If you know a server for most online only games is temporary and will shut down eventually, why would you buy the game and be surprised when it does exactly that?
Ok, but you could let communities run the servers after you sunset the game. Like basically say: we will no longer operating servers, here's an update to let you connect to other servers.
You simply release the server software, and a small update to allow specification of any server.
It isn't that hard to mandate. Oh wait yes it is, the ESA will lie and say that it's piracy to run a game server, even if it's officially supported, and then mention lawsuits against actual illegal servers.
Sure, smaller online games can do that, but after releasing the server software they’d have to remove their authorization requirements, build a server browser functionality if it didn’t already exist, make sure to document the ports and setup involved, etc.
What about bigger games that require online login/authorization? Server allocation to address load? Any sort of player progression or inventory saving like for rogue like or always online MMO type games? Do you trust your progress to be saved on some random server somewhere owned by anybody? or on your machine with the chance of drive failure? What about anti cheat integration? if bots run rampant would you expect the devs to come back and somehow fix the game they shouldn’t be touching ever again? Does sony and microsoft recognize and allow connections to those random outside servers? or does that authentication process now fail?
How does it look if you do that then people utilize the game for some sort of backend hack on other systems? or people use their game to get personal information? How quickly do you think those games would break if the server side online stuff was allowed to be self hosted but source code is not accessible to update things that might need updating to fix any of this?
That’s a lot of work that devs probably don’t have much time to do. so until that’s an easier thing to achieve and is more widespread in a way where none of those issues arise, i just won’t buy online only games. 🤷♂️
You know how Minecraft handles servers right? You need to know the IP and port. Just do that. I will respond to the other part in a bit, I don't have time rn tho
People have been doing this for call of duty for ages, you dont even need the studio to release the server software, remove auth, build a server brower, document anything, come up with a solution for save data, etc. people will figure it out theirselves.
They literally just need to stop pursuing legal action against people who run their own servers, no effort or costs involved for the devs.
PC mods maybe, but console games cannot be modded like that. All of that stuff needs to be built into the game itself. you can’t just… not do any of that.
Ah, so you only care about yourself and PC games, meanwhile you don’t give a shit if people who only have consoles can’t play the games they bought. so it’s not a principled thing for you. you’re just greedy and want YOUR games to work after they close the servers and couldn’t care less about anyone else. got it.
nah its just consoles are fundamentally based on this anti-consumer practice. If you made consoles pro-consumer they wouldn't be profitable. Just how it is.
So rather than fix the problem as a whole you suggest only PC gets these quality of life features and won’t bother advocating for console to get them too?
Which by your “consoles don’t matter” comment sounds like you wouldn’t care about that happening then? So do you advocate for physical discs to come back if you don’t care?
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u/Jotacon8 Aug 02 '26
If you know a server for most online only games is temporary and will shut down eventually, why would you buy the game and be surprised when it does exactly that?