For some games, like MMORPGs, an offline mode doesn't make sense.
In lieu of that, they need to make the server binaries available, along with client functionality to let you choose a server. They shouldn't be required to offer support, but the nerd community is great at figuring things out. They'll get it working and produce guides.
For example, a manual drill has no real draw backs it will always run. An electric drill with a cord, will likely always run and electrical components can be traced and sourced rather easily. A drill that was designed to use with a battery, will not always run, and has software/firmware with some other limitations likely buried in the software.
The moment support is dropped, it should be released to open source to allow others interested to maintain it. Such as with the Nvidia Geforce GTX 1080 Ti... no longer supported with driver updates (outside of "security updates"). The firmware should be supported by the people if the company doesn't want to support it, it still is an excellent card even 10 years later...
MMO or not, source code should just be released. Patents are not forever, source code shouldn't be either. Though patent might be too long as well. 15/20 years worked when things developed slowly, but now days its outdated within years and could benefit other advancements.
This should be the case, especially, for software that drives long-lived hardware devices in infrastructure roles (public works, manufacturing, etc).
For many online games the same could be done. Simulate the systems, give players the ability to tweak the rules and just have fun.
Then any 3rd party could stand up a new server and at least have an inkling of where to go on.
I think more importantly / more digestible is that you can't pursue legislation against people running their own game servers if you no longer offer the game yourself.
No one can reasonably claim to be harmed in such a scenario. Enshrine abandonware into law.
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/jan/08/bob-dylan-box-...
I think Japan has an interesting model though for abandonware, at least when the copyright owner can't be tracked down: anyone can sell an old game, but a portion of the income goes into an escrow account in case the copyright holder is located.
No reason a remote community can't host their own instance, and save bandwidth.
Counterpoint: maybe we could make proprietary software illegal, and make everything GPL so we can just request the source code to anything we want. With enough eyes all bugs are shallow, so why wouldn't banks and nuclear reactors want their source to be audited by the public? lol
(Software might become de facto open source with AI decomp anyway)
> Game companies are not going to give you their source code.
Okay but what about the thing they actually proposed?
I am not opposed to some mandatory disclosures at the time of sale - like "this multiplayer game requires centralized servers", etc. But straight up requiring server binaries is not going to be viable for a whole swath of online-only game studios like MMO/live service/subscription games etc.
The problem _here_ is if you use steam, or psn, or epic, or any third party provider you need that. It’s a bit like the California cancer label.
I think if there was a better criteria for “multiplayer”, “single player” , “required”, “online”, and “offline” it would help, but I’m not sure if that’s really feasible either.
Companies never want to be regulated. Almost by definition. Thats why we have a government to force them to follow the law.
If IP rights are weakened by this, and its easier for competitors to reuse other people's code/innovations, then that sounds awesome to be, TBH!
> is not going to be viable for a whole swath of online-only game studios
If there is demand from players to play these types of games then someone will make them.
Its only getting easier to make games, after all. I'm not too worried about the dinosaurs losing their edge.
I don't know if you misinterpreted my comment or if you're strawmanning, because I didn't say anything about source code.
> Software might become de facto open source with AI decomp anyway
Agreed.
We don't need them to; AI can reverse engineer most shit now.
Even if US lobbying tries to hamper that, China will accelerate it.
Sure they will. They can be forced to by the government which is society's monopoly on violence.
> but we have to be realistic.
No we don't. We can just force companies to do it, using the threat of the law.
Intellectual property is not going to be a thing anymore.
It just used to take a lot of human labor, but LLMs are closing that gap. Fast.
And if you can afford it a VR headset or AR glasses to simulate an 80" display
The OSS community just laughs at algo patents. There was never any ability to enforce them at the pre-AI scale. Post-AI the corpos have no chance. They lost.
That moat will hold so long as no one cares about what you built enough to ask a model of similar power to yours "get me similar results to X" until they learn their own path to do so. Maybe one even more efficient than yours.
It will just take one of those people to Open Source something good enough and game over.
AI companies tend to discriminate against a lot of data they gather when it comes to training phases, usually for legal reason. Do you have any concrete proof that game decompilation efforts influenced any "mainstream" models?
Assuming everyone is provided unlimited compute in the future is very naive
The way most people use AI, lighting money on fire, is a skill issue. You can build anything cheaply now if you generally know how computers work at a low level and can tell models exactly what to do.
I’d want a revenue floor before this took effect. An indie developer should not have to worry about getting sued because they didn’t properly turn off a hobby project.
https://www.congress.gov/member/ritchie-torres/T000486?hl=to...
They can and they should. I wouldn't want someone to lose their livelihood because they didn't rigorously test a product they made and released for fun.
Like functionally should probably be like that 200k revenue or more since it’s potentially a few weeks of labor obligation
Also announcements of future announcements is trendy. Companies do it all the time.
https://www.congress.gov/member/ritchie-torres/T000486?hl=to...
There isn't even a fucking bill draft. This could have been a single staffer with AI and like a small number of industry contact's work for a week.
Just trying to point out what could be the opposition for this, not that it's a bad thing to pass.
The answer to Why is Congress concerned with details like this? is that the Supreme Court of the United States made it their concern by rejecting an established practice of deferring to expert regulators instead of electable people who probably lack the relevant knowledge and experience.
The current Supreme Court unfortunately unfortunately seems to lack the knowledge and experience to recognize the logic in this thinking (or just doesn't care because it doesn't fit their agenda)
Congress.gov says Rep. Ritchie Torres has sponsored 171 bills since 2021 and only one became a law, five passed the House and most of those were under Democrat majority. [1]
[1] https://www.congress.gov/quick-search/legislation?congressGr...
*Hey, remember how Neal Stephenson's last project was writing for a nascent shared sci-fi universe? Did you get a chance to play the visual novel that was its first entry, which was hosted on a crypto project's website? Well, I sure hope you did, because the crypto project rugpulled and took the VN down with it, effectively turning a Neal Stephenson novella into lost media less than a year after its initial release.
If a server runs for 30 years, and then shuts down. It should have to return 30 years of revenue, plus interest?
Yes. That's exactly what I wrote.
I agree, we have much bigger fish to fry, but "I don't care about this issue so nobody should" isn't how you build a coalition to get the poverty addressed. A lot of politics is "hey Gamers, remember how I got you that thing you wanted? Well now I need support as I take on a bigger, more important topic". Inversely, saying "I don't care about your problem until another problem is resolved" tends to fray the group because you're quite literally telling people you don't respect them or their needs/wants.
You should check out the book "Let This Radicalize You", great primer on how to organize and get actual results vs doomering on the internet.
Addendum (reason for edit): Here's a list of other policy proposals and stances this guy is making: https://ritchietorres.house.gov/resources Draw your own conclusions, but he doesn't seem like he's 100% focused on gamer issues at present...
Buddy, gamers are a LARGE part of how Trump won his first term in 2016.
I'm not saying legislators are doing their best in a good faith effort to serve their constituents. But even if they were, you would sometimes see things like this, right?
Why would the people in charge focus on this? They consider it a feature, not a bug.
Society is improved one issue at a time, and if you sit around waiting for the revolution to come, you will end up like the socialists who never win any elections and achieve nothing for decades.
No, we do not need to overthrow all of capitalism overnight, or solve "democracy", or whatever it is that you are advocating for, before we take any action to improve society.
That is code for "just don't do anything except LARP and complain, and attack anyone who actually is accomplishing things". Its a useless philosophy.