this post was submitted on 31 Jul 2024
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While all this is true, I feel like perhaps people are missing the point of what all this stemmed from to begin with.
Didn't anyone back in the day play a game with a large online playerbase to slowly see that playerbase dwindle? It took longer back then, of course.
Do people really complain that there's not enough Quake 2 multiplayer servers anymore? You know?
Isn't this an unfortunate consequence of the normal lifespan of a game coupled with the fact that so many games come out and are competing for people's realistically limited time and money?
Back when my example, Quake 2, came out, there simply weren't as many games in the same genre competing for your attention in the same time span.
No, it doesn't serve to focus on the "dead game" thing, but at the same time... it's a real thing that really happens, and if you blow it with your playerbase early, that "dead game" time can come fast and fuck all your hard work. It can also make the true believers who backed you feel betrayed since they have no one to play the game with.
It's not healthy at all, but neither is the games marketplace/working conditions/etc etc etc. It feels like it's a consequence of how the industry works and the sheer number of games coming out and it's not necessarily something people purposefully chose to focus on other than wanting to spend money on games other players would actually be playing in a multiplayer game. People have limited money and time and don't want to waste it. What's wrong with that?
What if, shocker, they're actually not making enough money to be viable and pay their workers a living wage? They should just keep being slavedrivers for their workers for the sake of gamers? I don't get it.
If their financials are fine, keep going, but if the financials aren't actually working out, what's the real issue with shutting it down?
You can still play Quake 2 regardless of player count, and the same goes for Palworld. If you want to play with other people, invite them. A live service game, barring a few exceptions that I can probably count on my fingers, ceases to exist if there aren't enough players to populate servers and drive recurring revenue. And the thing about that is that player decline is inevitable. The issue with shutting it down is that no one can play that game anymore.
So don't buy a game that doesn't come with a server you can host yourself if they ever shut down.
Honestly, that's on the people buying those shitty games. They exist because people buy them. Sorry.
Shit like Valheim exists, shit like Project Zomboid exists, it's not like they don't continue to make new games in the style of Quake 2 where you can play them indefinitely, even if they've stopped being supported.
That's exactly what I do. But the article is about how, even though Palworld isn't one of those games, there's an unhealthy expectation that every game is. And to be fair to the consumer, it's so, so hard to find out if the game you're buying will survive a server shutdown. Often times I have to ask the devs in Steam forums for an answer to the question, because that kind of thing isn't clearly listed on the store page.
People (as in the People) run the market, and they are fucking morons. People also run the government, which is why there's no legislation preventing the dark patterns and other predatory bullshit that game publishers push nowadays.
The obvious solution is to fire them all and replace them with AI.
This is all nonsense.
There are no server costs you have to absorb and do predatory bullshit to pay for if you let the community host their own servers and form their own communities. The second you take a penny from a player for anything locked behind access to your servers, you should be obligated to provide those servers for a minimum of a decade and you should be required to refund any purchase of any amount made within a period of multiple years before you end support.
Locking the game people are paying for behind access to your servers absolutely comes with extremely strong obligations to every single person playing your game.