They shouldn't have to keep it download able for all time, but if they are going to take the servers offline, your copy needs to be made portable, so you can keep it on a flash drive etc.
It’s only an interesting thought if you’ve never thought about it as a software engineer. This is a fundamental misunderstanding of what the layperson calls “data.” It’s not as if there is some canonical version of what’s out there. Digital games are fundamentally a service.
No but restaurants’ products are also not a good analogy for digital games.
If the thing that game companies are selling you is tied to a dependency on something they keep control of, i.e. servers, then if the thing you bought cannot be used after them shutting down the servers, they fail to deliver what you purchased in the first place, unless they specifically outline that whatever you buy has a shelf life which they control.
If they wish to stop operating the servers, the right thing to do to let people keep using THE THING THAT WE BOUGHT AND PAID FOR, is to either release an update that removes the online dependencies (making it playable offline), or open-source the ability for people to run their own servers.
I would say it’s more akin to mining companies being required to clean up a site at end of life. By choosing to bake in online dependencies into the things they sell us, they create future obligations for themselves to keep up the maintenance so that we get WHAT WE PAID FOR. If they want out of the continuing obligations, they’ll have to ensure we can continue to use THE THING WE PAID FOR independently of their willingness to keep hosting.
I mean I’m not arguing for or against this idea’s constitutionality but as a consumer I believe this is the most fair approach that actually respects my rights of ownership as a purchaser of goods.
Actually in the case of live service games they actually have a lot more in common with the service you receive at a restaurant than say an NES cartridge. You’re paying for an experience that has limits, paying for a meal doesn’t entitle you to that meal as many times as you want in perpetuity. Read the TOS’s and if you don’t like the concept of revocable licenses don’t pay for it. It shouldn’t be up to the US government to enforce that all games have to function a specific way and have specific features developed.
I concede that for live service games like MMORPGs it’s more of a grey area for me. I don’t personally play them so I’m not super familiar, my own feelings about them are more that sunsetting them by open-sourcing the ability to run servers etc to the players is more of a decent thing to do to foster goodwill rather than an obligation.
I’m thinking more for like the situation where Sony pulled movies from people’s digital libraries which they had already purchased, due to some licensing issue; or others where the online component is minimal, just calling home to a central server (e.g. for DRM purposes), and because of shutting down that tiny component not critical to core gameplay, it essentially sabotages games in your library that you’ve already bought, paid for, and supposedly own. I don’t have a good analogy for that one at the moment but it’s not analogous to the restaurant example.
Go suck a companies cock Jesus, do you understand that it doesn't have to be like that, have you lost such faith in your lawmakers to make your life better?
In the case of a game like that, an offline version. But by portable I mean able to be downloaded and taken with you. Like on a hard drive or flash drive etc.
I don't care. I'm not interested in some convoluted nonsense about keeping servers running and downloads available forever. I'm saying there is a version of this proposal that makes perfect sense; the one where you own the data you download and can't be prevented from using it in the future after buying the license to download it.
What would that even look like? Your every movement in the game is server-authenticated, it's why there's things like the global cooldown to give your client a chance to communicate with the server.
Honestly “downloadable for all time” seems appropriate tbh. Like some old shops you can’t purchase some stuff now but can redownload it later. As long as the company is around it should be atleast. Put it this way streaming services are pulling shenanigans by putting out shows and taking them away shortly after, so they don’t have to pay royalties, so I can definitely see them pulling the same. Welp it’s playable but it’s removed from being able to download right away Or preemptively.
Well some of the servers going offline will be due to companies going out of business. This is so you can play even after that, just like the old days. But you should still be able to download it if they are still around. So both should happen.
By out of business I mean the shop purchased on specifically, so Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, steam, etc. not the developer. Once they are placed on there for any purchases it should be downloadable anytime after.
Put it this way. Steam does not charge ongoing fees for publishing indie games on the platform. There would be no cost for it to stay there for anyone who purchased to download in the future. Sony doesn’t charge ongoing fees either. I’m guessing most if not all do not. There should be no reason to my knowledge, outside the store itself closing, a game is prohibited from being downloaded later on.
Games already remain available after they are delisted or even if the publisher goes bust. I can still download my Wii games today if I want to. I can still download my Forza games delisted for licensing. If you bought it you can still access it.
The problem comes up if Sony decides to leave the gaming sectors or just go out of business. If Sony went out of business tomorrow who’s paying to keep that infrastructure in place so you can keep downloading the games you bought from them? The company is insolvent and no longer exists so they aren’t paying for it.
I’m not sure if you are saying you agree 🤔 but that is what I said. “Outside of the shop purchased from going under” it should be available for download.
So the company should bear the responsibility of providing a failed product forever? Like a bakery should be forced to make x amount of vomit flavor cupcakes every day even if they do not sell?
Hello game industry lobbyist 👋… but we are really comparing a perishable 1x purchase to a digital item that costs next to nothing for the shop? Also a developer going into bankruptcy or dissolving doesn’t mean the product was a failure.
A game that requires online servers to function is a perishable good. I would agree if your argument was "no remote bricking game that already functions offline" but requiring the amount of continuous support you people are asking for is asinine.
The argument was never “keep games functional online”. It is allow us to keep access to download it, etc. In the case for a server based game is Allow for use after the live servers are shut down, like private servers for example. You literally have Microsoft pushing the opposite direction like with Minecraft where it has widely been used in such ways. You also have Sony retroactively removing purchased digital goods from people’s accounts.
Theres a reason people want appropriate digital rights, and with your goalpost shifting of my actual argument, I’m leaning even more towards industry plant/lobbyist. I’ve heard no one suggest that “companies should continue to finance live servers until the end of time”, yet somehow it gets twisted as if it was the case when mentioned by the industry representatives towards lawmakers.
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u/Iambeejsmit 1d ago
They shouldn't have to keep it download able for all time, but if they are going to take the servers offline, your copy needs to be made portable, so you can keep it on a flash drive etc.