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The declining PC Sales/Piracy thread (and something about Iron Lore closing down)
Posts
This is pretty much my concern as well. Honestly speaking, I probably never would have bought a single Steam game if I didn't believe that the cracking community could break those games and make them playable even if Valve were to go under.
The potential for the information society we live in is so vast and far reaching yet we cling desperatly to the old ways.
The people who don't, like steam, roll around in money like pigs, while packaged game prices go up and up as physical distribution methods become more and more unviable. And the market is FIXED around the brick and mortar stores still.
That's a lot of fuel being spewed into the air just to get you your game package, with fuel prices still going through the roof.
Morality aside, piracy also has the benefit to these traditional businesses as a good shareholder scapegoat that sounds plausible enough they can save face and get investment for next time. A lot of companies hide behind the ebil pirates to excuse their own incompetence, rather than trying to make a better game.
I'm not really making an argument here btw, just throwing out brainstorms on topic that might help further discussion in some way, or not.
Yup, that's definately an issue. Of course to the game companies, that's not something they're too concerned about. Obviously they don't want to be in the situation where they no longer exist anymore. But you still have the problem of whether or not you spend X dollars to keep servers alive for a game that has a very small player base. I've been involved in the shutting down of various game servers over the years and it's always a sad and ugly process. Even though there may only be a few people left playing them, they're by far the most vocal and the most hardcore ... and understandably so, otherwise they would have moved to newer games.
Anyway, one solution is for companies to release their old server code to other companies or even non-profit organizations that seek to preserve the game somehow. I think there's actually some good opportunity here, if you're able make an efficient system out of this. (So if anyone's got a few million dollars to spare, that's my idea ... go make it happen!)
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On PC it's handled locally, you can gain levels playing over LAN and you maintain that level/stats even if the server is restarted or someone else hosts. Same for internet.
The answer: It depends.
I'm a platform engineer myself, so I know the right ways to secure a system against hackers and pirates. But I don't know the particulars behind CoD4 and how they chose to architect their system.
Actually, my guess is that they only had so much time to invest in their multiplayer architecture for the PC, and in order to meet their release date, could only spend so much time on securing their design. It would have been entirely different if they could have, say, piggybacked off GFW-Live or whatever Steam provided (assuming those systems are fairly well secured as well). I find it hard to believe that Infinity Ward lacks the developers or the know-how on how to secure online servers, but maybe I'm biased because that's one huge aspect of what I do for a living.
Anyway, there are plenty of examples of online systems that are pretty damn hack/pirate proof. Heck, all you have to do is look at most MMOs. Granted, you might have things like cracked servers, but it's not like you can play on a cracked account on official servers. To date, I haven't heard of a pirate being able to spoof a new WoW account and being able to play for free on Blizzard servers.
EDIT:
Thanks SoaL! So yeah, it's done locally. That's why pirates still have access to the multiplayer levelling functionality. I think this proves my point that Infinity Ward knew they didn't have time to totally make their multiplayer hack-proof and also consumer-friendly. So they did their best effort, and hope it was enough to quell most hackers/piraters for the time being.
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There was another service that went under and they just released patches and sent out cds. Someone else mentioned that Valve has stated that they have a contingency plan for just such an occurrence but I don't have a source on that one.
Nevermind then.
id Software actually release the entire source code for their games freely after a set period (although they don't release the actual game assets like WAD files). It works well for them.
However, they are an exception. They do pretty much everything in-house. Most other developers would have issues releasing the source code for their games, as it would include plenty of licensed code that they don't have permission to distribute.
One option would be for developers to promise to just release the server binaries and game data when they shut down the server. However, in the case where game companies fold, this is unlikely to happen. When a company goes under, there are higher priorities than packaging up all the server files and releasing them to the public in a form that is usable.
Really, if a game requires online servers to play, then I think players have to have the assumption that they are only going to be able to play it for a limited period of time.
Actually, I'd agree with this.
Even if game data was fetched over the Internet, it would be fine as long as there was a plan to phase out the reliance on the server after a reasonable period of time.
2K Games have a similar policy with Bioshock's DRM. They will release a patch to remove it in the near future.
Doug Lombardi said that IIRC. But I'm never too happy trusting assurances like that purely on someone's say-so, even they truly mean what they say.
I still remember what happened to Total Annihilation. Online multiplayer was through a service called HEAT, and there was a meta-game run by Cavedog called "Boneyards" where people essentially battled for and took planest for one side or the other across a universe map.
BOTH eventually went down with their respective companies, and it was the fanbase who hacked together a "Boneyards" facsimile so that people could play it again.
Yup, that's a good point. Also, what percentage of players actually care about going through really old games? It's neat, but I've never ever gone back and done it. I also think back of the countless old websites and online services I've used in the past, and I very rarely think, "Gee, wouldn't it be neat if that thing still existed so I could check it out?". From a historical perspective it would be interesting (which is why we have things like the Wayback Machine), but it's definately not a common scenario.
That's why I think the most likely candidate for an organization that tries to backup old online games, is some sort of historical or archival group. We're already seeing it for the web, and I know there are some for old games (physical media or ROMs), and the next evolution seems to be archiving game servers and such.
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That's sort of my point. MMO's require enormous resources to run thus pirated servers won't become very big because they can never compare to the real thing. I think building on what CoD4 did but only with centralized servers would be the best route.
You mean "One cannot simply..." right?
I believe Valve has stated that they have a solution in place to disable DRM on everyone's currently owned games in case they go out of business or shut the service down.
a fading melody - my indie platformer for the xbox 360
Yeah but, well look at Battle.net for example. Starcraft and Diablo II are both around ten years old, and yet people still want to play them. If Battle.net had gone down, people simply wouldn't have been able to do that.
From a rational perspective, I also expect that when I buy a game that depends on any sort of existing service structure to actually play, I know not to expect more than a few years out of it. But that doesn't mean that I'm necessarily happy with that state of affairs, especially if its a really good game.
Although realistically, as I've gotten older I've felt less inclined towards going back to old titles. It's the standard problem of increased resources and decreased time. In the end it all works out since I don't really take games as "serious business". There's almost always a new, better game on the horizon.
Also, I seem to have gotten sidetracked. If I ever figure out what point I was trying to make in this post, I'll be sure to let you know. :lol:
a fading melody - my indie platformer for the xbox 360
Also, Battle.net isn't exactly the best at preventing piraters from playing, sadly. I know plenty of people with cracked copies that played many games of Starcraft over it. (I actually ran into problems where my CD-key was compromised, stolen already by someone else!) Sure, they may not have been able to access things like the leaderboards consistently (or avoided it, in fear of being discovered as a pirate), but the vast majority of gamers don't care about that stuff.
I do think that Blizzard is moving in the right direction, though. I wouldn't be surprised at all to see deeper community and online integration with Starcraft 2, which also makes it hard to pirate at the same time. It would be a win-win situation for Blizzard and for legitimate consumers, and a loss for all those cheap-skate gamers.
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