The Gordian knot cut here is that we're paying you for the privilege. You buy something, you own it. If you want to kill you game, you need to tell consumers upfront how long their service (which you are selling as a good, a product) will last.
The one who pays should own it.
The gamers payed for it.
Devs should be publicly flogged for being the most lazy faggots there are.
You are a retard.
First off, pretending that the backends of games are some kind of ultra-secret tech, and that giving those secrets to gamers would somehow harm the developers, is preposterous.
If they’re no longer selling the game, there’s no reason not to hand it over. And if they don’t want to hand it over, then they should create a version of the game that doesn’t require their "super secret" backend.
If developers are such sub-humans that they use platforms or tools which force them to build a kill switch into their games, then we’re back to talking about publicly flogging them.
Game creators don't get to jealously guard their backend once they decide it's no longer worth it to keep the lights on.
Giving the consumer the ability to host their own server was industry standard in the past when server costs was expensive
Treating server client as a industry secret that needs to be kept under lock and key for perpetuity is retarded and game dev brained
You retarded nigger, they shouldn't be allowed to kill my frontend, that I fucking paid for, when they decide to discontinue the backend.
4niggers need to neck.
Fuck it, I'll bite. Do you believe consumers should be able to own software they've bought? If you do, I'd like you to attempt to reconcile this belief with whatever the fuck you're trying to push here. Do you believe consumers should be forced to hand over the ownership of software they've bought for any or no reason whatsoever?
Bonus questions:
1. What is the fundamental difference between a "frontend" and a "backend"?
2. Do you believe that owning software entitles you to IP rights to said software?
you don't get to do the 4cuck tactic of "disagreeing with me makes you a stuttering ninny" when your first post in this thread is crying about being bullied out of the other one for being a retarded baiting illiterate faggot. go back
And issue a full refund, adjusted for inflation.
Some thoughts:
The reason software costs money is solely due to artificial scarcity. It costs just about nothing to deliver the binaries to consumers. Development costs must be recuperated through placing an artificial wall between your product and its prospective buyers. In the world of gaming this can also be achieved by a few ways. One way is by giving a 30% cut of your profits to a third-party company called Valve and counting on the likelihood that an irrational subset of consumers will consciously choose to purchase your game on their platform rather than torrenting it for free. This seems to be the solution that gamers are loudly clamoring for, and it's the best and easiest solution for smaller developers despite forcing you to pay a massive, massive amount of money to a corporation that did not work on your game at all. And if your game does not have secure centralized servers and a multiplayer component, it will still be freely available as a torrent before long. On the other hand, if you do have centralized servers you have a much stronger line of defense preventing consumers from acquiring your product without paying. In this way centralized servers hold an indirect value during the lifespan of a game, and even their sunsetting can be valuable to game creators as I will illustrate. It's also important to note that, although I've gotten a lot of responses to the effect of "server code is worthless anyway", it can absolutely hold an innate value as well and should not be treated any differently under the law to client-side source code.
As a society we accept artificial scarcity as a legitimate business practice and the software industry as a legitimate industry. If you purchase Adobe Photoshop you accept that, although you own the binary for the software on your computer, you will not legally be able to run the software after a period of time. You may be someone who circumvents this illegally, but none of you in this movement are actively campaigning to make circumventing this legal. The reason for being locked out of the software after a period of nonpayment is not because the servers cost too much money for Adobe to run, it is simply planned obsolescence as a business plan. If you are unable to run your current copy of Adobe Photoshop, you will be more likely to purchase a future copy of the software, and Adobe is counting on that. This is not a business plan that SKG seeks to make illegal. However you feel about this business plan is incidental to your stance on SKG.
Now, in order for games to be considered analogous to Adobe Photoshop in this way, the ability of the game creators to sunset game servers after some arbitrary period of time must be clearly laid out in the terms of service. Which it is.
it's easy to bemoan software business models. As I've established, the whole software industry is built on shaky foundations, adversarial relationships between consumer and developer are part and parcel for the industry, and just about nobody has their hands clean. However, there is nothing distinct separating the "NBA 2K" business model from the "Adobe Photoshop" business model. If you are an an anarcho-capitalist or a communist, then you are likely opposed to both practices. If you are an SKG supporter, then you are childishly choosing to attack one while burying your head in the sand for the other.
