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Comment by lowbloodsugar | Hacker News Reader

Oh fuck off. [1]

To elaborate, if I make a creative experience, that requires a server, and sell it to you for $70, and you play it for a year, that's your $70 of value right there. That's the moral argument.

Every single games company faced with this issue is now going to change the terms of service to note that the $70 "includes free two year subscription, paid up front!", and if the lawyers get pissy about that they'll sell two versions: one that is $0, but doesnt work until you sign up for the $70 per month subscription. That's the legal argument.

What this comes down to is "I have the right to decide what my $70 actually paid for". No you don't. What you paid for is what you paid for. Now piss off.

[1] https://tenor.com/view/oh-fuck-off-alice-kristen-bell-the-pe...

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No, the moral argument is "I want to be able to (re)play the experience ten years from now". If the servers aren't available in any form (so I can't event self-host), then it's an issue. That is the moral part, not the financial one.

“What you want” isn’t a moral issue. It’s an entitlement issue. I want a Ferrari. $70 doesn’t buy a Ferrari just like it doesn’t buy unlimited expense running a server or the intellectual property of that server.

Fascinating to me that, on the one hand, so many people up in arms about AI stealing work from poor devs but then here you are demanding free use of their work because you made a one time payment ten years ago.

"Well, just make it open source, so anyone can run it". Ok, and someone sets up a server and modifies it to be "Nazi world" still using my recognizable assets. Do I have any rights there, to stop my IP from bieng used for that purpose? Is "IP" a dirty word? Isn't IP what we're up in arms about AI stealing?

You haven't thought it through.

When I buy a game, I do not expect the developer or the publisher to keep the servers open for unlimited time. But since I paid for the game, I expect to be able to play it. Like it always has been. You see it as entitlement, I see it as a normal thing. If you buy a Ferrari and it stops working just because some servers got closed, I expect you to be "entitled" as well. It's absolutely normal to expect things that you paid for to keep working. And knowingly disable the servers rendering a game (or a car) unplayable is immoral. It already happened multiple times. And it will happen again.

Regarding the argument about modification of the assets - I don't see the issue. Nobody will hold the publisher responsible for what other people do. You can already do that with e.g. Counter Strike - host your own server, take an official Valve map and replace some textures with something inappropriate. No one will blame Valve for this, since they do not host those servers.

So I have thought it through. Also, AI has nothing to do with this, not sure why you bring it up...

Yes, as a society we can collectively decide what companies should and shouldn't do. It's called living in a society with rules and regulations.

> Every single games company faced with this issue is now going to change the terms of service to note that the $70 "includes free two year subscription, paid up front!", and if the lawyers get pissy about that they'll sell two versions: one that is $0, but doesnt work until you sign up for the $70 per month subscription.

So if you make it illegal for companies to lie and say they are selling you a game, only to then take it away, they will instead... be honest and tell you how long the game will be supported? Great!

It won’t be a lie it will be a contract. It will be the opposite of a lie. You will then have to decide if you want to spend $70 on a game that you an are only guaranteed to get a year out of. Maybe you won’t. But at least we’ll be spared your entitled tantrums.

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