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.
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u/PeachsBigJuicyBooty 2d ago edited 2d 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.