Stop Killing Games

Lots of bad takes in this thread. The whole idea behind this is just to stop defrauding customers that buy your software and then are left holding the bag. Nobody is asking for developers to keep running server infra for eternity.

Any of the following options are enough to satisfy this proposal:

- Put an expiration date on the storefront and make it clear that your software is not guaranteed to continue working after date X.

- Have your server source code (stripped down of proprietary stuff) ready for public release at EoL.

- Allow customers to reverse engineer the binaries and communication protocol after EoL.

- Package dedicated server binaries with the game and allow customers to connect to it via a LAN or direct IP option.

> - Put an expiration date on the storefront and make it clear that your software is not guaranteed to continue working after date X.

This software is not guaranteed beyond 0 Unix time.

> - Have your server source code (stripped down of proprietary stuff) ready for public release at EoL.

This isn't viable, and i would expect anyone on this site to understand that. it's roughly equivalent to saying "just make facebook stripped of proprietary code and ready for the public to run"

> - Allow customers to reverse engineer the binaries and communication protocol after EoL.

This is a reasonable path forward, but likely a non-starter in the US for political reasons. I understand that "stop killing games" is an EU thing.

> - Package dedicated server binaries with the game and allow customers to connect to it via a LAN or direct IP option.

See point 2. This is nonsensical.

How is a dedicated server nonsensical? There’s a fuckton of games, ancient and modern, with them.

Shoot, how is peer-to-peer nonsensical? Elden Ring (seamless multiplayer) got it tacked on as a mod. It’s insanely doable.

I don’t accept that these are nonstarters. In the slightest.