I know it’s not going to happen, but I would love it if legislation could go as far as requiring companies to open-source their engines and servers after maybe a period of time, or on ending support for the game. It could be done ID-style where the company retains full rights of the content and trademarks, which would still require players to buy the game to legally play it.
I’m aware there are a lot of cases where games include middleware that’s licensed from 3rd parties that complicate preservation efforts. But if open-sourcing the code is the path taken, there’s a simple solution for that: just release what you can, even if what’s released is in an unplayable state without the middleware. It then becomes the responsibility of any volunteers to take that code and bring it back to a usable state however they choose.
This drama highlights that there’s still a great need for better computer literacy. Anyone with even a basic education in how software, source-code, and software licensing works can tell PirateSoftware is full of shit pretty much immediately. That is, anyone educated who are themselves not grifters.
Do you ever hunt around Facebook Marketplace? When electronics drop in value enough, often times, people will just give them away. I have. It’s (sometimes) less hassle than trying to haggle with people over a few dollars for severely outdated hardware, and my goal at that point is to get it into someone’s hands who will use it rather than have the stuff go to a landfill. Even a very outdated PC will still play tons and tons of great games for cheap or free. They frequently won’t be the latest and greatest, but there’s less and less correlation these days with high game quality and high system requirements.
bin.pol.social
Najstarsze