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Stop Killing Games

(www.stopkillinggames.com)
253 points MYEUHD | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.207s | source
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hombre_fatal ◴[] No.44446623[source]
The obvious case where this makes sense are single-player games that require internet access before they even launch, like when you need to link a Microsoft account to play Forza.

But it's less obvious to me how the legislation should work for a multiplayer-only game that goes out of business. I suppose it should require a refund at some point. But at what point?

Steam only lets you refund a game that you played for less than two hours.

And if you think that's not long enough, there's surely some time period where you can agree that you've got your money's worth. Kind of like how you lose the ability to say "I didn't like it" after you ate your whole dinner at a restaurant.

Yet in the comments here someone gives an example of three years of online support which is insane. Why is multiplayer special? Should Steam also let you refund any game until three years elapse?

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Volundr ◴[] No.44446687[source]
Why does it have to be a refund? Private servers have been a thing for a long time, with people even running them for MMOs like World of Warcraft or City of Heroes.
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hombre_fatal ◴[] No.44446728[source]
Do you just mean it should be legal to reverse engineer and cleanroom impl your own server if the developer's official servers are closed? I can agree with that.

But anything more than that I probably don't agree with.

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1. int_19h ◴[] No.44450717[source]
They should be required to publish either the full spec that is sufficient for such a server to be written, or barring that, the complete source code for the server (and all resource files necessary to run it, if any of them don't come with the base game).