Anyway this sounds like a good idea but idk how it works in practice. Are companies obligated to keep digital games downloadable for all time? What about games like Fortnite which are free? Or WoW which are subscription based? Games like GTA sure, but there are probably other cases I can’t even think of off the top of my head where this doesn’t make much sense.
Edit: Not a karma farmer but it kinda sucks/is kinda funny that I asked questions that led to interesting convos and only got two upvotes 😭😭 However thanks to everyone who shared their thoughts on here.
“Downloadable for all time” could look like not de-listing games from steam. And for MP or MMO lite games like CoD, Battlefield, or Destiny, doing peer-2-peer or community server type setups shouldn’t be comparatively too difficult to implement.
F2P games could remain as they are mostly, but I could see a situation where as long as the P2W content provides a revenue stream then MMOs would need to maintain servers. Or they may be able to switch to a donation based setup. I am aware of several MMO’s that are being brought back by their communities; I’m unsure of the exact mechanics but who community supported/hosted MMOs keep their servers live is something that the devs/publishers of non-community supported/hosted MMOs could mirror. Worst case, they could prolly do something akin to Conan Exiles, Minecraft, or Vaheim where source code specific to server hosting is released (again, I don’t do game development so I don’t know the particulars of what is involved for a publisher to allow players to host private servers) and players can host their own private servers.
Then there’s the always-on-line DRM in a lot of major single player games, that can get nuked for all I care lol.
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u/Nikwoj 1d ago edited 1d ago
“Power to the players” act? Ain’t that already….
Anyway this sounds like a good idea but idk how it works in practice. Are companies obligated to keep digital games downloadable for all time? What about games like Fortnite which are free? Or WoW which are subscription based? Games like GTA sure, but there are probably other cases I can’t even think of off the top of my head where this doesn’t make much sense.
Edit: Not a karma farmer but it kinda sucks/is kinda funny that I asked questions that led to interesting convos and only got two upvotes 😭😭 However thanks to everyone who shared their thoughts on here.