How does multi-player support fit into theStop Killing Games Initiative
I've been wodnering how regulations about not killing games deals with compaines running multi-player servers?
For single player games or games with single player modes it seems easier to implement.
I see lots of discussion about the solution / what used to be done, but I want to point out why unofficial servers stopped being easy/standard/possible to run.
The first time big money entered esports was on private Starcraft LAN tournaments. Blizzard sued to get a cut of the proceeds, but because the privately-owned software (game and server) was running on privately-owned hardware, the courts ruled that Blizzard got no money.
AAA companies learned from this that allowing the playerbase to run their own servers meant losing out on money, so most AAA multiplayer games with even a small chance of ending up as esports make it so they can only connect to servers operated by themselves, longevity of the game be damned. If they weren't so desparate for every scrap of cash they could possibly generate from the game, I would bet most multiplayer game would still let you run your own servers, like they used to.
For a long long time compnies provided dedicated servers to their players. Sometimes included in the game files, sometimes as separate downloads. Often it was just a Linux binary, sometimes both Windows and Linux. Players would then have to enter the IP of their desired server.
Sometimes a central server would list all the available servers. For the Unreal games that was recently shut down. The community created a new one and patched the games to use it instead of the official one.
With games like Minecraft or Baldur's Gate 3 the server is even included in the game. If Microsoft and Larian and Steam went away you could still play them that way with minimal fuzz.
CS 1.6 is how I learned about port forwarding
Obligatory fuck Thor of PirateSoftware
My childhood game of choice was Left 4 Dead. That had community server abilities long before Valve 'stopped' developing the game. This particular solution is very simple and has been implemented hundreds of times. Here is an explanation of how Left 4 Dead 2 server options work, as well as a list of servers, all of which are run on players' own machines and, save for the choice of mods, have the ability to host multiplayer games exactly like Valve's official Steam servers do.
Side note - this was only possible on Steam, because consoles had to run through their respective manufacturer's proprietary systems and made for a much more restrictive and costly upkeep.
From the initiative:
This initiative calls to require publishers that sell or license videogames to consumers in the European Union (or related features and assets sold for videogames they operate) to leave said videogames in a functional (playable) state.
Specifically, the initiative seeks to prevent the remote disabling of videogames by the publishers, before providing reasonable means to continue functioning of said videogames without the involvement from the side of the publisher.
The initiative does not seek to acquire ownership of said videogames, associated intellectual rights or monetization rights, neither does it expect the publisher to provide resources for the said videogame once they discontinue it while leaving it in a reasonably functional (playable) state.
This is all that the initiative states on the matter. How it would actually work in practice is anyone's guess because the wording is so vague. Supporters seem to be under the impression that companies have a "server.exe" file they purposefully don't provide players because they're evil and hate you. They could also be contracting out matchmaking services to a third party and don't actually do it in-house. Software development is complex and building something that will be used by 100,000 people simultaneously isn't easy.
There's a reason comedic videos like Microservices, where an engineer explains why it's impossible to show the user it is their birthday based on an overly complex network of microservices, and Fireship's overengineering a website exist. Big software is known to be difficult to maintain and update. Huge multiplayer games aren't any different. It's likely there isn't actually a "reasonable" way for them to continue to work. Supporters are hopeful this initiative would cause the industry to change how game software is developed, but that hope gets real close to outright naivety.
Supporters seem to be under the impression that companies have a "sever.exe" file they purposefully don't provide players because they're evil and hate you.
There is some truth to this
They could also be contracting out matchmaking services to a third party and don't actually do it in-house. Software development is complex and building something that will be used by 100,000 people simultaneously isn't easy.
There is some truth to this too.
Making an MMO maintainable by the userbase might be complicated. But way more common are games that could easily have LAN based multiplayer but the company decides not to add it, or even singleplayer games that require an internet connection, just so the company can put limits on how and when the game is played.
I absolutely hate always online DRM in single player games, so I get it. Personally, I'll avoid games that use it. I was a huge fan of the Hitman series but haven't played any of the new ones because of always online, live service, season pass, model they decided to go with. It's a deal breaker for me, but I understand it isn't for everyone else. I told my friends I wouldn't be playing Helldivers 2 with them because of its use of kernel level anti-cheat and they just gave me a weird look.
I'll choose to support games that are developed in consumer friendly ways, but I also accept that not everyone sees it as a big deal. If a company decides they need kernel level anti-cheat, then that's on them. They won't get my money, but I'm not about to start a petition to legally ban the use of kernel level anti-cheat and call anyone who won't sign it an industry shill and bootlicker.
Want to stop games you buy from being killed? Don't buy games that can be. Does this mean you'll be sitting out while all your friends have fun playing the latest hit game? Probably. Does it mean 10 years later when the game no longer works you can smugly tell them "heh, looks like you guys got scammed." Also yes. Just don't be surprised that they think you're weird.
Yeah, it most likely isn't an exe but a Linux binary! Other than that, you can probably run the server on your computer pretty easily. You probably won't be able to host anywhere close to the number of players the official servers do, but that's just a matter of stronger hardware.
So yeah, they don't provide the server because they're "evil".
They could also do the bare minimum of patching the game so it allows any server and avoid stuff like certificate pinning etc. and then provide an OpenAPI specification for the server and let the community create their own server if they want.
Back in the day, every game let you roll your own server pretty easily since LAN parties were very popular
My hope is legislation will force companies to release private server options.
This.
This was the standard for years. Matchmaking kinda killed it.
There were 3rd part server browser services that could fill the gap, though. I wanna say GameSpy or something was a popular one in the late 90s
This is the correct answer. The last step in shutting down servers should be to release a server binary for people to continue using.
Source code would be even better, but we’ll take what we can get. I imagine a lot of code might be re-used for later games, so they may not be keen on open-sourcing it.