Handing online servers over to consumers could carry commercial or legal risks, she said, in addition to safety concerns due to the removal of official company moderation.
Handing online servers over to consumers could carry commercial or legal risks, she said, in addition to safety concerns due to the removal of official company moderation.
They don’t need to “hand online servers” just publish the API and do one last update to accept self hosting.
And new releases should always support self host.
That only covers games that are loosely using servers for communication, piracy and cheating. That also puts game companies into the realm of losing their IP if they shut down temporarily in an acquisition. If you start a studio, run out of cash and get aquired, you’ll actually want that game you made to still be worth something, it doesn’t just affect those AAA players.
I think you need to add something like an escrow with x months of running costs. Once that well runs dry you need to go down to the providing a working server. I’ve been through the industry and I can confidently tell you that an API isn’t enough for a hell of a lot of games. Some of the stuff I’ve seen, it would take the actual game team a half a year to bring it back up with the source because the stuff they were using when they went under was ancient. You don’t want to buy a server authoratative game and wait around a year while the community tries to ressurect it.
These current politicians dont know a single thing about what you said but I agree
And they will make sure to continue to not know a single thing about what was said. Ignorance isn’t a valid legal defence, but it sure is a common deflection tactic these days. Law makers have a professional and ethical obligation to become informed on the issues their constituents care about, but it seems like it’s rare to find one that remembers that obligation.