Comment on UK Government Response to the Stop Killing Games Petition
NocturnalMorning@lemmy.world 5 months agoFrankly, this isn’t anything to do with the government anyway, nor should they be getting involved
It kinda does though. The only way you’re going to force companies to keep their old games available is through laws. Companies will only release source code when they take down their online games if legally compelled. They will only release source or keep on steam old off-line games they don’t want to keep up if they are legally compelled.
And honestly, it seems like the bare minimum to give the community the resources to keep playing a game when you’ve decided as a company it’s too old and you want to move on from it.
ampersandrew@lemmy.world 5 months ago
The campaign is not about getting source code. Though it’s sort of the ultimate way to preserve a game, it’s too high a bar to clear, and in most cases, it’s not even necessary.
bigmclargehuge@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Why is that too high of a bar to clear? I’m not saying every game should be open source from day one (and tbh I think the people who say all software should be free have their head up their ass. People worked on it, some people want to get paid for that work).
However, how does it hurt Ubisoft to wait 5 or so years after shutting down the crew, then releasing the source code? By then, anything relevant to a competitor looking to ape off them, or a bad actor looking to cheat or carry out an attack would be irrelevant, and it would at least give the community a chance at creating something from the leftovers (even a dummy server that doesn’t allow multiplayer, but just lets the game pass any “can I connect to the master server” checks, kind of like what the Single Player Tarkov mod does).
I mean, Doom is the prime example. Would people care anywhere near as much about Doom if it never went open source? It would be a great game, but it would probably no longer be relevant. I can’t see that as being a bad thing for most companies (although I’m perfectly aware that the suits of major game studios will never see it that way).
RightHandOfIkaros@lemmy.world 5 months ago
I don’t think they need to release the source code. They could pay some developers to edit the functions of code that contact the server to work offline, or more preferrably, just release compiled binaries for the server so that consumers can run their own private servers after the game officially hits EoS.
Some companies reuse code from previous games in their new games, in fact I’d say it would be stupid for them not to. Obviously if they released source code then they are making it that much easier for cheaters in their newer games.
ampersandrew@lemmy.world 5 months ago
The effect that open sourcing a game would have on cheaters is basically propaganda as far as I’m concerned. Cheating has not and will not be defeated by making a game closed source or even installing rootkits on players’ machines. However, open sourcing a game isn’t necessary to keep it alive after sunsetting it either.
ampersandrew@lemmy.world 5 months ago
You’d have to change how the laws for all of software work to make that a reality, not just video games. And all that’s technically needed to make games work after support ends is a distributed server binary and a change to a client config file to point to it. The engines that games are built on are often not open source, so you’d change the entire business model of the likes of Unity and Unreal (Unreal’s source is available to developers but not “open”). Sometimes source code can even get lost, because it’s not strictly required, just in the way that computers work, to come attached to a compiled executable. The world would be a better place if all video games were open source, and I don’t think open source games are at odds with making a healthy profit (as Doom illustrates), but I think you’d have an insurmountable task of making the entire industry agree to it, as well as a certain amount of the consumer base that drinks the PR kool aid about why games need to stay closed source.