And the time has finally come. EA has announced that it will shut down Anthem on January 12th, 2026. This means the game’s servers will go offline, and after that, no one will be able to play the game anymore.
Anthem was an online shooter where up to four players could team up and play together. Each player picked a javelin exosuit, and that choice changed how they played in the team. The game was supposed to have an exciting story with cool characters. But in the end, the story felt simple and not very special. Anthem also had many problems. The loot system wasn’t fun, there wasn’t enough content, the trailers before release looked better than the real game, and the developers didn’t keep many of their promises.
In February 2020, EA and BioWare announced Anthem Next (also known as Anthem 2.0). That version was meant to overhaul its gameplay mechanics. However, one year later, EA announced its cancellation.
The good news for those who had purchased Anthem was that they could still play it. Although BioWare stopped supporting it, there were still servers that allowed you to play.
Sadly, starting January 12th, 2026, you won’t be able to play it, even if you own a physical copy. Anthem did not have an Offline Mode. So now that EA will take down its servers, the game will be dead.
Ironically, this happened on the same day that the “Stop Killing Games” petition hit 1 million signatures. “Stop Killing Games” is a movement started by players who want to stop companies from “destroying” games they’ve already sold. The goal is to make devs add a way for players to still play a game even after its online servers are turned off. Sadly, this won’t help games that are already out. So, this wouldn’t save Anthem. Still, it feels kind of ironic that Anthem is ending just as this petition reached its big goal.
That’s why many players don’t like online-only games. Believe it or not, even some single-player games need an internet connection just to play. This isn’t a joke. This has actually happened. So, more power to Stop Killing Games. This is a movement we highly support. And let’s hope that the devs will pull themselves together. Especially after all the recent layoffs happening in the industry.
Another great example of why Stop Killing Games needs to succeed is The Crew. The Crew also relied on online servers, and it did not have an offline mode. And when Ubisoft announced its plans to sunset it, it angered a lot of gamers. Need for Speed 2015 is another game that does not have an offline mode. So, when EA shuts down its servers, it will be a dead game. And the list goes on and on.
Stay tuned for more!
John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
Contact: Email
anyone who lives in the eu, knows how how useless it is, this is why i dont pay attention to this nonsense at all.
that being said i want an offline version of nfs 2015.
notice how this jack guy downvoting my post.
"i want a offline version of nfs 2015"
NO, DEVS HAVE A RIGHT TO TAKE IT AWAY FROM YOU FOREVER, FU YOU.
What are these people psychopathic or something?
The guy who started it has been pretty clear he's actually open to it failing, he just wants to exhaust all legal avenues until it's clear that either the law changes or it's made clear that nothing can be done.
seriously wtf is wrong with you people? What posses you to act like that for someone wanting to be able to play a game. legit queston.
1 troll
2 piece of trash
3 hateful person that dont want anything good for anyone
4 part of a company that doesnt wanna support games
5 all of the above? ;p
Ignore and forget i say! People like him isn't the majority. Most people wanna keep the things they purchased with their hard earned money.
Great way to judge people, and on that note… unlike him (looking like loser, but talking like a total gentleman and someone 500% smarter than you) you are gonna get a nice ban from me 🙂 I rarely watch his stuff, but you can clearly see where he is coming from and how well he explains himself.
Cya mr cool guy. I got no time to read BS from shallow and trashy people. Loser? To you everyone must be a loser and you know what they say about that. If you think everyone is crazy, then you my dear silly boy are the crazy one. Just replace crazy with loser in my explanation /wink wink.
He is quite ugly, but his game content is quite good and entertaining.
So you want game developers and publishers to have to spend millions of dollars more to keep multiplayer/live service games online forever? Or to force them to spend millions of dollars to redesign the game to be playable offline or to use someone else's server infrastructure?
When Tera shut down, private servers opened allowing you to continue to play the game. Yeah, we lost all of our characters and gear, but when I get the urge to play Tera again I can. Laws mandating that game companies spend millions of extra dollars that should go into making new games or employing more people are completely unnecessary.
They can simply release a mod SDK so that users host their own servers. Or include an Offline Mode. Or allow to have Custom Private/Dedicated Servers.
There are ways to overcome this issue. Stop Killing Games wants to prevent the fact that a game will be dead. It does not dictate the method via which the devs can solve it. Devs can choose whatever they want.
And do you think doing any of that is free? That's all development time, and game devs can cost $80,000 to $120,000 per year. A group of 10 devs working on things like that for a year can exceed a million dollars.
If a talented member of a game's community wants to keep a game alive, they already do that. If you want a law that protects gamers' right to mod, then fine, but companies should not be forced to make mod SDK's for their games.
I very much believe that legislation forcing game developers to keep multiplayer/live service games playable forever is bad for small game studios.
Please do read and educate Yourself what SKG is all about.
They already answered all Your questions.
Except SKG Faq on this is full of misinformation. They make false claims that the costs to implement offline end of life paths are very low cost, give incorrect claims about this not harming developers, try to be dismissive of how this can impair copyrights and product identity, incorrect statements about security, ignores licensing rights for games like those with limited music duration and other similar licenses which would make this illegal, makes weird arguments about microtransactions when this wouldn't help those who spent money on microtransactions in the slightest, and a ton of other garbage.
Their FAQ is full of such a shocking degree of misinformation I'm actually offended I just wasted my time reading that garbage.
the fact that steam sells old games with soundtracks is proof you are incorrect and spead misinformation, the fact so many games got an offline mode is proof you are also lying, vailheim, v rising, inquistor martyr redfall. They are lying.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/44f4e1a6dca8c1248d6f3a48fdd28e2fef6da019ae3ae61859d4e3e0bcfec3b8.png Two posts, and in both of them you sound like a lunatic that makes no sense.
Normally I would ignore such comment as this is doing "Your homework for You" but for posterity.
false claims that the costs to implement offline end of life paths are very low cost – and You state that based on what? How do You know how costly it is? And no one talks about forcing "offline" mode in online game. Share already existing bins/scripts or, if license not permitting, just tech spec so server can be reverse engineered. The "offline" mode doesn't mean that there is only "one executable" without server. Host server and play the "game binary" on same machine, it is the same as connecting to server on the net. Basically share something so it is easier to re-create "missing part" (in most cases server part)
give incorrect claims about this not harming developers – how developers are harmed exactly?
try to be dismissive of how this can impair copyrights and product identity – what are You mean by "product identity"??? Copyright issues are dealt already. When product hit store "shelves" licensing issues are resolved, everyone cashed out. And if You imply that there is time limit on i.e. music without properly informing customers then we are in huge trouble as authors may come legally after me.
incorrect statements about security – can You elaborate about what kind of security issue You are talking about? Windows/Win server / macOs are close source and yet they do have more security holes than open sourced Linux that literally runs Internet. Making it open source make it more secure: https://googleprojectzero.blogspot.com/2022/02/a-walk-through-project-zero-metrics.html
ignores licensing rights for games like those with limited music duration and other similar licenses which would make this illegal – created EOL build that doesn't contain such assets. It is just as easy as adding
#ifdef expired
makes weird arguments about microtransactions when this wouldn't help those who spent money on microtransactions in the slightest – dunno about arguments but either way Your money are lost but at least You do still have access to the product that You "PURCHASED"
The MAIN problem here is not "making game offline" but meaning of words "own/purchase" etc. Sony in their EULA did "re-defined" these words. Meaning that when You read Sony agreement and see word purchase this doesn't mean what "purchase" used to mean.
So bottom line is that this is fight back for RIGHT TO OWN what You PURCHASED.
Keep in mind that law doesn't affect past. This will be only affecting newly created products.
I would be all about forcing offline in all games, so even SKG detractors arguments ends up as a positive on my end.
I'm seeing a lot on unknow people who never post in this website against SKG that suggest you guys are industry plants.
"ignores licensing rights for games like those with limited music duration and other similar licenses which would make this illegal"
fck licensing rights, one of the reasons games gets delisted and forgotten, like MGS4. If SKG makes devs stop this pratice i'm all for it.
Yeah, the NPC level of IQ is disturbingly low too!
NPC is too good for them, they should be called internet zombies. Why? Because they are targeting your brain with bs.
All these "misinformation" will be cleared when this go through proper channels to form law. Then both side will sit down and iron out problems and then proper law will be formed and voted on.
This is just a beginning it is far from forming a law.
So someone with no industry experience made a list of points with no basis in reality? And you believed them?
Absolutely no. This is just very begging. Template so people in charge have something to start and see that there are people that care.
Appropriate authorities from industry representing developers will be also able to voice theirs opinion and, IF, this moves forward will be able to add addendum etc.
And yes in general I, personally, don't like SAS. It doesn't matter and some don't care and use such software. And from technical standpoint many current games in their code do have either "feature off switches" or alternatives so i.e. AWS features can be easily, for developers, replaced with other that are i.e. cheaper (namely replacing db and keeping current functionality by abstracting this layer).
Serial Attached SCSI?
Seriously though, I hope the initiative goes nowhere, and dies in its infancy. Just because a bunch of content creators and bloggers promoted it, doesn't mean it's a good thing.
That being said, knowing the EU and how much they like to harm companies (especially foreign companies), they might just go ahead and do it so they can make more money on fines.
Replacements for existing functionality would not necessarily be "drop-in", even if they were easy to implement they would still require at least some coding work which costs money. It would still be expensive.
The coding for such thing is done during development.
An there are benefits to this, i.e. I did disabled DB part so code compiled faster while I was testing non DB related functionality. I even added flag that did disabled DB access as, after talking with other devs, this was usefully for us.
Only change required for this after product hits EOL is to do re-recompile with features disabled. This can be done beforehand while all devs are on project so there is no argument later that "we don't have devs".
And yes I meant SaaS (Software as a Service) not SAS (SAS Institute Inc. although they do SaaS or Serial Attached SCSI).
You're talking about things that are easy. I'm talking about scalable multiplayer infrastructure. The kind that isn't designed to run off of some home server in someone's basement.
There are reasons why companies stopped releasing dedicated server binaries a long time ago. Granted the biggest was probably piracy.
What do You mean exactly by this? Can You provide a example of such infrastructure? These are just buzz words that may mean multiple things and are usually used to confuse instead of explain.
Again I don't know what do You mean by this? Is this some sort of different architecture than x86 or arm?
Here is Eve Online (one server for all players kind of game) server evolution over the years: https://www.eveonline.com/news/view/a-history-of-eve-database-server-hardware
As of 2021: 2x Intel Gold 6346 v3 64 cores, RAM 4TB DDR4, 120TB storage. CPU costs less than TR 32cores and that Intel is less performant.
I found BDO (Black Desert Online) server, dunno if legal or not so will not post links from google, but they do require … RAM :), cpu not so much, 256GB+.
And obviously internet but having fiber optic 1 gig should be ok for most use cases.
The reason why people use dedicated servers in data center is… In my company we had CI for compile / testing and usually at the night it was offline and online from around 6-8AM (depends when people did showed up to work, flexible hours). Work in office usually ended at 2-5PM and, as it turned out, then cleaning crew come in, to rented spaces (multiple offices). And what they did, during cleaning, was to unplug PC that was hosting CI server… so yeah fun time. And they did that even after explicitly telling them not to do that.
And these reasons are what exactly? Can't read minds and know what do You mean and this is Your opinion not a fact. I was working on a multiplatform app (Win, macOS, iOS, Android) that was also running on Linux just fine, no problems whatsoever, I was developing on Debian at the time. Client that we worked knew about this. Did they distributed Linux version? No they did not. Only reason was that this is niche OS and harder to find support in case of any kind of OS level issues.
Modern server setups that scale the number of instances across as many servers as are needed, often on virtualized instances that can be started and stopped as needed, or copied to other servers. They usually aren't intended to run on an individual server, but rather a cluster of servers running in a datacenter.
That's a database server. I doubt they use that for game instances, so something like Anthem would require a lot more horsepower and bandwidth. Now maybe an MMORPG doesn't need to run each game instance server-side like something such as Call of Duty does, but as someone who ran game servers for various games back in the day (Call of Duty 4, Arma 2 DayZ mod, Arc, Killing Floor, Killing Floor 2, Left 4 Dead, etc) I can assure you that a single server can't usually host an entire multiplayer game's infrastructure. Running the master server probably isn't that big of a deal, but running all of the dedicated server instances is.
Because it costs money (lots of money) to pay devs to make the dedicated server software that people can deploy on their own servers, and then it costs even more money to maintain it and update it every time they update their game. That was supposed to be the obvious answer, BTW.
It also exposes an awful lot about how the game works when you release dedicated server files, and bigger game studios don't seem to want to do that.
Instances – it doesn't really matter. You could use 2/3/4/5 dedicated PC's in Your house to reproduce "super cluster" if motivated to make same environment to run these games. IMHO hardware is non issue here. Keep in mind that EOL (end of life) will most likely run only single user. And if not then motivated enough person can make it working for multiple people. Scripts etc. will make that process fully automated.
Eve – I think that entire eve server side is database, but I did read more about that, although there is no much technical write-up on that, and it could be that there is more servers spawned (dunno if these are just smaller instances for db stuff or for game logic)
I was running Linage2 java server, 50 ppl or so on server, no problem with running it on my uni servers back in a day. There is no magic, just more executables that has to connect to each other.
Server bins – IMHO releasing is non issue. Product is in EOL state at that point no issue with "security" etc.
Please do keep in mind that this is for newly created product. Law doesn't affect past. I don't see absolutely anything stopping EOL support from dev. standpoint. Heck when You do work on code You do work either on private / dev instance (I had such setup on multiple jobs) or on Your local host (same, had local instances of "server" on my VM).
This is not dev / technical problem it is simply planed obsolescence by companies so You do purchase game version 2.0.
EDIT: I forgot to add this:
We can argue all day long but that doesn't matter because TheCrew2 will get offline mode.
If Ubisoft add this mode to the game then it means they are either a) scared of public b) know that they are braking law and up till now no one noticed it. Knowing that these companies have customers in their rear end I suspect that they are breaking law.
I don't see how you expect a person at home to run multiple servers with dual or quad CPU's that all have 32, 64, or 96 cores and hundreds of gigabytes of RAM… You do understand that those are the types of machines these server infrastructures are designed to run on, right? These aren't a bunch of old Pentium machines sitting in a stack in the corner of someone's office.
Linage2 isn't an action game like Call of Duty, Battlefield, or Anthem (for all its flaws and oddities). Dedicated server software for action games (ones where you aim with the mouse and need server-side tracking of that for all players in a virtual game world) tends to use more resources. Hell, the server software for Ark Survival Evolved would lag out the server by itself with only 1 person in it unless you had a high-end CPU, granted that was due to poor multithreading.
Also, most companies don't want to open source old code. Doing so is not as straight forward as it sounds. First and foremost, code needs to be cleaned up before it can be opened sourced. Comments need to be edited for reading by people who don't work at the company. Then there's the reality that "security" is not the main reason why companies don't want others reviewing their code, but rather the fact that they don't want to make it easier for their competitors to make competing products. Also, as I have already said, things can contain code licensed from third parties that they don't have the right to open source. Open source is not an acceptable solution for most companies, and it will more than likely remain that way.
As for Ubisoft adding an offline mode to The Crew 2, if they actually do it's probably because of customer complaints. Even Ubisoft has to acknowledge that if they upset their customer base they will hurt their sales, and since that's all they've been doing lately they need to try to do something else.
There are already games that require server applications to be run, i.e.: Ark (as You mentioned), VRising, and more. VRising seams like it is well received product, fun to play, and people don't have problems with that.
If You are referring to actual MMOS that can host 1000 player at the same time then it's not publisher problem it is My, customer, problem to manage required hardware resource to host server so 1000 players can play. That the whole point of this initiative. EOL, publisher don't have to give fk about this product and how it performs. There is no need to support anything in EOL state. And I do have TR 3960X in the closed so can use that. Motivated people will rent AWS nodes / etc. and run that server, don't You worry about that.
Lineage 2 and i.e. COD don't differ as much as You may think. This is all about a) db update speed b) latency and nothing more. As mentioned earlier usually "server" is just DB that is updated with additional micro-service app that update in game Ai enemies (there may, or may not, be more of these, depends on game / design). Or there is just single server app that manage this all. No one asks here to optimise anything on server side so when user in EOL state runs server it has not lag game client.
Why do You talk about old code?
New law affect feature not past!
No one ask for old game server code to be shared. It would be cool but law don't affect past!
Again Crew2 will have offline mode so Your copyright argument about licensing etc. is debunked by Ubisoft itself. When You have access to src You can do whatever You want. There is multiple db clients with different licenses / networking etc., stuff can be disabled etc. Many options.
Competing product – developers change jobs. They take their "experience" with them. This is unofficial code sharing between competitors.
Ubisoft – You put it correctly. Stop Killing Games is user complaint. Not directly to / at single company but to all of them. Ubi is already reacting. You got that part right and that matters as this is masked under different name Right to own what I purchase battle!!!
Games like CoD, Ark, etc. have dedicated server software that has to simulate run a server-side simulation of the multiplayer map that people are playing on so that it can track the positions of everything on the map, the directions everyone is aiming, physics, etc. It's basically running an instance of the game server-side, just without the graphics rendering and input handling (there are probably more differences but those are the major ones I know of). Dedicated servers for these games aren't just a database, they can actually require a considerable amount of resources to run. I doubt anyone would be able to run the multiplayer infrastructure for a modern CoD game at home.
As for the rest of it, I don't think you're understanding what I'm saying, you're just repeating the bad talking points over and over. You also don't seem to understand how software development companies work. I don't see any point in continuing to try to explain things to you.
You don't have to explain to Me anything.
Ubisoft already proven, to You and Me, that SKG is a threat to them, to their sale model etc. and they are already reacting.
If SKG was a nonsense, as You stated, Ubi, or any company for that matter, wouldn't address it at all, but they do.
You don't have to explain to Me anything.
Ubisoft already proven, to You and Me, that SKG is a threat to them, to their sale model etc. and they are already reacting.
If SKG was a nonsense, as You stated, Ubi, or any company for that matter, wouldn't address it at all, but they do.
cd project red released their entire engine you are dumb and clowish.
Most companies use an engine made by someone else (Unreal Engine, Unity, Godot, etc) and may not have the rights to do that. As for the others, they probably don't want to. Running an open source project can be a lot of work, and someone has to be paid to manage it. Not to mention the fact that most game studios/publishers who have their own engine don't want to hand their tech over to their competitors (unless they license their engine to other companies of course).
Every engine you just listed there is already open source in some form or another lmfao. And as multiple people have already said to you several times the initiative isn't even requesting that they release full source, all it asks is that the game is left in a functional state or that tools to make it functional again are made available.
I was replying to someone who implied game companies should release the source code.
As for game engines being open source, technically they are, but there are terms dictating what companies can do with them. There is also the third-party technology issue, where some games may use additional technology that isn't open source or has restrictions on distribution rights. It isn't necessarily as simple as "open source engine means you can release the source code".
Also, if Unity was truly open source, then why has no one forked it? Could it be that rights to redistribute the source code are restricted? I haven't looked at the license agreement myself, but considering how many game devs rely on the engine to make games, and the issues that arose because of the install fees, I'm sure someone would have forked it if they could have.
why are you such a faggt? I explained my points well and you respond as if i did not explain it to you well. Youtube is filled with unreal engine tutorials, engine engine games on pc used to let you make levels for them, they had an editor in the game, xiii was a ubisoft game running on unreal it had a level editor that was just unreal engine. Stop downvoting all my posts like a fg.
Why does YouTube having Unreal Engine tutorials matter? What possible relevance could that have?
Looking by examples that You provided:
Godot – license MIT (most open license that there is)
Unreal – full src available ( https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/faq )
Unity – custom license, src for "reference" is available
So i.e. I'm already able to look for source code of engine that most games use.
But that is misleading.
SKG don't ask for source code after product goes EOL!
"I very much believe that legislation forcing game developers to keep multiplayer/live service games playable forever is bad for small game studios."
then dont make always online slop as a small dev.
Why not say it is bad for big studios as well? Are you trying to guilt trip (lie) to others? small studios shoudn't be making live service games aniway.
Big studios/publishers won't be as badly effected by the additional costs. I'm sure it wouldn't be ideal for them, but it wouldn't bankrupt them either.
Granted such legislation may make large companies less likely to innovate on gameplay and narrative design, as they'd be more afraid of games failing and then needing to go further into the red by providing a way to always be able to play the game, but this isn't going to bankrupt the studios anymore than they are already doing to themselves with failure after failure, so they are probably going to go this way anyway.
What a weird bunch of angry comments for a honest/noble intention. keep it up john.
you are not a developer either, but coming to a pc gaming site to tell pc gamers "hey i know that you used all the tools devs are making and you made your own maps and mods and total conversions and have moded private servers, but you guys dont know what you are talking about because you are not devs" is laughable, youtube is filled with indie devs making videos showing tutorials how to make games, sorry its not "magic" anymore, we know how devs operate and we know these companies do everything out of spite and for greed.
Even if he is a dev, what a BS thing to say. What kind of devs wanna see all their hard work go to waste? Sounds really really bad.
Anyways, If there is a way to preserve games that are 100% going to be a thing of the past… yeah. Im all for it, even if it costs devs some money. Maybe future games can be build that way so it wont cost too much, or the transition will be easier/faster. Even if everything of today is lost, at least we will have hope for the future games. As of right now, there is 0 hope and i hate it. I hate how i cant go play Battlefield 1943 and so many other games. Bad Company 2 was saved ONLY because of dedicated servers. EA already killed one of the best BF games. There is no saving the current BF/COD games tho. Its insane. If anything, modern/current games will likely all die out and never come back. Old games had piracy, mods, dedicated/private servers and many other things.
you are a clown.
Indeed, not to mention the devs got no more plans for the games they wanna kill… sooo i dont see whats the harm in what you said John. If only someone can force them to do that, this is why we need laws.
Game preservation should be a thing for sure, in some form, even for bad games.
Are resistance to SKG more from devs side? I dunno, if i was a dev who worked hard on a game only for it to be forgotten for all time quite bad, but that's just me.
Not likely, most devs who've posted about it who aren't piratesoftware seem to be for the initiative, one dev even explained that even if it required rewriting a entire server code it would likely take about a week to make it work, which would only be the absolute worst case scenario of a dev being a moron in the creation of the game, most devs would just develop their game with a EOL plan in place.
Literally none of what you said is the stated goal of SKG.
They're asking that games are left in a playable state, that can mean releasing the source code for the servers, releasing the pre-compiled server binaries, patching the game to make it possible for a custom server to be made by the community, or even just releasing documentation to allow that to be done.
If every game that shut down went the way of Tera and had private servers then this initiative wouldn't exist, but the reality is only a fraction of games ever get that sort of attention, most of them just shut down and are left in an unplayable state either because they actively hunt down revival projects or because the DRM prevents any code from being modified to allow the client to connect to a custom server.
"Oh no, won't someone think of the poor publishers"
Games that no one cares about are the ones that don't get that attention.
Either that or ones that never had a large community to begin with, or ones where it's simply not feasible to do so.
I don't think there's a multiplayer game where it's not feasible to keep it playable when a company abandons it. There are ones where it's more difficult, but not ones where it's not feasible. There are some very smart people who have made ways to mod games that were never intended to be modded (the Mass Effect games for instance). I don't believe that any game is unmoddable.
Except in the case of Anthem, it's a game with a FORCED mandatory internet connection requirement, whereas the game itself is actually playable SOLO, but they just had to FORCE a mandatory connection to the servers play it just for the sake of it.
Had they not forced that stupid mandatory internet connection requirement, the game would've remained playable. But no, they're just a bunch of dickheads who had to force that just for the sake of it.
Same thing with Ghost Recon Breakpoint, it's a game that is actually playable SOLO, but, as is the case with Anthem, they just had to force a mandatory internet connection requirement because they're a bunch of authoritative elitist dickheads.
God, I sure hope Breakpoint eventually gets cracked in the near future with the online requirement removed just like the COD MW reboot trilogy before its servers are ultimately shut down. But sadly, Breakpoint isn't as popular as COD, and also has Denuvo on top of being always-online, which COD MW at least doesn't have Denuvo.
We already have modding tools for the Frostbite engine. I guarantee you that if someone wanted to (and I doubt anyone does), they could create an offline mode mod for the game, or a mod to replace the server infrastructure with their own.
Again, this is already something that gets done with MMORPG's, so why wouldn't someone be able to do it with Anthem? If anyone actually cared about the game, then it would happen. Granted if anyone actually cared about the game, then EA wouldn't be shutting it down. I'm actually shocked they didn't shut it down years ago.
Completely untrue, the mod tools for frostbite are basic to say the least, only allow for very minor mods, only work in a few games, were not released by DICE or any other EA studio, and absolutely cannot be used for replacing the entire server infrastructure.
What's hilarious is some of the older battlefield titles like BF3 and 4 are actually playable offline, but only using illegal cracks and leaked server files.
My point was it is possible. If it wasn't, a modding framework for Frostbite wouldn't exist at all.
Add bots and offline mode.
V rising got an update with a offline mode,Valheim got an update with an offline mode, redfall got an update with a offline mode, warhammer 40k martyr inquisitor got an update with offline mode. spell break released instructions how to run your own servers when it was shut down.
This isnt magic, we used to have dedicated servers and keep games going indefinitely. If devs choose to spent hundreds of millions of dollars to make an mmo, then 1 this is their idiocy not mine, 2 they can spare a few millions to make an offline mode, 3 a few millions wont find anything but a indie+ game and the industry would rather retardedly make mmos and games as a service instead. This idiotic chase of constant profit is why every game is a looter shooter games as a service of a souls clone or a stardew valley clone. No one makes anything new so people just dont play new games, they dont see the point of wasting time and money on a game they played 100 times before and better. As for losing progress, isnt that every mmo when it shuts down or every battlefield game when ea shuts it down?
I dont care about employment, i dont buy games as a form of charity, game development is derivative and steam is slop filled as it is, i am not interested in subsidizing more souls clones and f2p games and stardew valley clones, i want to play interesting games and i play old games all the time, becaue they are better, i have no interest in wasting time and money on a game that will be taken away from me at some point. Gaming becoming mainstream was the worst thing that could have happen, everything is slop for profit now, no one has any passion for what they are doing and this why the industry sucks.
EA is gonna shut down nfs 2015 one day and i like the atmosphere of that game, they should spent time and money on a offline mod or at least not go after people who will hack it to run their own servers. Imagine having something as the crew, a massive map that people worked for many yeasr to make and one day ubiturd removes from existence. Ubisoft puts no effort into making their old games playable, the last far cry game you can buy on gog is 3. Far cry 4 has issues on modern computers, people reviewbombed ac origins because an windows update made the game unplayable and ubisoft did nothing to fix it.
If these companies dont care about the games they are making? Why should i?
"So you want game developers and publishers to have to spend millions of dollars more to keep multiplayer/live service games online forever? Or to force them to spend millions of dollars to redesign the game to be playable offline or to use someone else's server infrastructure?"
Yes to both questions. But devs are not idiots and i'm sure they will find a cheap solution.
You know what? Force a server connection in a single player game is moronic to begin with – And you think its ok to let that single-player game die when the server goes down? Fallacy much? /facepalm. Guess the statistics can hold a grain of truth that a toddler is dropped on the floor about every half hr
It baffles me that he can even make the "think of the poor publisher" arguments, does he think this is reddit?
That's literally not what the inititive is asking for, what it says is leave the game in a playable state, that can mean single player, a stripped out server binary that someone can make a private server out of, or just make the game peer to peer, heck even what valve does with tf2 would be fine, just leave the game in a playable state, you don't have to support it anymore, just leave it playable.
All of which costs money to do. That's the point. This is bad.
Mold Jesus will save video games.
The good news is, they'll want some agreeable issue to tackle so they can score at least some good boy points to distract from all the cultural enrichment struggle snuggle going on, so they might actually do something to stop games from being destroyed.
You're exactly the type of moron who laughs today, and cries tomorrow when something you do give a crap about, gets shut down.
Morons like you, are the reason the world is so dogshit.
"Morons like Me Sham, are the reason the world is so dogshit".
Yell it from the highest mountain, please
I do.
More like they should be more concerned about the hook nosed subhumans who suck ZERO-YEAR-OLD INFANTS' BLOOD OUT OF THEIR PP and stop dumping billions into funding their endless and eternal wars who recently started the worst genocide of the 21st century over lies which as a result caused more wars in Lebanon followed by Yemen and most recently YET ANOTHER MAJOR WAR OVER LIES in Iran and wants to escalate it further and further until it ultimately becomes a global war (including the so-called “civilized” West that worships and adores these subhumans, AKA the (((“innocent chosen people pacifists who aren’t capable of scratching even an ant!”))) as per what their Talmudick fairy tales call them).
unironically though, the eu, ww2 psot world consensus and israel have been the sole reason europe sucks now and europeans have to be gangraped in their own country by foreigners.
No, this won't happen hopefully. There's nothing worse than a 'gamer' bandwaggon.
A bandwaggon full of people who don't have the faintest clue, idea, or even legitimate interest about anything to do with business. I love games.
But F these gamers, and F their games. This isn't that important.
Having trouble parsing what your comment is about. What won't happen? I think you are against the SKG initiative and are using obscure language due to how unpopular your position is. Be a man, even if others disagree.
How is it idiotic? You mean, the way you behave on these boards?
Me and my bro played Anthem last year and had a GREAT time. nothing like it gameplay-wise….The story/characters/rpg aspects were Sh*t(why the hate being a BioWaRe game), BUT the gameplay/Loop/power fantasy was solid.
they banned a palestinian game that you fight the idf so that tells you all you need to know.
A industry plant shill and genocidal maniac, are those things related? Sounds like it is.
jews are worse. They are the synagogue of satan and historically they have destroyed every place they went so they have been kicked out of 1030 times. Every bad thing that has ever happened has been done by them, from open borders to anti white racism to communism to feminsm, gay trans etc pretty much everything,
So let me get this straight…
Let us use your Anthem example:
* You expect a developer's game project already struggling to survive, such that it eventually got cancelled, should have spent significant resources on supporting private servers and tools for public usage? That doesn't even make sense.
* You expect them to release a potential project that can compete against their own future products and steal portions of their potential customer base, or possibly be modified and persist in ways that create trouble for future works copyright protections and image of copyrights?
* You expect them release their secret sauce code / engine for access when it might be used in other projects eventually?
* You expect them to just give away tens of millions of dollars in assets and code?
* You think this really applies "but players spent money on game and players want this game still" for a game that died specifically because of severe lack of popularity?
* How much time does someone get out of their game before the developer no longer owes them? Is a year of hundreds and thousands of hours not enough when most games are finished in 8-50 hours?
* How does this apply to games that feature online multiplayer elements, but are mostly single player oriented games? Because part of the game is no longer available, such as an online mode, the developer now has to give away the rest of their game? lol good luck with that one
* If the argument that players spent money and the game they played was cancelled and no longer available but they still want to play said game is genuinely raised for consideration, it will be hard countered by proof how little the playerbases of the overwhelming majority of private server games are. You're talking MMOs and other online games having literally just a few dozen players, sometimes 1-300… in the entire world. The very few rare ones with noticeably more are those from extremely successful, often still on-going games that don't qualify for this concern like WoW. Your honor, there were 800,000 players who bought this game and now they can't play it anymore! Counter argument: Your honor, private server games of unpopular games usually have around 10-30 players in the entire world and their argument being presented is nonsense.
Really now? Are you actually sure about this stance? I don't think you thought this through fully.
* You expect a developer's game project already struggling to survive, such that it eventually got cancelled, should have spent significant resources on supporting private servers and tools for public usage? That doesn't even make sense."
redfall, the studio is closed down, what is ea's excuse?
* You expect them to release a potential project that can compete against their own future products and steal portions of their potential customer base "
yes, if i want to play battlefield 2 or bad company instead of the turd that is 2042, i should be able to, not having to switch because they decided to shut down servers and there is no dedicated servers or bots, you know things that existed since the 90s in pc gaming, but no, now its "games as as service" for morons, meaning you are not buying a game you are paying for a scam.
Imagine being this anticonsumer.
* You expect them release their secret sauce code "
yes doom did it and now there are multiple commercial games made on gzdoom, valve lets you make games with source and sell them, epic lets you make games with unreal but you need a license to sell them, so yes, yes we do you moron.
"You expect them to just give away tens of millions of dollars in assets and code?"
yes dipsht, we bought those assets when we bought the game for our personal usage, if it sa multiplayer game, then those assets can only be used with bots or other players, if it doesnt make any money anymore who cares? Spellbreak released instructions how to set up your own servers, cdproject red gave their engine now that they switched to unreal, paragon did it as well
"EPIC RELEASES $17,000,000 OF PARAGON CONTENT FOR FREE"
you are a muppet.
" You think this really applies "but players spent money on game and players want this game still" for a game that died specifically because of severe lack of popularity?"
yes, if the people who bought it are penalized the most, why would i buy any always online game? Wasted money. If you think people are tired of games as a service games now, wait a few years when many of them are dead and buried and everyone realizes what a waste of time and money it was to play them in the first place.
"How much time does someone get out of their game before the developer no longer owes them? Is a year of hundreds and thousands of hours not enough when most games are finished in 8-50 hours?"
As if those games are not made intentionally like that to waste hundreds of hours of your time, i would be fine with no game being longer than 30 hours if they were good, but if you choose to go the slop path, then i am gonna need more time to play those games and i can play them wherever i wish to, do you know how many times i got into a game i stopped playing years ago? Having to worry 24/7 that if i dont rush and finish this game and dedicate all my time on it , could result into losing the game i bought is enough for me to boycott always online games unless they are dirt cheap, but at this point, the game has a limited time left before its taken offline, which is why its dirt cheap. So long story short, i should be able to play the main content of the game whenever i want, or i simply wont buy it.
"How does this apply to games that feature online multiplayer elements, but are mostly single player oriented games? Because part of the game is no longer available, such as an online mode,"
mass effect remastered trilogy has disabled multiplayer that was required for you to participate to get the good ending. There is no reason for nfs 2015 or the crew to not let me play the main story alone.
"it will be hard countered by proof how little the playerbases of the overwhelming majority of private server games are. You're talking MMOs and other online games having literally just a few dozen players, sometimes 1-300… in the entire world."
Then this makes an excellent point as to why making always online games is a mistake because the player base is not there, just make singleplayer games. There is no reason for nfs 2015 a game that if you got more than 3 people in the map, its a crowd and you bump on each other during missions, there is no reason for this game to be online only.
What? How the hell does Redfall closing because it was a financial failure relate to making a point that EA is different? FYI, Anthem was closed BECAUSE it was a financial failure and they couldn't sustain continuing supporting it as it bled money.
You also can't push an argument that a game that was so utterly unsuccessful it was canned needs to be made available with private servers, because almost no one would play it. Further, a company bleeding costs such that hey have to close it can't afford to spend such resources to open it to the public.
Please, if you are going to respond at least make sense.
Cool, I get wanting to play your favorite games. But that isn't how commerce works. The law says they can offer a service, and competing products have special laws around them from other companies to prevent anti-competitive prices. Further, one's own company would not want to cannibalize its own success because it could send the company under. So it makes sense to eventually shut down older games and push consumers to newer ones instead of spending additional money on supporting others playing a game that means they then get less customers on future products/profits in return. That would obviously be unintelligent and there are ample case basis to support this is a problem such as World of Warcraft, Counter Strike, Dota, etc.
Your failure in education causing you to not read properly is not me being anti-consumer. I'm just stating facts. I'm not stating I don't want to see older games supported. Stop misconstruing what is being said as a pathetic argument because you can't find a better one.
Making games with an engine like Source or Unreal Engine has nothing to do with what I said and here you are calling me a moron while you act like you failed 1st damn grade. Releasing the source clearly is referring to a fully developed gaming product's source, not an engine. They're two completely different things.
No, you didn't buy any assets "dipshit". You should learn how software licenses work. At this point I"m done responding cause you're too damn unintelligent to waste further time on. Like, f*k, what is wrong with you? Go back to school.
This is a problem for the devs to solve, why should i care about their struggles when it benefits me?
Sure, but it being a problem for them means it will be a problem they have to consider. Whether or not you care or feel it doesn't affect you isn't exactly relevant, honestly. Since it is something coming from them, and it impacts them, that is what matters.
Spoiler: It’s not a problem for them, they are just stingy with people having fun when the game stops being profitable.
What is the difference between "public" and "private" server? The answer is that in private server version in db You will get only one user entry… You. Code is same.
Yet CDPR release The Witcher 1 then 2 then 3 and now works on 4 instalment. How does that works for them? Just random example, there is plenty of. And their consumer base, instead of shrinking, grows as people want to experience earlier versions.
Ad for art and copyright there is plenty fan made mods even NSFW videos from that game. No one complains from CDPR, heck CDPR even releases more adult oriented products like CP2077 with NSFW content inside.
All of them already do! Heard about assembly ??? All human readable code is converted to, less human readable, machine code and that is run on You CPU. How do You think all these security holes for Windows and Apple product are found ? There is no human readable source code and yet people find holes in software. Heck they even break VMProtected software (including Denuvo).
See above they already do.
Recently I started played Quake 3 Arena after 15 years of not touching it.
Don't measure everyone by Your metrics.
If Anthem was f2p I would try to play it and made my judgement then. It was service and I knew that sooner or later it will be taken away from me so I didn't wasted my money on that product (not because I didn't liked product but because of way this product was distributed / sold).
Infinity.
This is narrative that has plagued IT industry from get go.
The problem is that We should have access to the source code as they do have access to the money that they charged for the product.
Or to put it differently: how much time does developers can keep my money?
Do You know what server part of online game is responsible to?
When I pay for a game then I can deduce amount that is not shared with me by that logic as I'm not owner of that part of the product?
SKG doesn't ask for that, just spec.
By that logic when You go on vacation Your flat / house is empty, so I can make an argument, that You did abandon that flat / house and I move in right?
The nonsense is lack of technical knowledge about software. People think that there is some "supercomputer" / distributed cloud with millions of computers so 100 people can play simultaneously. That the server part is some "magical" software that is unique etc.
In reality when game is done server binaries are put on dedicated hosting PC (this is usually normal PC on host provider premises or few cores in VM using only part of server CPU) so it is online 24/7 hooked up to backup power supply with 1 dev that part time job is to monitor server app and that's it (not even part time job, just when bug happens dev is assigned, at the point product is on shelves server should be stable and bug free). In nutshell server binary just pass x,y,z coordinates between peers and updated db (accounts, items etc.) nothing more.
This alone has limitations like maximum concurrent db access, number of TCP connections that host can handle etc. To solve that problem usually more memory and faster thread is thrown at the problem, but there is a limit. That's why usually MMOs are fragmented and instantiated so there rarely a game that can handle more than 100 players at the same time (server cost vs efficiency).
And again this is all about right to own product that You spend Your limited time on this planet to make money and pay for said product.
What? Your entire post makes no sense.
Witcher has nothing at all to do with this topic.
As for the rest of our post it is so incomprehensible due to broken English I can only assume you used a translation service so I cannot honestly respond. No offense.
It doesn't matter what You think and I don't expect You to understand and there is no need to respond to my post.
Industry, that You defend so, already proven that You are wrong. Your points are simply misleading, baseless and simply wrong from legal standpoint and logical one (so I don't expect You to understand or respond to them).
No offence.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/44f4e1a6dca8c1248d6f3a48fdd28e2fef6da019ae3ae61859d4e3e0bcfec3b8.png
Sure, but why should i care about dev/publisher entitlement? What's in it for me?
I'm not against forcing them to do something that benefits me, within the constraints of law and human rights of course.
While I get the feeling, keep in mind if it causes them enough financial harm they'll either go under or produce lower quality products in the future. This may seem ideal initially, but it actually may very much not be in the long run. Of course, the actual results of such an incident will vary on a case by case basis.
I’m currently playing 2 “dead games”: Phantasy Star Online and Dragon’s Dogma online. Maybe it would benefit them if these games where to disappear into obscurity, but i prefer to play them as is.
"* You expect them to release a potential project that can compete against their own future products and steal portions of their potential customer base, or possibly be modified and persist in ways that create trouble for future works copyright protections and image of copyrights?"
Stalker 2 had to compete against the entire Stalker trilogy modding scene and still managed to sell millions of copies despite being flawed to hell and back, so kindly STFU.
Stalker 2's dev, which you are using as an example, stated that Stalker 2: "damn, it was a really bad business idea"
I'm sure Stalker 2's 1000-5000 players a day is definitely what they wanted. Even for an indie game this player count would be considered bad, and if it dropped much more they could close. Their ability to continue providing new content and supporting the game is in question despite their comments about DLC now that the game has fallen off so hard, not that it exactly did well before either.
Reviews of the game are pretty poor on Metacritic (around 70%) and Steam (77% all, and mixed recent).
This is also a smaller case on a relatively recently released game people are hoping could see improvements in updates, granted it clearly isn't going well.
Further, that is a sh*ty example because Stalker 2 is a single player game. The issue in question is about games that would LOSE access after the developers stop supporting them and shut them down. Stalker 2 will "supposedly" have pvp multiplayer, a minor AF side element, added one day eventually though it still hasn't shown up.
Now look at games like World of Warcraft where even individual older versions of private servers have 70k+ players siphoned off the current newer versions of the game.
For some time Counter Strike severely harmed CS2's releaes, with people considering CS2 was a significant downgrade. That said, it has eventually completely surpassed the original.
In fact, a great example right now is that older Battlefield games hurt the success of newer ones.
It is pretty common for MMOs to suffer from illegal private servers.
Hell, a really good example is The Crew which has borderline destroyed the success of sequels due to people wanting to stick with the original.
You act like this is so simple but it isn't. I'm just stating facts, not even picking sides. So can you kindly STFU? Ironic you are named after a game that had the same history. Like f*k dude.
“So can you kindly STFU?”
You said this while replying to a post made 2 months ago, according to disqus.
“It is pretty common for MMOs to suffer from illegal private servers.”
Good.
“Hell, a really good example is The Crew which has borderline destroyed the success of sequels due to people wanting to stick with the original.”
Yeah fck sequels, just burn this business to the ground if you need to do abuse like this.
Because I haven't bothered to check disqus in 2 months, obviously.
That is your response to the point about sequels? Ugh. Brain damaged.
If you can’t be bothered, you shoudn’t be replying. Also, you are the one being brain damaged here, c*cksucker.
Many, not all, of your reasons are why I never buy online only games.
Fair.
For most part the whole initiative is being misinterpreted in the worst ways possible.
1. First of all if something like this becomes law it would apply to games that are not released yet, noone will be chasing EA to make Anthem playable.
2. Keeping older games working have very small impact on new games or the studio, its such a non argument, there is so many games that have multiple versions that operate at the same time and somehow game publishers didn't complain about it yet. For example FF11 old a*s mmo still operational, it's still kept alive by Square Enix yes, but it has almost 0 effect on player counts of FF14. There's countless examples like this where you have old games, with usually small playerbases still playing these games, they have close to 0 effect on new games from same dev and these players play older games because they prefer them.
3. 4. 5. 6.
There no expectation to obtain code or go open source from dev side. Simply when developing a game prepare it to work without backend after it shuts down servers. This can be done in multiple ways, offer some API and let players make server themselves. Offer peer to peer connection. None of these should make the dev reveal some important code, or open the game or future games for some exploits. And if dev wants they can provide dedicated server that are super locked down and non customizable, as long as players can self host. In terms of how 'how much playtime pays for the game fully" doesn't matter. You paid for a book, you have it till you get rid of it yourself or you break it. The store does not take away it from you. What about licenses? Customer protection laws are more important than that, or any ELUA, so if applied the publisher needs to adjust. This argument is based on current law that benefits mostly a publisher, the initiative aims to bring important questions to lawmakers.
Oh and about game that dies quickly, ESPECIALLY we should have protection for this because for most part after 14 days passes you cannot get a refund for a game, and are left with receipt for purchase if game dies after few months. In these cases if such laws pass you can stil play even if the game is no longer supported by Dev or updated (none of which is expected from dev btw)
7. If game is partially online but mostly single player, ether disable functions that were online or again offer on one way or another self hosting of servers or peer to peer. Good example of this recently discontinued live service game Marvel Avengers. Devs made last update before shutting it down that made all of the online elements, events work offline and loop. No drama, game is not sold anymore too, but who owns it can play it just fine. Which also relates to point about new games being affected. Dev is not expected to keep selling the game to new people, just to not take it away from people who purchased it. Going back to point however, example with Crew 2 , Ubisoft is testing offline options for the game (most likely due to all the noise with Crew 1 being revoked.torm players) No laws were passed but Ubi afaik was sued for this and now suddenly they care about letting people play offline.
8 and yeah how many people play private servers doesn't matter, the point is to leave games in state that can be still played in some way, WITHOUT involving publisher. All they need to make sure of, is to let people deal with future operation of game on their own no matter if it's 20 ppl or 200000 and not blocking game from working.
speaking or licensing and such this might be a problem, and something to adress but to give one example, rockstar in recent years fixed gta4 on pc, they removed some radio stations with these updates due to licensing but game is still playable for most part. So yes there is ways to deal with such situations.
The whole point about "what about licensing" , "what about that" , "what about code". That's why we have the initiative to answer a lot of grey area questions that have been not addressed in last 2 decades.
just because things have been a certain way, doesn't mean they have to be that way forever and doesn't mean how it is right now is good.
Don't be self destructive and think of your own rights as a customer instead of letting publishers have strwnglehold on what is very much grey areas for past decades.
I'm not misinterpretting anything.
1. I never suggested anything otherwise. The issue is about the games this would impact, not prior existing titles. Anthem was just a case example of what could happen that would make this unfeasible as it will not be the last to have such an issue.
2. Supporting older games is not free. Those servers, even for a few hundred players, can cost several thousands of dollars a month, even for older private servers of classic low tech MMORPGs. Final Fantasy 11 has 50-100k active players still… So the game is considerably popular, being a low tech MMO that uses a subscription system of minimum $12 a month. The game is extremely profitable still, making several million a year. It is also considered a niche game separate from Final Fantasy XIV so while it has an impact, they don't compete as directly as some other game instances could result in. Further, Final Fantasy XIV is one of the most successful video games ever released despite any form of competition so its a pretty bad example, honestly. The worst example, actually, due to both of those points.
3.4.5.6…? Okay…
Preparing tools for end user support isn't free, especially when considering smaller scales or hiding trade secrets. Making it accessible / usuable to someone that isn't working at your studio is also necessary, plus it needs to be relatively user friendly. This isn't as simple as you think, and often those tools need to be more comprehensive then what the game already has. This isn't as simple as just giving them what the developer already uses. This point also ignores point 2, competing works, you were discussing.
Just the fact it demands more resources from a developer is already recognized in the industry as asking "way too damn much". I'm not saying I agree with this point at all, but that is how the industry or rather businesses see it. Companies like the cut corners to save money, and they'll often do that even for trivial matters for an on-going product much less one that will no longer bring them profit. It is sad, but it is an absolute truth.
It also actually causes extremely massive, like company ruining, copyright/IP protection issues. In fact, we saw this happen with Dota 2… This is also why Disney, Nintendo, and other companies engage in such legal threats, even if it is kind of disgusting how they handle it, because if they don't it can legally compromise their rights to their own works. Copyright law isn't so clean cut and not defending your works the "use it or lose it" concept comes into play and you can, quite literally, LOSE your rights.
You can get a refund for exceptional cases though… for example Redfall incident, or Cyberpunk 2077, and so forth. Some, like Anthem, don't get them because the game got support for nearly 7 years… It depends on the situation, but I don't recall any particular incident where a game got canned quite fast and players got absolutely screwed. If you're getting 1+ year out of your game that is pretty substantial, considering most games are only a few hours to a few dozen.
However, it makes even less sense to create complex tools for a complex game like Anthem, or such, when it is closing because it was a commercial failure… because you might only have a few dozen or hundred players playing it. It could, literally, cost more money to make it available to the public to continue supporting it then it would have cost if those players just bought it to begin with during its release. Look at games like Dungeon Defenders Awakened, Evolve, etc. with their miserable single and double digit players. That just isn't really relevant and the excuse "yeah, but some players still want to play it" isn't really justifiable at such a small number. It is unrealistic to expect all existing software to be supported indefinitely. In fact, due to OS and hardware changes, almost no currently existing software will ever be indefinitely supported, even for single player games as we've seen.
7. I 100% agree, when they're doing this. However, this isn't necessarliy free to do, especially if providing alternate solutions to keep functionality / progress integrated into the main single player loop going. However, this still runs against the prior points so it is more of a side point on the topic and not really a core point.
Ubisoft didn't buckle or make any changes due to the lawsuits over The Crew situation. In fact, their defense is pretty much flawless, because it would cause massive retroactive damage to a number of other games that are no longer available and make developers ridiculously vulnerable. The reality is the lawsuits are based on ignorance. You pay for service and license access. You don't own the game, itself, nor the assets. This is how software has always worked. Further, their argument they wouldn't have bought a game because it might not be available "forever" is laughable since 99%+ of games see only a few dozen (or less) hours of player engagement from their players. It simply isn't a very good argument from them, though I understand their frustration because it does have a single player campaign… so that sucks.
Currently, it isn't Ubisoft letting them play offline. An illegal private server emulator is being setup by an unofficial mod project, though it will likely be shut down due to being quite illegal and also violating Ubisoft's IP rights which could harm them if they don't pursue it, particularly since it is already so high profile so they can't just pretend to not know unlike some MMO private server situations.
8. I'm not going to repeat prior points already covered.
By the way, I'm not defending them. I'm just saying this isn't a simple matter and will almost certainly fail because it causes major harm to developers, potential harm to consumers actually, and has real legal consequences. Particularly, without a major rework of IP law (which might be on the horizon with all this AI stuff, anyways) it just isn't possible, in the most literal sense. Even if IP laws weren't an issue, devs simply aren't willing to spend the resources even if small. Hell, many can't even be bothered to add Playstation control prompts or other basic features/fixes like Ultra Wide screen which takes literal seconds. Maybe this will change, eventually, as AI is able to automatically perform tasks that could do more complex things "reliably" one day, in a few years. However, for the time being it is as real an issue as it gets.
There are unfortunately real roadblocks to getting all this done, and not simple ones that can be glossed over, either.
Also, while I don't agree with you obviously, I appreciate you at least attempted to make a reasonable post, unlike some of the other people coming out of the woodwork.
I would if they let me pirate it. Still you seem to care too much that this game dies without intervention.
The human nature is funny thing.
I'm reading here about this thing that in the end benefit consumers, SKG initiative, that have slim odds to succeed as no one outside gaming community give a f*k about games, and yet what I read in comment section is bunch of people jumping and defending poor corporations that only have millions of revenue / year.
This issue only affects mid / upper management as this is their job to milk product as much as possible. People that do actual job of creating product, be it artists / coders, cash out long before it hits store shelves. And they are doing just fine. As developer myself I can tell You that there is no need to worry production people will easily manage.
So instead of jumping to each throat maybe we all should think how to make this happen?
And guess what this trickles down to other industries as well.
I'm seeing a lot of people who never post in this website on the anti SKG side, which suggests potential botfarm, industry plant shill activity.
Would really like to know who the new posters are and their stances on SKG. Shilling senses are tingling…
There are people who play phantasy star online on the dreamcast 20 years after the server went offline, on private servers, yes some people will care about anthem.
Intentionally, I've never bought a single player game that requires me to be online, and the multiplayers games I do have I can host the servers myself. Older games of course, but at least I have complete control.
This is the way!
Not the real subject, if it happened to Anthem, it could happen to any other
That's ok to shut down servers, what's not ok is the lack of solutions to keep playing after (Offline mode, LAN support, private servers support) If you think it's ok to pay a game you're unable to play at some point than you lack the brain stem you're talking about
You can think whatever you want bro, but other than sheep like you there are people who care about preservation and don’t accept being swindled by corporate motherf*ckers
Shut up and get lost, c*ksucker. You don't rule the gaming world with an iron fist, god forbid.
There are a lot of suspicious new users on this site that are pro corporations all of a sudden.
Supporting corporations and politicians thinking they're friendly and believing their populism is peak stupidity and is what gave the elites the power they have to crush this world into mediocrity
Well my friend, the entire world are Fuqin ID10Ts. Majority of people rather outsource so they don't have to take accountability.
If anything, reddit tried to sabotage his efforts. Still a impressive effort for a bald ogre, can you get one million signatures for anything mr. Sham? And i'm not talking about change dot org bs, this one needs real name and ID and only in Europe.
The devs don't make these decisions, corporate management makes these decisions and they are also the ones that decide layoffs not the actual developers.
Everything that is wrong with games is the fault of management not developers doing the work. 99% of business failures are caused by bad management NOT bad workers. Trump didn't bankrupt 4 casinos because he had bad workers …… He bankrupted 4 casinos because he was bad management
I never played The Crew, and I personally didn't enjoy Anthem, so I really won't miss them. That being said, I do know a few people who still play Anthem, so I understand why everyone is pissed off about EA shutting the servers down.
I never played The Crew, and I personally didn't enjoy Anthem, so I really won't miss them. That being said, I do know a few people who still play Anthem, so I understand why everyone is pissed off about EA shutting the servers down.
Not directly related to this topic but…
There are some people that will stick to old abandoned MMO's.
Here is one of such stories (I'm not related to author of video or game, just sharing as it is kind of hear warming story): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIFty-O4rOE
But there is a big amount of people that despise Anthem and want it to die painfully, those people are hypocrites.
"Sadly, starting January 12th, 2026, you won’t be able to play it, even if you own a physical copy. Anthem did not have an Offline Mode. So now that EA will take down its servers, the game will be dead."
Bought an always online software?
You deserve it then!