2024 was the year gamers really started pushing back on the erosion of game ownership
https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/2024-was-the-year-gamers-really-started-pushing-back-on-the-erosion-of-game-ownership/Open linkView original on sh.itjust.works
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stopkillinggames.com
EU PETITION
A bit too optimistic, but hey, at least it's a post pointing people at GOG, which has otherwise been losing big publisher support (SEGA and Sony used to put some big games there and don't anymore, for instance).
I'm also not sure that the big failures of prominent games as a service are an indication of a return to appreciating ownership. I'm afraid it may be rather that the established genre leaders are taking all the oxygen out of that space, just as it happened for causal mobile F2P games a while ago.
If the perception makes players more likely to give up on their forever games and go back to buying piecemeal experiences they get to keep indefinitely I'd call that very good news, but I'll need a bit more evidence before I declare myself optimistic on that subject.
Perhaps in a roundabout way it is. My guess is that this is a reflection of the lack of value that people find in live service games when it isn't an immediate hit, because their value comes from other people valuing it as well. If the game's showing signs of shutting down in a year or two, you're less likely to bother giving it your time and money. Meanwhile, people will rally behind a game that they assume will be popular with those around them. That's how it appears to me anyway. You can say that is or is not valuing ownership, but it's showing that these games have less value inherently, in any case.
I think there is absolutely a sense that some of these games aren't worth jumping into because the longevity won't be there. That doesn't necessarily mean the alternative is people sticking around and playing traditional paid experiences instead, though. What seems to be happening instead is people sticking with a few "forever games" and getting stuck there, sort of out of the market. We've seen that dynamic before, when everybody was trying to come up with a MMO to replace WoW, or in the very stagnant mobile market.
That's at least somewhat self-cleansing though. If everyone else loses hundreds of millions of dollars trying to become the next live service phenomenon, they'll learn that it's unlikely they will be and stop pursuing it. That losing strategy has caused major shakeups at EA and Ubisoft and immensely hurt Bandai-Namco and WB next to their more traditional offerings doing gangbusters. If I'm going to glance five minutes into the future with a dash of expecting current trends to extrapolate into the future, maybe the model that makes everyone happy is more of this "prologue" model that Metaphor and tons of smaller Steam releases have been employing, which is just a roundabout way to return to shareware from 30 years ago.
Well, when the reward being dangled is a Fortnite-sized chunk of the industry worth billions by itself it's hard to suggest that the real answer is more, smaller, less profitable releases. Especially with public companies with a mandate to seek endless growth. It's not like big traditional single player games are a surefire thing, either.
It's a bit of a rough time for the industry right now, frankly. So... on that note, happy holidays everybody!
the pushback has always been to pay for what you want on Steam/GOG/Epic/whatever... then be open to stealing things if and when they get taken from you.
Which part of that is "out there"?
Yeah, if they want to claim digital piracy is theft, then them doing this stuff is just as they described
I'm not sure who expected an online game to exist forever. Not the first time the lights have been shut off like this.
Everything needed to run the game online exists player side. There are many games where people run their own servers because of this, even in WoW. They are literally taking things to disable this ability from what they purchased.
And blizzard never supported people running private servers, and yet here they are so what's the difference? I dont see why this game got so much more attention. Is it just pulling the game to sell the next one? Its scummy but its their right to pull their own product if they want to, and noone has to buy the new one.
They did, but that was 9 years ago, so you might not remember. However it was not as popular a movement yet, so they didn't get the same backlash as people are getting almost 10 years later, when everyone is sick of this. You are right, they can pull their own product if they want to, now. The goal is to make it so they can't just do that if they want to, anymore.
If you are referring to blizzard and private servers 9 years ago, you might mean classic servers but blizzard still sends out legal cease and desists to private server owners. You still cannot host a private server on american soil without blizzard stopping you. If thats not what you meant then thats my bad though.
I also fully expect ubisoft to release "the crew remastered" at some point too, once its clear they can make a profit off doing so, just like blizzard did.
I mean they started shutting it down 9 years ago, it isn't new, so it isn't really news now
Point was, this is about making it so they don't have the option to do this anymore, with the legal system.
It's also not some unknown black magic to make online games exist forever. We know how to do it.
What online games have existed forever without needing the community to reverse engineer it?
Quake is one of the oldest ones out there. Any game where you can host the server yourself can exist forever. It used to be very common that the server code was provided to you with your copy of the game.
I was referring to live service games like MMOs but thats sort of a good example. Should mmo developers release games with the server code so people can just use their own instead?
Most developers release server code when its a benefit for them and their userbase. Most developers won't when its a benefit for their userbase but not themselves.
The stop canceling games movement is overly broad. Also, how is the crew the game everyones going to bat for? Did noone know of ubisoft before they bought the game? Stop buying ubisoft.
Live service games are just about defined by not releasing their servers. Just because they don't, it doesn't mean they shouldn't. With any luck, a court somewhere will decide that reasonable consumers cannot adequately tell the difference between a game with an expiration date, like the Crew, and a game that will last.
So how's that working out?
It's at about 5TB. I've got it copied. Just fine, man. How's your collection, going?
Someone please explain to me why a game after selling millions of copies shouldn't be open sourced
Because it will create expectation on the side of players that the game will become free in a while, driving down sales.
The open sourcing period should be at least long enough to justify purchase, probably a decade after the release.
Sales reasons... gotta make more millions to stuck up
Absolutely. But that's what drives game development and everything under capitalism
If that was true pre-orders wouldn't be a thing, especially after so many half baked releases. And the prices for new releases would not have gone up so much in the last few years.
By and large gamers are not a patience kind. They want the new thing not the old thing.
Godd old games was also the time, where you paid once for playing. This should be added to the initiative as well.
Do you not remember expansion packs?
No is wasn't. The dumb gamers were praising steam for doing the same thing Ubisoft was doing.
I think most gamers see a serious difference between ubisoft and Steam.
Ubisoft is a publicly traded company who only exists to make money for shareholders, and Valve is a privately owned company with no plans to go public, so it has no greedy shareholders forcing the company to engage in anti consumer decisions.
Anyone who looks at the two entities can clearly see which is better for the end user.
No greedy shareholders, yet Valve pioneered the lootbox and micro transactions that G*mers complain about with other companies.
A company doesn't need to be public to be greedy. And using that as the sole distinction between "good and bad" companies is an incredibly sheltered take.
Pokémon and MTG were selling loot boxes (card packs) decades before steam even existed.
If we want to ban lootboxes I'm all for it, but it's not Steams fault this un healthy thing people do for fun is legal and allowed to target children.
Cope
I'm sorry, do people buy AAA games when they first come out?
What does that have to do with this?