Should Video Game Publishers Be Allowed to Disable Games You Bought? European Parliament Hearing

[exxos]

Exactly why I stopped playing games around UT2004. Nothing beats direct IP!

Used to love carnage racing.. Until they killed the server

[russellnash]

No, they shouldn't.

[rubber_jonnie]

I can understand that multiplayer servers may get retired, but that shouldn't prevent campaign modes from still running.

[exxos]

Yeah same with carnage racing. You can still play single player but thats no fun at all years ago games used to ship with their own hosting programs. People still run and host game servers on xp machines.

I think things started to go downhill around when msn gaming zone came out and steam took over. There wasn't really any need for self hosting or direct IP or LAN play anymore. But that's the problem, the side effect is game servers can go offline and you can't link up with anyone anymore.

Problem is complicated. Companies won't host the server forever. That's really a service than a purchase IMO. But point being, when that service goes, games become half useless basically. If you buy a game for multiplayer, and that no longer functions, then you made a purchase you can no longer use as intended.

Look how things are going with cars now. Companies can stop you using your car. Even firmware updates has locked peoples cars up that they cant drive. Not sure if it happens, but possible if you miss a car payment, the company could prevent you using that car now. It's getting all a bit of a mess. Similar arguments with right to repair etc. Its all gone to far.

In terms of games, there should be a law that at least there's a self hosting option for games. There used to be and companies just got on with it. They already have the hosting platform anyway.

[olivier.jan]

Yes, sadly that’s going to happen more and more. I’m a bit sad for my youngest kids about this. I can fire up my original 600XL, Apple //c or 520STf and play games like in the 80s. Not so sure they will be able to do the same in 30-40 year time with their Switch or PS5 games.
More worrying, it’s not limited to video games anymore, I read an article recently about Nissan stopping servers supporting software for Leaf cars older than 2022… you can still drive, but you lose some of the options…
And it’s the same with all devices that requires an App to be configured, after a few years the app is not supported on more recent OS versions and you can not use the device anymore.After having lost some use of some devices, I now refrain from buying electronic devices if it requires an app to be configured or used.

[exxos]

Yeah same problem I have. Old android 4 tablet can't use anymore. Nothing wrong with hardware.. The amount of ewaste...

[rubber_jonnie]

Yes, sadly that’s going to happen more and more. I’m a bit sad for my youngest kids about this. I can fire up my original 600XL, Apple //c or 520STf and play games like in the 80s. Not so sure they will be able to do the same in 30-40 year time with their Switch or PS5 games.
More worrying, it’s not limited to video games anymore, I read an article recently about Nissan stopping servers supporting software for Leaf cars older than 2022… you can still drive, but you lose some of the options…
And it’s the same with all devices that requires an App to be configured, after a few years the app is not supported on more recent OS versions and you can not use the device anymore.After having lost some use of some devices, I now refrain from buying electronic devices if it requires an app to be configured or used.

Yes, I heard about the Nissan Leaf as well but it is way more widespread and most cars these days will allow manufacturers to enable/disable whatever they want whenever they want. It is prevalent absolutely everywhere in electronics.

LBH Microsoft or Apple could send a kill command to turn off everything if they wanted to. We live in this world of subscriptions that could so easily take away functionality if the manufacturers deem it so.

So your cars, phones, TV's, Alexas, Go-Pro's, laptops etc, you name it it could all be taken away very easily.

[alexh]

If that is their goal they'll just switch game purchases to rentals

[AtariCrypt]

That's terrible, and I agree, it's heading towards rentals (£££) so that's no good.
Thankfully, the newest game was on GOG (Divinity). As for the rest of what I play, let's see 'em disable Dungeon Master....

[peters]

"they will own nothing and be happy".