Is it? It's debatable. I will agree that it's at least NOT WORSE. For example, I'd prefer to not play a game at all, than to play a buggy parody (I was much younger when I played L2
), but that's me. But then again, better for whom? Certainly not for the developers, who I guess want to increase the number of PS2 players.
I don't think it's as debatable as you think, since one side literally has NOTHING to offer. Of course no one wants to play a buggy game, but it's obvious many players would rather have that, than nothing all. The sheer success of early access games serves as testament to that mentality. Hell, people will buy buggy games brand new for $60.
I think you're maybe looking at this from a pure sales perspective. There's not much of an argument to be made defending it that way. I'm looking at it from a culture preservation / consumer rights perspective. With that view, I think this practice is simply inexcusable. I think it's an absolutely terrible precedent that you can pay money for a great game, then the parent company can shut it down at any time because there was no foresight into what would happen once they didn't want to run the servers any more. In other industries, this could be considered fraud. EULA terms are not legally binding documents. They can say anything. I really do think some of these practices violate laws in some countries and I plan on investigating it further.
I can agree that some games have been created in such a way that it may be impossible from a legal perspective to keep them functional at all. What drives me insane is that this practice is INCREASING and we're making MORE games like this, rather than factoring in the reality that at some point the server will shut down. You say you're a developer. If you had invested 3000 hours into a major game project that you were proud of, you would still be fine with having that completely shut down in 4 years so no one could ever see your work again outside of some video? That this is somehow a reasonable practice and we shouldn't even consider the possibility of coming up with some sort of end of life plan in the design phase of things? In my eyes, this is a backwards, anti-progress view. I simply don't buy the mantra of throwing our arms up in the air and saying there's nothing we can do, then going on to design new games with EXACTLY the same vulnerabilities.
You're speaking "The people who actually fired this game up" like it's a sure-thing to happen the moment the sources are released. Suppose they release the sources. Just dumped the whole thing to public in one giant archive. It requires dozens of people working full-time and knowing what they are doing to just run this thing, what are the chances that a couple of people with no knowledge of the software sort this out at their free time? I'd say the chances are slim.
Your negativity on this is so strong and I'm trying to figure out why. Yes, it's not a guarantee that the community would get the game running, and yes it would take a lot of work. These games frequently have VERY dedicated fans however and giving them code would at least give them a CHANCE to keep things running. Both Planetside and Battleforge have server emulator communities, neither one actually works. If they had the right code, they could actually get that into something playable again. In the case of Battleforge, there's literally no game similar to it. Your attitude on this seems to be "No, it's a lot of work for people to make server emulators, so they should not have access to code and everyone should give up." If I'm misinterpreting that, let me know, but that's an incredibly defeatist attitude to take towards pretty much anything, especially when there have been some success stories in the past (like Warhammer Online).
As for other companies getting access to the code, that's not much a threat. If they were to use the code in their own project, it could be outed and they could get sued into oblivion. There are very real risks of stealing code for a commercial project.
Well, maybe we have a misunderstanding on the meaning of the word "play" or "enjoy". Being able to run around the game world reminiscing about the times when there was something to actually do there isn't something I'd call "fun". While I support the idea of end-of-life plans for the games, I still think that there are games for which the end-of-life plans are simply impossible.
"Best effort" plans might be a better term then. I think MOST games can have a full end of life plan to that they can be enjoyed after the parent company stops supporting it. In other cases, I think the developers can still do SOMETHING to give fans a chance of keeping a game going in some form. Is it impossible to have the game EXACTLY as it was when hosted by the parent company? In many cases, yes. Is it POSSIBLE to have something maybe 90% as good that won't require any further involvement from the developer? The answer is also yes, as has been proven by many emulated MMO games in the past. I think it's mostly sheer stubbornness and utter lack of foresight that perpetuates this practice.
I really suggest you watch my Battleforge video if you haven't seen it already, it explains my stance on things more thoroughly. I did have an oversight in it in that I forgot to account for middleware used in a game, which would make releasing the code thornier, but again, that's not an excuse for NO end of life plan for every NEW game being made.
