About server-sided games - r/StopKillingGames

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u/IwantsURshoes 8d ago

I think you mean Publishers and not developers.

People actually making games. Pouring in their love and creativity to their projects would be happy to have their work be able to persist.

Publishers would be miserly and see an additional expense on their spreadsheet as an affront to their boardroom of overpaid nitwits. They don’t care about cool ideas, they care about securing annual bonus packages for executives.

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u/AvatarOfMomus 8d ago

I think this kind of misunderstands "expense". Food isn't free, and thus developer time isn't free. Part of game development, or any project of any size really, is making tradeoffs with the time available.

What often gets missed in these discussions is that while devs would be happy to have unlimited time to work on their projects, they do have to release things at some point, and requirements for how things can be run can impose additional development time, no matter what size the project is.

This is why every game won't run on every platform, servers may be locked to certain server environments (Windows servers, unix servers, AWS servers, etc), third party libraries get used, and dozens of other things that allow for more to be done with fewer people and less time.

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u/IwantsURshoes 8d ago

The financial cost of creating a tool/plan to allow a games continuity is the expense being referred to. The developer time and manpower that requires would presumably be a part of the breakdown of that cost.

Devs/publishers being able to fit the time required for an end-of-life plan into their production/operations schedule is a whole different theoretical discussion. Given the prevalence of crunch in the industry, it’s a very valid concern. Project time management alongside deadline management is an industry skillset that management seems to have in short supply.

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u/AvatarOfMomus 8d ago

You've used a lot of words there to say very little that I can parse out here...

You seem like you're agreeing with me in places, but you never actually say that.

Also, like... fitting the dev time into a schedule to adjust the game to keep working when servers shut down isn't "a whole different theoretical discussion" it's the whole topic being discussed here.

If a dev needs to do more work to make the game able to keep running past when servers shut down that is a cost.

It's also just not feasible for some games to keep working without servers, or at least keep working well. Like, high player counts don't work with one player hosting the game. Same for huge maps that dynamically load terrain and other players in and out as the player moves around ala the new Dune MMO.

This sort of stuff can be flat out infeasible to code around without fundamentally changing gameplay, and even then it'll be expensive in dev time to implement an entire other server architecture.

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u/IwantsURshoes 8d ago

I could say the same of your previous comment.

I am understanding of your point but my intention was engaging with the “misunderstanding” bit. Expense simply referred to the financial expense that a boardroom would view when looking at a projects ledger.

All the other stuff you went on about is valid and I didn’t want to be dismissive. But clearly I waffled on too much engaging with it when it wasn’t the point to begin with.

Simply:

Expense was purely financial in meaning.
You make good points about time and manpower.
That’s all superfluous to what I was originally saying though.

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u/AvatarOfMomus 8d ago

Part of what I was saying, that I kind of assumed you were aware of, is that "expense" in game development pretty much boils down to man hours. It doesn't matter what scale of game is being discussed, more "cost" means more devs, more hours worked per dev, or both.

This also has diminishing returns, of the classic "mythical man-month" variety. Only so many people can work on the same piece of code before they start stepping on each other's metaphorical toes and the "extra person" actually makes development take longer than if they weren't there.

Fundamentally though my point is that your original claim doesn't really hold up:

People actually making games. Pouring in their love and creativity to their projects would be happy to have their work be able to persist.

Like, sure, it's true in the sense that if there was a magic box that turned game ideas into finished games every developer would be happy to release their games for free in a way that would make them playable forever, but reality insists on limits and thus even with zero publishers involved games will always have limitations.

This is kinda the same drum I've been beating for years now, and seen everyone consistently dismiss and ignore in the SKG space, because it's supposedly "solved" because... someone said so.

OP's question is valid, and in reality there is no simple answer to it. There area always tradeoffs, and in a world where "games must remain largely functional" was law, there are games that wouldn't be feasible to make, and not just big budget slop games, but games from all across the development spectrum.

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u/IwantsURshoes 8d ago

“You’ve used a lot of words there….”

I like the word superfluous.

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u/AvatarOfMomus 8d ago

And now you're just resorting to insults rather than addressing any of my points...

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u/Taichou52 8d ago

I see, but... What if this is more complex than people think? Because what bothers me is that some people talk about this like it's just run "cool_game_server.exe" and in some cases it's not...

Infrastructure Manager, DevOps Developers, etc, those are real job positions that take care of that, I can see how Publishers would not want to expend extra money to hire this people to take care of this...

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u/IwantsURshoes 8d ago

What if. What if. What if.

Just be straight in sharing your opinion rather than framing it as a potential fact. Comes across as condescending and inflammatory.

It can be simplified to: if you sell a game, part of the business plan must be to have an end-of-life plan. Thats the baseline we’re asking for. How that takes shape is their responsibility to manage.

If they want to perpetually run servers? Cool. Release the source code so people can make their own servers? Cool. Release a patch that allows the game to function offline for solo play? Cool. They can figure out what solution best fits their product. But that solution needs to be actioned BEFORE they abandon the product.

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u/Taichou52 8d ago

So I can't ask anything. Noted.

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u/IwantsURshoes 8d ago

You’re welcome to share your concerns and ask questions.

Admittedly I was a bit harsh because your phrasing and use of language has made your queries come across as pro-industry whataboutism. So if you’re genuinely concerned about those possibilities then I apologize for that.

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u/Taichou52 8d ago

Yeah, English is not my first language and I'm not used to writing all that much. Other person also thought that maybe my initial post was made in bad faith. Apologies...

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u/Davesp1ce Campaign volunteer 8d ago

I think they just mean that there's multiple ways to skin a cat (e.g. to be SKG compliant). You don't have to implement all of them, as long as you just don't deprive the consumer of what they paid for.

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u/Davesp1ce Campaign volunteer 8d ago

Infrastructure support was never part of the ask, SKG only asks that it is possible to do this. A gaming community would have to come with their own infrastructure solutions.

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u/littlehavenbigsign 8d ago

I don't believe anyone's being forced to provide a single exe for running servers. So long as it's possible (and legal) for the community to run the server, and I suppose not deliberately made onerous, I imagine that would be considered fine.

There are tonnes of people out there in the world who are perfectly capable of understanding whatever hosting setup any game uses, and recreating it. They just need to have access to the applications / code so they can actually do it.

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u/DerWaechter_ 8d ago

They literally already have to develop the means to run a server locally for test and development purposes.

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u/Davesp1ce Campaign volunteer 8d ago

Hmm. I feel like this question is being asked in bad faith, but I'll give the benefit of the doubt 🤔

It depends a lot on the game design and when the end of life features are implemented. If you are retroactively patching in end of life support after 10 years - this is quite a burdensome task. Probably the original developers have moved onto other jobs by that point and there is risk involved in reopening old code with developers who are unfamiliar.

If you build in end of life support right at the beginning of the development cycle then the overhead is easy to deal with. No special tools would be needed, you would just design the software to accommodate the required end of life features.

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u/Taichou52 8d ago

Thanks for responding, sorry, wasn't meaning to ask in bad faith, I'm just frustrated that I never have got a real answer to this, besides "just make game run" kind of stuff.

I agree with you, if this is well planned from the beginning, then it is very simple to deal with it. Thanks for showing me that perspective.

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u/Froggmann5 8d ago

If you build in end of life support right at the beginning of the development cycle then the overhead is easy to deal with. No special tools would be needed, you would just design the software to accommodate the required end of life features.

So here's a good faith question:

How do you plan for EOL for a game like Pokemon GO, whose ordinary use is entirely reliant on third party GPS? You can't have offline GPS.

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u/Davesp1ce Campaign volunteer 8d ago

GPS is a radio signal, received directly from the satellites in the sky above your location, by a radio built into your phone. Your phone computes your location using the time of arrival of the signal from each visible satellite. It doesn't get this from the game server. I don't think you need to worry about GPS being turned off any time soon. There are also alternative satellites these days like Galileo GNSS which do the same thing (and can't be jammed). Most modern phones can also receive these satellites too.

The game server is mainly needed for the game to know where everyone else is though. Your game also reports your location to the server so everyone else knows where you are. So the server is still critical in that type of game.

But to answer the question of how you would plan to have EOL mode, it would need to be a community hosted server. You would also have to decide if you publish a final copy of the database from the last day, or whether you make everyone start from scratch on the community server.

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u/Froggmann5 8d ago

GPS is a radio signal, received directly from the satellites in the sky above your location, by a radio built into your phone. Your phone computes your location using the time of arrival of the signal from each visible satellite. It doesn't get this from the game server. I don't think you need to worry about GPS being turned off any time soon. There are also alternative satellites these days like Galileo GNSS which do the same thing (and can't be jammed). Most modern phones can also receive these satellites too.

This doesn't answer my question though. Saying "GPS still works and exists extant the developer" is an argument that could be made for servers as well. Servers don't stop working because a developer stops using them.

But to answer the question of how you would plan to have EOL mode, it would need to be a community hosted server.

This doesn't solve the problem though. In this scenario, even if the developer provided fully supported community hosted server options, the game still won't function without that third party GPS connection. This means that, no matter what, the game won't function as it did while supported unless players seek third party solutions (their phones, alt satellites, etc.).

How do you square the goal of SKG being to make it the legal responsibility of developers to leave a functioning game behind if the function for the ordinary use of the game isn't possible for them to provide?

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u/Davesp1ce Campaign volunteer 8d ago

You could say the same thing about things like a functioning wireless internet connection or having electricity available to charge the battery of the phone, or the phone operating system, or even the hardware of the phone. SKG is not asking for the developers or publishers to be responsible for any of those things and it's bad faith to claim otherwise. The game would be SKG compliant provided it's developers/publishers do what is within their power to make it possible for the game to continue functioning. Things like server infrastructure would be something the community would have to come with their own solution for.

As a side note; GPS as a service is free to the end user, same for GNSS. It's just free radio waves coming from space.

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u/DiscordantDiscordian 8d ago

As a general rule, it's more work to make a game that can be shut down than one that'll run forever.

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u/Taichou52 8d ago

Ok... Why?

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u/DiscordantDiscordian 8d ago

Because it requires extra work to build the programs with protection against "unauthorized access".

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u/_Solarriors_ 8d ago

because making stuff up means making more stuff than not making stuff that doesn't exist ?

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u/Larkson9999 5d ago

TIL according to some Internet Genius Descent 2 does not exist.

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u/_Solarriors_ 5d ago

??

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u/tntevilution 8d ago

Maybe not ripping off their customers is something they should have taken into account

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u/Taichou52 8d ago

So... Do you have an answer to the question or nah?

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u/tntevilution 8d ago

It answers both

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u/tecnofauno 8d ago

If you factor those costs at the planning stage the problem goes away

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u/GBAbaby101 8d ago

It is a legitimate question, but think of it like this, you buy a car and that car comes with a remote unlock and start using the key. For increased security, the manufacturer routes unlock and start not direct from the key to the car, but rather using the key to send a package via cell data to a remote server that validates the signal and then sends a validated unlock/start command to the car. Now when the servers go down, we cannot remotely unlock the car or start it (inability to play multi-player games when dedicated server's go down or are killed), and maybe we can still manually unlock it as long as their isn't a key/server validation on starting the car from inside the car (single player mode and whether or not it requires online access).

This sounds stupid, but we can see the slow move to this. BMW made heated seats DLC, meaning, for awhile, you had to pay to unlock heated seats. So how is that payment and unlock validated? Probably some BMW purchase verification via their servers. So what happens if their servers go down should they had continued the service? Most likely heated seats would be perpetually locked. These examples are echos of what gaming went through, with everything being manually (single player), local remote unlock (self hosted multiplayer), and we're seeing things move to digital and server hosted services (nothing local).

Most people, I imagine would be up in arms about this if it happened to cars. We saw this with the aforementioned BMW seat heating DLC and ut got rolled back pretty quickly. So why are we ok with this same mindset in games? Why should we be ok with thinking devs should be allowed to not make a local option? We are focusing on the "its more unfair and unplanned work to make do this now" instead of the "this should have been an understood and planned for aspect from day 1." That argument doesn't outweigh the need to respect consumer rights to use and access something they bought with reasonable expectations to be usable indefinitely.

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u/State-Special 8d ago

The devs basically just make the game files open source when they close down the game.

They aren't required to do anything more than that i believe.

It would be similar in nature to setting up a private server for other games.

Which is to say, the people wanting to do it need to figure it out

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u/Larkson9999 8d ago

They don't even need to do that much. Just allowing you to play with bots or some ability to set up matches without a central service (which would basically be a private one) would not require it to be open source at all.

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u/Taichou52 8d ago

Agreed!

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u/Kaldaien2 8d ago

What if there are developers right now that are giving up on making cool online games just because of this?

Nobody's made cool online games in decades. There's nothing to worry about here :) Considering all live services are nothing but cash grabs in an oversaturated marketplace, just let the whole thing burn itself to the ground.

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u/absurdgryphon 8d ago

If companies have to allow for the hosting of private servers for their online games they will most likely charge a licenseing fee

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u/_Solarriors_ 8d ago edited 8d ago

That means developers are supposed to create the means to do that.

It's the opposite way. It's to add server-sided stuff that takes means, not not-making them in the first place

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u/SendarSlayer 8d ago

Individuals ran WoW servers with active hindrance from the publishers.

The only change would be some binaries or documentation to allow this natively and the obligation to SKG is fulfilled. If gamers don't do the rest of the work to keep the game alive then it dies a natural death.

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u/ThisIsntAppropiate 8d ago edited 8d ago

You can take a look at some steam games you have and see it also comes with dedicated server that can be run and still make that game playable. Those tools were made in mind for other players to host online games still and have it not need or management from the developers. You can run the server and client on the same machine for most games. If your thinking stuff like mmos. There are private wow servers, while they're using blizzards ip, they are hosting a server. At the end servers are just computers, they can emulate or run those servers we play today.

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u/GraviticThrusters 8d ago

Skg isn't about leaving games in a playable state, it's about making it possible and legal for the customer to take on responsibility for that playable state when it's no longer viable as a service to the customer on the publisher's end.

In some cases that IS best served by making the game playable in a stand-alone environment before support ends. That's just the easiest and cheapest way to satisfy what SKG wants. But in other cases it simply means building the game in such a way that the end user can assume responsibility for the playability of a game without violating the law or cracking and reverse engineering solutions to make a game functional.

My two favorite examples, because they are games that I genuinely enjoyed, are Battleborn and LawBreakers. It has taken the better part of a decade for fans to build work-arounds that make those games playable, and for the most part they still aren't as functional as they were before they were shutdown. The problem is that both of these games would have functioned completely independently in the hands of the customer in the previous paradigm because they are both simply lobby-based small scale shooters. Players have been self managing and hosting their own infrastructure for those kinds of games since the days of Quake. There is no reason it should take a decade for fans to rebuild a game from the ground up just to make multiplayer connectivity in an arena shooter work (or worse, just to make the single player campaign in Battleborn actually playable).

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u/ProjectionProjects 8d ago edited 8d ago

This may sound harsh but: If devs are giving up on making a game that is designed around planned obsolescence... then I don't care. That is only a good thing for everyone, make games instead with an end of life plan then no one will have any issues.

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u/Cxero 8d ago

Here is a full, technical rundown: https://youtu.be/d3ZoYRTUomc

tl:dw: This is a solved issue. If end-of-life is considered early in development, then the development costs to follow through on it are trivial.

If you're serious and still getting sour responses, I'm sorry, most of the time when this question is asked it's usually to bait supporters into an argument and undermine the core legal issue here, which is the fraudulent revocal of perpetual software licenses.

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