'Make a private hosted version of your game': Knockout City dev's top tip for studios shutting down a live service game is to give players the keys
'Make a private hosted version of your game': Knockout City dev's top tip for studios shutting down a live service game is to give players the keys
"Ultimately, it keeps the game that everybody at the studio worked so hard on alive forever."
Why is this too much to ask? (I get the Capitalist why)
I feel like a lot of my grievances with live service games, outside of predatory mtx, is this inevitable endpoint of losing this game and all your achievements/ experiences/ progress.
This could also help solve a lot of Ross Scott’s (yt: accursed farms) lawsuits against live service games. In their case, The Crew
Let us host this ourselves if we wish. From a corporate perspective You can always lock the updated latest and greatest behind your currently supported game.
/rant
I know the reality is greed
There are a couple of decent reasons. One is that your servers may be a network of services that can't operate independently. Another is that they may rely on things you don't have a license to distribute.
You make good points. I was not completely clear in my post.
There are situations where what you say is true. (Were they setup that way intentionally though, for this very reason? Don’t think we will ever truly know.) There are certain multiplayer focused games that could be destroyed by client side affirming. I get that there are legitimate situations that makes this difficult for corps.
There are licensing issues as well but so many games face this and many offer “streamer friendly” options where the licensing of the music isn’t an issue.
Many of these live service/ server dependent games are completely completable single player and they could disable any licensed music/ multiplayer licensed components? Most of them are P2P anyway like Helldivers 2.
These are the ones I draw issue with.
Edit: to your point of multiple servers; why couldn’t we host the required servers privately if they so wished?
Mtx part doesn't bother me as long as it is a f2p game, since they do need to make money somehow. But the attempts at it like Suicide Squad charging full price and shoving in monetization cheapens the experience, and makes you wonder what exactly the consumer is paying for when there are paid games that are a polished experience that doesn't feel like an informerical experience.
My take on live service games has always been if you make it live service you should also make a retirement plan so people can still play the game they paid for after the servers are shut down.
I mostly wish that companies were upfront about how long the service will last.
From day of release can they guarantee at least 3 years of server time? 5 years? 10? It would factor a lot into whether or not I think a game is worth the purchase. Especially if you're buying it 4-5 years after release and it can shut down any day.
Are there really that many games shutting down so soon after release? I know there's a handful of games that basically just flopped out the gate and got canned soon after, but nearly everything I've encountered has run for 5+ years, or at least is in the position to do so if it's not that old yet. Is it just that I'm over in the corner where the games don't suck and I'm out of touch with how things are?
100% yes this. Give me back the original Overwatch and let me host a server.
What if they did this, but the game they abandoned has some great changes and becomes super popular and gets a large playerbase?
Will they want it back? Like will they try to claim its still theirs and spin up some new servers? Only to ruin the game again.