- cross-posted to:
- linux_gaming@lemmy.ml
- cross-posted to:
- linux_gaming@lemmy.ml
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Publishers and corpos are ruining games. Not developers.
Agreed, if anything developers are the reason games are playable!
So why is it the devs are the ones to decide to end support for a game finally killing it? All a publisher can do is delist it so it can’t be sold by them anymore, sometimes the dev can find a new publisher or reself publish if the game was good enough. But by then there would be almost no point, since there wouldn’t be any more meaningful amount of sales coming in.
I think the world “developers” means the studios here, which is mostly because the suits who know how to extract value from stuff others create like to cosplay as experts in the industry they are leeching off of.
Look at Musk, he’s a rocket scientist / web developer / automotive engineer / civil engineer. Of course he is.
sometimes these words are used intechangeably, i think most people are aware the suits are to blame
Sometimes? A company that makes video games is literally called the developers of the game…… a game can’t be made without some company developing a game, they also have developers, as well as a host of other jobs completed by other employees, like artists, designers, actors, etc. So to not include all the others is extremely disingenuous.
In fact, an employee developer already has another term for them, programmers, so why they are trying to use another specific industry term to refer to their craft (programming) is just fucking wild.
Words have multiple meaning, developer means multiple, but a programmer trying to say a game development studio isn’t a a developer, but they are, is just pedantic as all fucking shit….
A publisher is also an entirely different company, a developer can also publish though too. Publisher and developer cannot be used interchangeably, unless they WERE both. But sometimes it’s different divisions, as in the case as Ubisoft, they have both development, and publishing studios.
Funny that, I don’t make games but my job title is developer or software developer and my degree is in software development. It seems to me that the employee and corporation title being the same word is a quirk of language more than anyone insisting on taking the others name. The same thing happens to some degree with consultants, architects and dentists. I don’t think either of them conspire to flip the meaning, and I know that no developer I’ve ever talked to definitely doesn’t either.
It’s the developers killing off a 10 year old game when their third finally comes to steam. (Literally in the article and it’s only a couple paragraphs…)
Publishers and corpos don’t decide when to end support, that is entirely a dev decision.
So no one is immune to sucking.
What are you basing this on? Publishers fund development, and that funding dictates where development time is spent. Publishers also absolutely can decide when support ends, see WB getting ready to delist a bunch of games adult swim games published from steam. The devs have no say over that.
Not every game needs funding and lots are self published.
And how many of those devs have made their own effort to get their games back out there? Lots. Publishers only control where the game is sold. It would make zero sense for these devs to spend the money to republish on their own since they would never recoup the costs. That’s why they have been listing them for free or providing a link to download them for free. They couldn’t before since the publisher controlled sales and they could t just give it away either.
Unless the dev sold the rights to the game, the can choose to spend their own money on continuing it, why would they need external funding for that?
Yes, obviously games without publishers aren’t controlled by publishers. Even in those situations funding dictates development, because devs have to eat.
So even with funding a dev studio should have profits coming in, they can either choose to pocket all of that, or save some for literally saving their game.
So it’s the publishers fault the devs spent it all instead of using some to protect their IP? I think you’ve just shot your argument in its foot with that last comment.
So even with funding a dev studio should have profits coming in
No, the dev should have revenue coming in, revenue that pays salaries that allows them to survive. If those salaries aren’t put towards efforts that will bring in more revenue then the revenue will stop and the business will no longer be sustainable.
And if the studio doesn’t profit and have a slush fund they won’t be able to spend a little money to protect their game with their own funds… don’t spend every cent, and you would be able to use some for this good will everyone expects.
This is a circular argument that’s not going to go anywhere, everyone can be an asshole, but it’s the devs that decide if they can support the game or not. They always have a way, whether they thought ahead or not is another story entirely….
We’ve all been there right? You paid for a game, it required an active internet connection
Yes I’ve been there. I immediately refunded the game and then downloaded a pirated copy that worked offline.
Not all games allow for that unless there’s a private server developed for it. The idea is to require companies to provide those tools once the game is taken down.
I understand what “the idea is”. The only way to make that happen is to get people to stop buying them. And I think it’s abundantly clear at this point that that is not going to happen.
So yes, piracy is and will be your only recourse.
https://www.stopkillinggames.com/
Refers to publishers, not developers
They want server based games to release individual hosting capabilities at end of life, like games used to twenty years ago.
I feel like the language they’re using (a game as a good/product) could just result in server based games being labeled a service and switching to a monthly fee model. Or setting a predetermined end of life date (changeable to extend but not shorten)?
Monthly fees and published sunsets are fine, because then customers know what they are getting in to. Selling you a single player game for 50 euro, then yanking the game away 3 months later is not.
But still, why not provide server tools?
I don’t play AAA games, but if I were you I would simply not buy games from big corps who have a long and notorious history of shutting down games. Don’t complain about bad business practice when you’re rewarding it.
The point of this campaign is not that it’s trying to stop a “bad business practice”. There’s a strong possibility that this is illegal in many countries. Just because America is a hellscape of terrible consumer protection rights doesn’t mean people in other countries don’t deserve the products they paid for.
I know that, but the title and body text of this post implies a different subject, which is what I was responding to.
That kind of reminds me of Control on the Switch; it’s a cloud based version so if the company running the hosting service closes you’re out of luck.
I’m pretty sure in the situation of The Crew there is a built in offline mode but it’s disabled.
That’s actually fantastic. I so hope they’ll be successful.
Legislate it that they have to submit the source code to the government when they release it in your market
Then when the game is shutdown the government releases the source
You can put X number of years in between
