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Comment by infinitezest | Hacker News Reader

If I buy a game and a company effectively breaks it by turning off my ability to play it, is that not theft?

"effectively breaks it"

Who breaks it though? For example Hatoful Boyfriend haven't been updated for years, Macs moved to 64bit only so it was essentially unplayable on modern Macs.

Is it the devs fault, are you obliged to update your game forever?

Is it Apple's fault for the lack of backwards compatibility?

Epic was selling a broken game so they must remove it.

Btw that happened on Steam too now they only sell the Windows version.

The game almost certainly had compatibility promises, eg 'runs on MacOS# with X MB RAM'. It should still do that.

The fault would be whoever designed it so a single player (or local multiplayer) game wouldn't run on said system in perpetuity.

Mind you, some time in the future an AI will be able to watch Let's Play-style footage and generate the game for you.

That's a different issue. These games are written to require an online component that Epic are rescinding access to. This isn't about what Epic is selling either, it's about them effectively bricking what they've already sold.

Assuming Hatoful still works for the users who bought it on the hardware/OS that they bought it for then it's not a good comparison.

It feels different when a game has a server and a client component. I can choose to airgap my ancient Macbook and never update it if I want to keep playing that particular game on that particular computer.

I can also play it on Linux, and Linux can run on Mac hardware.

All of that sounds like a pain in the ass, and if the game is not worth the trouble I'll just not go through the trouble. But I am the one who makes the choice, not the owner of some proprietary server.

I can play the game in the hardware that it was advertised to work at the time, 32bit(?) macs, the same way I can play a ps2 game on a ps2 but not a ps5.

Removing official servers when there is no alternative means I can't use the product on the platform it was listed to work at.

But this isn't about updates, it's about turning off a cloud component for which the software isn't available to otherwise self-host.

The problem is they offered you a service that was unsustainable in the first place. You can't offer a one time sale for a product that requires continual maintenance.

In all cases where this is being offered with a product, for example, a game with developer maintained multiplayer servers/lookup services, all app portals like the apple app store, steam, etc. There is either a runway of funds built in that will expire in so many years or it's propped up by other people buying the game like a kind of a Ponzi scheme.

Eventually, somehow the bill to run these services becomes an issue and there are only a few ways to maintain it: ads, buyout with more runway, cutting access or charging for it again.

So I wouldn't say it's theft, it's a business run by people who have no clue how to run a long term business plan. Or fraud if they know all of this and do it anyway.

Well, some hosting costs also go down over time. If the backend server doesn't need a GPU and is just there to facilitate matchmaking for example, what used to be very difficult and required dedicated companies (like Gamespy) can now just be trivially and cheaply/freely rolled into Steamworks or similar matchmaking APIs.

Ongoing patches and updates are another story though, especially if new Windowses or DirectX versions have breaking changes.

If unlicensed copying is theft, than switching off a required server is murder, I guess.

When do we get to put companies on trial for gameslaughter?

Probably only after we elect Ross Scott for president.

I guaranteed whatever license you never agreed to doesn’t actually say you bought the game. More like a license to play the game as long as parent company sees fit.

I guarantee the marketing says "buy".

In any case, you can't commit fraud in your marketing then 'correct' it in obscure clickwrap license terms.

Companies are constantly redefining what things mean. “Buy” is just a license to use as long as the company likes. “Unlimited data” means 30GB data. “Made with mozzarella” means that something is made with something that remotely tastes like cheese.

No, buy means buy. Companies pretending otherwise are just lying.

Limited license.

They don't want to offer things like that because consumers won't all go for it, they want to get more money by deceiving prospective users/customers.

That's why we (supposedly) have regulator agencies. Unfortunately, like every other part of government, they have been wholly captured by industry and work against citizens and consumers, rather that for them.

I don't think it would count as theft, but if the original advertising/product information included the online components as a feature, then they could be sued for that. I remember when Sony pulled the Linux support from PS3 as that was a similar situation although even more anti-consumer.

Don’t buy a game that requires constant intervention from the maker to run, if you’re concerned about that.

Would be nice if games for which time-limited licenses were being sold told you upfront so you could choose.

Not sure how you're supposed to know a game has been designed to be remotely deactivated?

GOG.com

The few that require online connection (like purely multiplayer gwent) there is a notice.

If the game requires an internet connection, it's a time-limited license.

And what about games like minecraft, where the requirement for an internet connection was added later, after the game was sold?

Stay on the last internet-free version.

I remember when games were sold and that was it, you didn’t get regular free updates.

It's so easy for someone who doesn't care about games to say "just don't play those games"

What if I like those games? What if I barely have a choice because 95% of multiplayer games released today work like that?

>What if I like those games? What if I barely have a choice because 95% of multiplayer games released today work like that?

Then you (and countless consumers like you) have guaranteed that the greedy assholes forcing always online DRM etc. win. Vote with your wallet, life is too short to give money to people who hate you and who don't respect your rights.

"Vote with your wallet" is a stupid concept that makes no sense because there was never any vote in the first place.

> life is too short to give money to people who hate you and who don't respect your rights

Okay, so where are the people who don't hate me and respect my rights? I don't see them anywhere.

My choices here are 1. Play DRM-ridden always online garbage or 2. Stop playing games entirely (or at least multiplayer ones)

>Okay, so where are the people who don't hate me and respect my rights? I don't see them anywhere.

GOG, and plenty of indie devs and smaller devs. There's a whole world of games out there beyond $FlavorOfTheMonthFPS. Or you could just continue your preferred method of "Don't question, just consume product and then get excited for next product."

Then you give up any chance of playing what I'd call "modern multiplayer games" for (presumably) decades, so that maybe a different generation can get better games.

A noble cause, but no thanks I think I'd rather just feed the greedy companies and play some games then.

Unless of course you can enjoy some other game almost as much, then it's a small sacrifice to stick it to the greedy companies. But I'm not enjoying indie or retro games much at all.

I agree that life is too short, but I arrived at a different conclusion, which is that it's too short to care about DRM that much. I set up a separate operating system only used for gaming, and so they can have all the intrusive anti-cheat and DRM and whatnot, because it's effectively an empty system, not even knowing my real name. As far as I'm concerned, the greedy assholes have already won, I won't really make a difference here. But I can have a good time, and that good time will be more or less on my terms.

I do care about games. I play lots of games. I play some that have online components and I play knowing that it could all disappear out from under me. That'd suck but that's a risk I'm willing to take.

Other games I choose to not play because of the online requirements.

Lastly, they're just video games. It's nothing critical like food or housing. Not having video games is not a humanitarian crisis. I've been playing WoW since launch and if Blizzard shut it down and my characters I've had for 18 years vanished, it'd suck for like a minute, then I'd go do something else.

My personal answer to this is "adapt". I shifted my thinking of games as experiences, with a limited time offer. Like a ticket to a theme park, or to the movies. Let's pay for it now, make good memories, connect with each other in the context, and properly let it go, when the time comes. And remember when buying, that the button might say "buy", but you effectively license, or rent. The time will come when they will change the experience, and that'll be it. So make the most of it while you can.

If you pay $20 for a game on sale and it works for half a decade and has multiplayer and updates throughout, is it really necessary to complain about it...?

What exactly are they stealing from you? If you bought a car in the 1970's and the company doesn't make parts for it anymore is that theft? What obligation do they have to maintain?

That is a poor analogy as you could still pull parts from other cars and repair and continue to use the car after the manufacturer stops creating replacements.

A better analogy would be: If you bought a car in 1970 and the company stopped making the super special fuel blend that they have a patent on and no one else is allowed to produce, making your car unusable. Is that theft?

>you could still pull parts from other cars and repair and continue to use the car after the manufacturer stops creating replacements.

Same can be said about software. People create aftermarket parts just the same as they create third party server implementations.

And then people who create third party server implementations get sued into oblivion. https://www.eff.org/cases/blizzard-v-bnetd

physical analogies make absolutely no sense in the digital space.

They do make sense as almost all laws are written with physical things in mind.

IP laws address non-physical things.

Consumer Rights Act (UK, 2015) has specific inclusion of digital goods. We can't be the only country doing that.

They make perfect sense in this scenario. A game company is paying for physical hardware, electricity, bandwidth, etc. to run the game server(s). Hardware fails and older OS may not work on new HW. Or the game server software may not work on newer OS, especially if there is custom C++/networking code that was compiled against an older OS version. Maybe they are looking at very long list of security vulnerabilities that are un-patched because shit is old.

Its irrational to think a company is going to keep game servers running forever and that somehow they are "stealing" from you because you purchased something nearly 20 years ago.

I think yours is a good analogy. Original creators have no obligations whatsoever, they have to maintain the server part for a time, and that's it. People might be up about it, but they should realize that this is part of the original deal. Closed source and software as service models naturally work like this, and it's not entirely the manufacturer's fault that people get the short end like this. They had the short end to begin with. And it's not like it's unreasonable to sunset a game from the early 2000s, with server and other features right in the open. People can and do run the stuff themselves just fine.

Nobody's forcing them to maintain anything. They're the ones keeping it hostage and stopping others from maintaining it.

More like, they decide to stop supporting the car, so they come to your house and take the distributor cap (ECU would be a better analogy) and there response is "well you should have known we only license the distributor cap".

You buy a car in the '70 and when they stop making parts, they come to your house and crush your perfectly working car.

Yes, doesn't make sense, then again not less than your analogy.

Depends on the EULA.

EULA is not a law.

It's a wishlist of the company.

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