Blogs When should game servers be retired?

http://www.bit-tech.net/blog/gaming/2012/09/20/the-lifespan-of-a-game-server/

 

I believe there are still Total Annihilation servers out there, fourteen years hence, but of course that relies on the fact that they released the server software.

 

Fine, but they should release the server code/bins...let others run them.

 

Maybe double the time between the release of said game and the next one in the series?

 

If they had allowed the community to run their own servers, we wouldn't have this problem. You know, the dedicated server binary that all games came with in the olden days??

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Great article David. This is an issue that deserves far more attention than it gets

If they are charging us £10 or whatever, to play online multiplayer in second hand games, I want them to give me £10 back if they turn of the servers of a game I still own.

Seems fair.

 

Great article! Interesting read and not something people usually think about when purchasing games. Just goes to show how little respect individually a franchise like PGA Tour get. With them being released year on year, the previous year's one goes "out of date" upon the next annual release. They've (EA) only have themselves to blame for that really, milking franchises like that has its drawbacks for the community too.

This. Half the time (if not more) the community ends up with a better/modded server than the offical ones, so why not eh? Better than sending the game to an immediate grave. Theres proof all over that the community can keep old games alive, so why not let them keep playing the game they love.

 

This!

Because this used to happen there are still active communities playing some amazingly old titles.

 

until Tiger Woods does something to really upset the sponsors..... hahahahahahahaha

 

That's the one reason I don't play MMOs. When they start doing it, I'll start playing them. All the MMOs players create communities, populate the forums, develop characters and skills, all that to vanish into thin air when the companies decide to shut everything down. It's disrespectful to all the users that invested time and money on the game, IMO.
Moreover, when I purchase a game, I expect to be able to play it whenever I want, no matter if the game is one year old, or 10.

 

While I understand your sentiment you cant expect a company to keep servers running when its uneconomical to do so, also releasing server code for an MMO is a great idea if you never want anyone to pay for your game ever again (different ball game with FPS ofc).

Personally I would rather a publisher put money into creating new games than keep servers running for games which the vast majority of people stopped playing a long time ago, or in the case of tabula rasa never had many people playing in the first place.

 

You know what's required? A distrbuted server system running on gamers' machines. Sure, the system requirements would go up, and there would still need to be some maintenance on the dev side of things, but then the players are the only ones who can truly decide when the servers are switched off and Game Over.

I task someone with creating this sytem.

 

You mean P2P hosting? Welcome to consoleland, enjoy your laggy stay. Or just play MW2.

 

When they've either been patched to allow P2P for those that want to carry on playing, or patched so the game doesn't need to phone home every eight nanoseconds.

That's when game servers should be retired.

 

When should game servers be retired? When their independent owner operators decide to!

 

I absolutely agree with the idea that after ponying up about £40 for a game, which by extension includes the multiplayer functionality, it remains my right to be able to enjoy that functionality whenever I choose in the future.

Things are getting a bit silly when in effect, we're only being allowed to 'rent' the games we pay such high prices for, yet this is not communicated at point of sale.

 

But realistically no company in the world will run a service 10 years after it was released when the user base has dwindled to nearly nothing and they are no longer getting any revenue from the product.

£40 is very little over the course of the timescales we're talking about

 

I also agree with this. I get the impression this problem doesn't apply to PCs as much as consoles, but unless a game only has like 100 players worldwide, how expensive could it be to keep a server for that game running? EA should just invest in 1 hyped up server per continent for all retired games and that ought to be enough, and it shouldn't cost em much.

I feel like some independent company could make a lot of money that hosts servers for retired games that other corporations don't feel like maintaining. They could allow other companies, independent or not, to have their games hosted for $1 per hundred players per month for each platform. This would end up being cheaper for EA, it would open up jobs, and it keeps games running.

 

They can close the servers whenever they like so long as either of the following happens.

- Server code is released as said previously.

-The product is stickered up in stores / advertised as having no multi player anymore and the RRP is cut.

 

TBH there is a certain snobbishness about servers. I would be pissed tho if i bought a game and no longer could play half (or in modern wanks case 99%) of it. Simple solution is to allow local host via a patch or in EA,'s case wise the f up and only release a new game when they update the engine. Next years installment charge a smaller fee for a DLC patch.