it once was.
They didn’t give a valid answer. They punched down and insulted. I don’t have time for people like that regardless of their point.
People are fine paying for movies that end, too, but that’s the deal. MMOs have a monthly subscription, if you don’t like it don’t pay it, but if you sell me something I’m gonna think I own it.
But the MMO also cost a premium to buy. People actually bought DAoC, EQ, AC…. AND payed a monthly fee to play. Plug pulled… that’s that. Not defending the behavior, just wondering what changed.
Those MMOs are sold and advertised as subscriptions, so there was never question of there being ownership due to being locked out if you stopped paying.
yukichigai@kbin.earth 4 days ago
Because of the second "M" in the term, i.e. "Multiplayer". MMOs are as much about the community as the game. For some they're more important than the game. MMOs generally only get shut down when almost all of the community has left... or in other words when a lot of the game's "content" is no longer available anyway.
That's not the case for singleplayer games, or games designed for local/couch multiplayer. There's no natural limit on the game being playable. For PS2/Xbox era stuff and before, as long as you have game and the hardware you can fire it up today and have the same experience (not counting your worsening reflexes). There's no justifiable reason why a company should be allowed to decide that you can no longer play the game you bought on hardware you physically possess. The only reason is greed, pure and simple. That's why people aren't okay with it.