Hard to blame them for thinking that at the time. CD-based consoles had a very rough start in that era, but the PS1 was probably the first actual hardware success that used the CD exclusively as it’s medium. Nintendo had pushed cartridges to their absolute limit with the technology they had, so it was only a matter of time before someone ended up succeeding where others failed.
As a kid, by the time I started hearing about the system via video game magazines, which were kind of like miniature websites but printed on paper and then distributed via mail and stores, I was convinced it would be the next big thing. By the time it was launched, I knew it was going to be the new top dog in the industry. When I finally got my hands on one, it was (pardon the pun) game changing for me.
The system definitely had its flaws, but it was an evolutionary step up and order of magnitude bigger than anything I’d ever experienced before.
And go figure, it was the last system I owned before I stepped away from the gaming hobby for nearly 2 decades. Life, uh, got in the way.
Given the contemporary examples, they weren’t wrong to think so. Everyone was trying to make a console in the 16/32-bit era.
PC Engine/Turbografx
Phillips CD-i (only sorta a console)
Atari Jaguar
Neo Geo
Amiga CD
Some of these are better than others–I’m fond of the PC Engine–but none can be called successful. Neo Geo is somewhat of an exception because it was used as arcade hardware. Some others here are the butt of jokes. There’s also a bunch of Japanese consoles around this time that go nowhere, and are little more than fodder for retro gaming YouTube channels.
Sega Saturn and Dreamcast also probably factored in. They weren’t nearly as successful as the Genesis. With even established brands floundering it’s no wonder people didn’t think the Playstation would work.
Not really. Just Sega CD. The PlayStation and the Saturn both came out in 1994 so they were directly competing with each other. The Dreamcast didn’t come out until 1998, after the PlayStation was already successful.
Sony came up with the idea of the disc drive, it only made sense them wanting more profit from the part they designed. It was just a disgusting move by Nintendo to go behind their backs and close a deal with another company, while not telling Sony.
While I like and appreciate the campaign, the issue IMO is bigger. IoT devices for example even have environmental impact when services behind them get discontinued.
I would therefore like a more general rule: whenever a product is discontinued for whatever reason, all necessary documents, sources, etc need to be released to allow third parties to take over maintenance (that also includes schematics for hardware repairs).
I think many people who are responsible for pushing the campaign forward would agree it’s a much bigger issue. It’s just that the bigger issue is big enough that there are multiple fronts one could fight on, and this is a politically useful opportunity to push forward. A victory from this campaign will be unlikely to lead to the larger developments without more of a fight, because achieving the general rule will take a few instances of arguing the specific case.
For now, I’m excited to see where this leads, even if the answer might be “nowhere”
Let me tell you, over more than a decade I’ve played a lot of Battlefield Bad Company 2, like a lot a lot.
Last year, in December the servers for it got officially shut down by EA. And you know how I felt? I barely cared. It is still one of my favorite games of all time, and while there are private servers still active, I have no intention to play. And the reason for it that is simple. I’ve played enough of that game, I feel fully unsatisfied with the time I’ve spend with it. Its like 2 people growing apart over time.
Just to play devils advocate here. What is the benefit of forcing developers to provide access to old games that require online functionality indefinitely, instead of just hard limiting them to say 10 years wich is essentially indefinite in terms of non-live service games. If you haven’t managed to get enough joy out of something during a decade of you life, then maybe the developer isn’t responsible for your personal issues.
By this time The Crew 2 would’ve been 6 years old. I agree that’s fairly short time to turn of the servers, but would people be still as frantic about the server shut down in say 2028? Wouldn’t 10 years be enough? Why straight up go for indefinite access.
I mostly play new games, but I respect admiration for old games. It’s fun to see people speedrun old SNES games - but it’s disturbing to think an entire generation will just become inaccessible to history, even if a lot of the games in question were kind of bad.
I actually agree with you in the case of online multiplayer games - I don’t think the devs can keep them available forever. But when a game is singleplayer, like The Crew, it feels like planned obsolescence.
I think Destiny is a good argument. If D1 ends, then playing starting D2 won’t be the full experience. And new players can start many years into a game. D1 is also stuck on a console, while D2 is so big they removed content from it. You literally can’t play the base campaign in D2, a huge part of the story is no longer there. A great game that “you had to be there” to play.
It’s the extreme case but leaving games to die instead of having at least the chance for private servers is sad and a loss for everyone long term that don’t get a chance to play it.
This isnt about the official servers being online forever, this is about being able to host your own server without having to crack the game in weird ways.
Pure principle is the answer. People who buy a game should be able to play the game as long as they wish, sell it, give it their grandkids for all I care.
The problem with your argument is „doesnt affect me, wont bother“.
Think of anything you like or even love. Now think of it being taken away, because someone else doesnt care about it. You think thats fair?
What is the benefit of forcing developers to provide access to old games that require online functionality indefinitely, instead of just hard limiting them to say 10 years wich is essentially indefinite in terms of non-live service games.
In a choice between “you can play online until 2035” and “you can play online forever”, the answer is pretty obvious. All things being equal, the indefinite option is better. I think the problem is that all things are not equal, and making it a legal requirement that all games with online features come with a guarantee those features work indefinitely is incredibly vague and can lead to situations that outright hurt developers.
If the devs need to provide a server binary for players to host a server, how do they ensure these servers only allow players who have purchased the game to play? If they can’t ensure it, then the law is forcing companies to allow pirate servers to exist
How do they ensure people running these community servers aren’t charging money for people to play? If they can’t ensure it, then the law is allowing people to use a company’s IP to generate money without a licence.
If the original version had an in-game shop where you can unlock things with real life money but the offline version doesn’t have a shop, thus making parts of the game forever unobtainable, did they follow the law? If not, then devs would have to give out paid features for free.
Unless these kinds of details are accounted for, this vague idea is doomed to fail because no government is going to force a company to give up their copyright/IP for free. I know a lot of people have also said “fuck these giant corporations” but this also affects indie developers as well. Copyright protects small creators as much as it does large ones.
Lol, getting downvoted into oblivion because you offered a different viewpoint. Classic lemmy.
The thing is, nobody really expects the companies to keep the servers online forever ( at least according to the petition ), that would unreasonable. People ask that online games are either patched to allow offline play after delisting, or provide protocol information to allow non-official servers, again after delisting.
Normally I’d agree with you, it’s the developer’s prerogative to schedule games in order to maximize their profits, but for the past decade there have been A LOT of online only games, even single player games that require a connection just because ( see the recent forza motorsport, or simcity 2013 ). There’s a clear tendency in the industry to force this as a form of planned obsolescence and that needs to stop.
And yes, I realize that even if the petition materializes into something the developers will find a loophole. This is why I’d advocate more towards educating gamers to recognize and avoid abusive patterns. See the crew 2, where even if they basically give it away now, it’s still chock full of mtx and dark patterns, and a lot of games that are designed to be online only have those patterns ( I for one learned to recognize these and avoid the game and/or the developerr altogether ).
Good for you! You played a game so much you personally stopped caring. But that’s just you and you alone.
There are whole communities out there that are all about retro games. You’re throwing them all under the bus for being perfectly fine about something no longer being playable due to an arbitrary and otherwise avoidable reason.
This citizen initiative, if successful, has the power to change the way games are built from the ground up, and is the sort of “tide lifts all boats” thing that’ll only end up benefiting everyone.
It’s amazing how companies only do things after a “gobernment” scare, the fight does not stop, this isn’t just about The Crew, it’s about every game that won’t work without internet.
You worded it incorrectly. It should be any single player game that requires online to start to game should be fined. They can have multiplayer option. But single player should be able to be played even offline.
I really hope that something gets done about games not being playable anymore. This is really important for the sake of our hobby and clearly not acceptable.
I could understand how multiplayer games would be harder to maintain 20 years after their release, but there is no excuse for solo games.
Wouldn’t be surprised if stop servicing/selling a game came with a tax write-off (small due to deprecation). If that were the case, I strongly believe they should, at least, release the server and remove all DRM. Let the community make it work again.
Who preserves historical artwork? Who makes sure it is available for all to enjoy?
I think governments and nonprofits (like museums) need to consider that archival of an interactive artwork means allowing it to continue being accessible and interactive. That’d be the real preservation.
Laws that say if you create something like this and it reaches some metric, then you are required to turn over all resources regarding it to open source public consumption once you are done actively maintaining it.
Art restoration is actually sort of similar to cracking games. (A difference being those games are still protected by copyright so it’s technically illegal.)
Going by US laws (life + 70 years), all of Picasso’s art is all still copyright protected in the US until 2043, so it’s even less of a difference than you may realize.
I don’t know where the line is because with art restoration you’re actually modifying a physical object. I guess a better comparison would be modifying an arcade cabinet or something.
It’s not the most robust analogy, but I actually really like your comparison to painting restoration; to do it well, one must understand the techniques and materials used in the original (even stuff below the visible surface).
Not a lawyer, but I think the original work is still copyrighted, and that restoration wouldn’t (or certainly shouldn’t) constitute a new artwork. Though now I’m wondering about that terrible Jesus painting restoration from a few years back — it’s certainly different from the original, and whilst it might not seem reasonable to call it a new piece of “art”, it’s certainly inspired a great many people(to make memes)
Whats funny is that most 20 year old multiplayer games today (at least on PC) are still perfectly playable because the server tech was given to the community, at launch. Battlefield 2 hasn’t been available for purchase anywhere officially in well over a decade, there’s still a dedicated, albiet small community.
I understand that with large, persistent worlds, it’s hard to release that server tech, but at least some form of it should be published. Ie, a smaller variant that maybe just lets a couple people join up as a co-op party, rather than dozens of people running around a large map at random, like in The Crew.
Even though you dislike online play, you can still play online with the PS3. Some servers are still up and running, and for other titles there are custom servers created by some fans. And the best part: you don’t need to pay the online fee that Microsoft created during the 360 days, which Sony and Nintendo followed after.
gamesradar.com
Gorące