Seems like there's going to be a point where people are noticing the games they spent money on don't work as they should anymore because the servers get shut down.

How would you feel if most of the multiplayer games you spent money on suddenly stopped being multiplayer because the business decided it's not worthwhile for them to keep the servers running?

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[–] CMLVI@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago

Unlikely to care, realistically. I play multiplayer games with friends; I cannot think of the last time I wanted to play Gears of War 2, or Forza Motorsport 3, or any number of other games I've played with friends in the past that I own copies of.

I get the sentiment behind this, and I do think there should be a backend set up for private lobbies through P2P connection for when the inevitable occurs. But on the scale of things I'm worried about daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly, this doesn't register at all.

[–] slazer2au@lemmy.world 80 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Isn't the stop killing games movement bringing this to light?

[–] RandomStickman@fedia.io 45 points 5 days ago

This whole movement really highlights how hard it is to get the word out for me. Fediverse isn't a huge place as it is, relative to other online spaces. But every time SKG related topics surfaces there are always people who have never heard about it and people talking about misconceptions that Ross has addressed many times.

Anyway for everyone else, especially if you're in the EU, please check out https://www.stopkillinggames.com/

[–] ampersandrew@lemmy.world 46 points 5 days ago

Yes, precisely. These days, when I consider buying a game, if it doesn't have LAN, private servers, or direct connections, I treat the multiplayer as though it doesn't exist, because one day it won't.

[–] B0NK3RS@lemmy.world 25 points 5 days ago

Community servers were/are some of the best times I have in gaming.

[–] yggstyle@lemmy.world 19 points 5 days ago (2 children)

Meanwhile StarCraft, one of the most pervasive rts for its time and in the PC gaming sphere in general ... let you have multiple people play multiplayer on a single disk. Offline. It's kinda like it advertised itself and people went out to buy it... which influenced more people... who bought it.... gasp.

Mindblowing.

[–] Yermaw@lemm.ee 7 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Legend has it the original Worms was similar. The DRM was a notepad readme that basically said "share me with your friends but buy a copy if you really like it please"

[–] yggstyle@lemmy.world 2 points 5 days ago

mmmm banana bombs, holy hand grenades, and those cursed shopping levels * shudder *

[–] very_well_lost@lemmy.world 2 points 4 days ago (1 children)

And it still has a thriving competitive scene more than 25 years later.

In fact, ASL (the biggest SC tournament) is going on right now!

[–] yggstyle@lemmy.world 3 points 4 days ago

Funny how that works. ;)

[–] iii@mander.xyz 13 points 5 days ago

Well yes. That's why you buy other games.

[–] 11111one11111@lemmy.world 11 points 5 days ago (2 children)

Thought that was just stat quo since call of duty or madden started pumping out annual games. I never checked but I assume I can't boot up Madden 2011 and still find servers to play on.

[–] gradual@lemmings.world 9 points 5 days ago

Which is a shame.

I'll always be able to play World at War multiplayer because it supports LAN and player-hosted servers.

I don't know if the newer ones support LAN or hosting our own servers, but if they don't then it would mean we're essentially renting access to the game's multiplayer features.

It really means we're going backwards just to make businesses richer than us even richer at our expense.

[–] ampersandrew@lemmy.world 7 points 5 days ago (1 children)

They've been putting out annual releases for a long time, and Call of Duty used to still have LAN. It doesn't look like Madden ever had LAN, from a quick search of the old covers, which would list the features the game supported, but it was pretty common even in console games back then.

[–] themeatbridge@lemmy.world 6 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Can confirm, I remember when Madden introduced online multiplayer, and there was a small kerfuffle because there was no way to bypass their servers. I remember having the conversation with my buddies that it didn't matter, because we would all prefer to play together on the couch in the same room, and playing strangers on the internet didn't sound appealing.

[–] jqubed@lemmy.world 4 points 5 days ago

Yeah, I’ve never played Madden online. That’s very much a couch game to me still. Not that I’ve played it much in years. I picked up my first copy in over a decade a couple years ago when it was on sale at the end of the season.

[–] MyDarkestTimeline01@ani.social 8 points 5 days ago (2 children)

That is. Because you stopped owning your games a while back. What you're actually buying is a limited access license to the software.

[–] Onomatopoeia@lemmy.cafe 8 points 5 days ago

This all started 15+ years ago.

I vaguely recall this transition with a Call of Duty game, when you could no longer host your own, for a game where that really wasn't necessary, unlike MMORPG.

And today with the high bandwidth home connections, hardware capability, or even just using a VPS, you could still host with appropriate performance.

[–] Brosplosion@lemm.ee 4 points 5 days ago

You never owned your games, what are you talking about