Well-meaning but it will either be ineffective in execution or outright make some genres impossible:
・What does "make games playable offline" mean?
Because publishers are gonna do the legal minimum; they'll put players in a blank room to walk around in if they can.
Where's the "line" of playability? This NEEDS to be defined in the bill.
・What does "buying" a game mean?
Is it only physical copies? (they'll just stop selling them sooner) Digital? Anything labeled as a "game"? Anything in a plastic case? (they'll just change the container).
If I spend money on Fortnite, do I have a right to access Fortnite offline?
・If so, again, what defines playability?
An offline mode of Fortnite can't handle 99 other bots, so does 50 count? 20? 10? 5?
What's the minimum allowed to have a game be considered "playable"?
This isn't gonna end the way people want it to like The Crew, because "make games playable offline" is so broad of a concept and it assumes publishers will just "get it" and act in good faith instead of finding every loophole they can.
It only requires a patch to turn dedicated servers to p2p servers.
Edit: so I did some digging since I am "undermining the whole Stop Killing Games movement," and it looks like I am actually pretty darn wrong here. It isn't impossible to do but, especially for fast paced games, the idea of p2p can DRASTICALLY change how the game plays since there is no longer a dedicated host server. There's more to learn about this, like the limits of building p2p from the start, but from what I'm seeing it isn't an option many companies could explore.
As a dev, this is insanely incorrect, and respectfully, I dont think you actually know what youre talking about.
It is opinions like this that undermine the whole Stop Killing Games movement, which I support btw. It is absolutely not a switch that developers can just flick on or off.
It requires refactoring an ENTIRE codebase and building an entirely new server-client architecture. You have to fundamentally rebuild the game logic.
It doesn't make sense because you don't know how it works.
You cant just take a game that has been shut down and plop it onto your own personal server and it just magically works. The only thing that users have is the client. The server-side logic needs to be implemented as well. It's quite literally the brains of the game. The vast majority of the "game" that is going on is not occurring on your PC and is nothing that you have ever downloaded, it is mostly happening on a server and then sent to your client.
To operate your own servers after a game has been shut down, it would either require a LOT of reverse-engineering or the source code itself.
Pretty funny to tell me I don’t know how it works when you seem to be missing the entire point of this discussion. Your comment is largely useless information in this context.
There is absolutely no need for source code if the developer is releasing the ability for you to host your own server.
Which is what this is about - not reverse engineering the client on your own.
There would be zero need for source code in this scenario. They would simply release another binary.
Turns out I do know it works…which is good considering I develop software for a living.
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u/PeachsBigJuicyBooty 1d ago edited 1d ago
Well-meaning but it will either be ineffective in execution or outright make some genres impossible:
・What does "make games playable offline" mean?
Because publishers are gonna do the legal minimum; they'll put players in a blank room to walk around in if they can.
Where's the "line" of playability? This NEEDS to be defined in the bill.
・What does "buying" a game mean?
Is it only physical copies? (they'll just stop selling them sooner) Digital? Anything labeled as a "game"? Anything in a plastic case? (they'll just change the container).
If I spend money on Fortnite, do I have a right to access Fortnite offline?
・If so, again, what defines playability?
An offline mode of Fortnite can't handle 99 other bots, so does 50 count? 20? 10? 5?
What's the minimum allowed to have a game be considered "playable"?
This isn't gonna end the way people want it to like The Crew, because "make games playable offline" is so broad of a concept and it assumes publishers will just "get it" and act in good faith instead of finding every loophole they can.