Ross Scott

Well you mention pragmatism, that's why I plan on researching consumer laws for many European countries in particular. It could be the practice of selling software that becomes unusable with no guarantee at all is actually something fine-worthy. If it is, I hope to contact the EFF, who could then contact the appropriate agencies. If companies started getting hit with significant fines from the EU every time they did this, it might actually end up being cheaper for them to have an end of life plan built into the design, then to continue making games that are designed to die like this. Either that or give up the European market, which would be far more costly. The thing is, I'm not trying to demand every company release source code, server software, or patch their game, or whatever. Those are just proposed solutions. I'm saying we need to have SOME method of allowing the game to exist after the company server is shut down. I'm very open minded with how we get there. More pragmatic options are certainly welcome. Hell, part of what I'm doing is raising awareness of the issue. If I keep at this, maybe in 5 years I can influence how gamers start thinking about this topic to the point that it won't be tolerated. Hell, look at the blowback Microsoft received from the original Xbox One reveal due to how restrictive it was. I would love to see that kind of resistance take place on killing games. However, doing nothing at all is not a solution, and so far that's the only proposal I'm hearing from you. Again, as a developer, pretend you put 3000 hours into an MMO project and think of how you would want to be able to allow people to experience your work in the future.

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. 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. "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.

I think you really misunderstood my stance on this and it's not as unreasonable as you seem to think. I'll try and address it: MMOs are monstrously complex, I never stated anything along these lines. I realize in many cases it's not practical for the developer to patch it, especially dated games. I think coming up with an end-of-life plan for future games is a responsible practice, but not one that the industry is even thinking about yet. It's not AS gargantuan a task if it's included in the game design from the very beginning. For existing games, I'm advocating doing SOMETHING to assist fans who still want the game Easier for the COMPANY you mean. The COMMUNITY only has the option of reverse engineering the code and coming up with an emulator, which is absolute hell. No. I have never said that once in any of my videos. Even being able to run around the maps by yourself would be FAR more than what we get, which is absolutely nothing. By "don't kill a game" I specifically mean "don't make it so that the game is COMPLETELY unplayable in any form with no recourse for paying customers whatsoever." Oh sure, that would be nice, but that's usually a fantasy. I don't EXPECT that level of functionality, but again, I think it's not unreasonable to expect more than absolutely nothing for a game you've paid money for. I think in some countries this practice actually violates consumer law, it's just not being enforced. I'm currently researching that and hope to explore it further. A couple points here: 1. A buggy game server is SO much better than absolutely nothing. Say it was an MMO that you just wanted to explore the world. Would you rather have it be a little buggy, or impossible, so you can never experience that world in any form? There's no comparison at all. 2. If the company actually cares about their perception of the game, they wouldn't make it completely unplayable. They wouldn't even have to make it the "official" version. They could simply release relevant source code to the community under a license that protects their rights and let the die-hard community sort it out. They could also have a no-monetization clause to make any profiting like the kind you mentioned illegal and enforceable for them to shut down. 3. The people who actually fired this game up would likely be a very dedicated crowd, not a casual person wandering in. In the event that the game became more popular to attact more casual players, it would probably be because the experience had become so good it was catching on. In other words, the risk of someone playing the old game and judging the entire company by that are almost non-existent. The risk of never wanting to support a company again because they shut down your favorite game with no recourse whatsoever is very real however. Anyway, I hope that clears things up a little bit. Again, please realize you have some misconceptions on my position on this. I really don't see how this practice can be supported in its current form unless you're comfortable with never being able to play your favorite game again in any form. It's the same principle.

This is a blog post. To read the original post, please click here » Here's the stream from the latest Planetside 2 session. This one is higher quality than the last one as I was able to merge two different feeds, so it's at 1080p and has the game sound also, however I can't promise it will be that way next time. The OBS stream got out of sync twice and was out of sync with the other game footage recording at least a dozen times. The webcam feed isn't 100% in sync with everything else, but it's very close. Anyway, this one started off with me bumbling around, but ended up pretty well with a large uphill battle. It never really resolved itself, but there were some good battle moments in it. New video should be coming in a couple days! COMMENTS

This is a blog post. To read the original post, please click here » Surprise Dead Game News update! I really wasn't planning on making another episode so soon since I'm in the middle of working on other videos, but seeing as how the Planetside 2 play session is also today, I felt like I had to get this out ASAP. Planetside is shutting down! This definitely gives me conflicted feelings about doing the play sessions in Planetside 2, I talk about it in the video and will no doubt mention it more in the livestream today. COMMENTS

This is a blog post. To read the original post, please click here » This is just an update to remind people the Planetside 2 play session is on the 18th at 2pm EST. Assuming nothing melts down, it will be on the Emerald server and you can follow along on twitch.tv/rossbroadcast. In other news, I've filmed the next Ross Rants (3.5 hours of shooting that need to be edited down), but still need to process everything. As much as I'd like to have it be done this weekend, it will probably be until at least Monday due to all the editing involved. I will say I get a little more worked up in this one than previous ones. After that's done, I'll get started on the next Game Dungeon. COMMENTS

This is a blog post. To read the original post, please click here » Dead Game News yet again! I have to say, when I started this, I really didn't think the news would be this frequent. The pace games are being killed off is a little insane. I increased my standards slightly this time and added screenshots of a few of the titles, and also used footage recorded by someone else that was sent to me. I'm still open to your game footage being used for some of the videos, but it has to be relatively high quality and not particularly distracting or full of spoilers. Anyway, I hope to have at least two normal videos this month. COMMENTS

This is a blog post. To read the original post, please click here » Here's the latest videochat. Nothing too important, mostly just some news that more videos are coming (I'm currently working on 3), and a reminder about the next Planetside 2 session (June 18th, 2pm EST). I tried to be more discerning about which questions got answered and thus was able to get through things a little faster this time. Not much else to say that's not in the video, back to work on the other videos! COMMENTS

I'll answer this one now. Yes, I can consider people for concept art, though I have a couple promising people already and that's being worked on. I checked your email address and couldn't find the CP shot that you sent me I'm afraid, it might have been under a different name.

This is a blog post. To read the original post, please click here » Hey everyone, as an update, I have a few announcements. First, the next videochat with fans will be on June 5th, at 4pm EST on twitch.tv/rossbroadcast. I'll put the stream on up on Youtube afterwards. If you have any questions or topics you want covered, either reply to this thread or email [email protected]. Next, I have a date for the next Planetside 2 session. It will be on June 18th, at 2pm EST on the Emerald server. I THINK it will go okay, but if you had difficulty joining last time, I recommend joining a different continent next time and you'll probably still get a chance to play. I'll discuss this more when I do the videochat. In the meantime, I've been catching up on a massive amount of emails and slowly getting more prepwork done for future videos and work done on the movie itself. This month I hope to have another Ross Rants and at least one Game Dungeon, hopefully several more videos, but I don't want to promise anything in terms of dates. I'm looking forward to working on all the stuff I have planned, it's just a matter of grinding through it. COMMENTS

This is a blog post. To read the original post, please click here » I've been awfully busy lately on prepwork for more videos, but the news on dead games piled up so much I couldn't put it off much longer. So here it is! I'm kind of cynical on the topic, but the frequency of dead game news is even higher than I was anticipating. I'm hoping it slows down some. I'll have some updates in a day or two, in the meantime, work is being done on the movie and more videos. COMMENTS

This is a blog post. To read the original post, please click here » Subtitles: English If you've been following the website lately, this is nothing new you don't already know about, but here's the official announcement video for the two side channels I've set up recently, Dead Game News, and Accursed Farms Junk. MANY more people watch the Youtube channel than come to the site, so I thought I should have a small announcement on it there also. I don't have any other small videos like this planned currently, so the next video will probably be either Ross Rants or Game Dungeon (assuming the next videochat doesn't come first). No time estimate on either I'm afraid, but more is being worked on! COMMENTS

This is a blog post. To read the original post, please click here » Some more updates! First, here is the other channel I was planning to launch, Accursed Farms Junk: It's pretty much what it sounds like. This is the extra content I have lying around that I feel isn't substantial enough for the main channel, but some people might still be interested in it. Besides the intro, I've uploaded some older videos I had lying around where I did some stuff with Tom White from the Youtube channel Weird Videogames. Additionally, the first playsession with fans for Planetside 2 is now up here: The quality came out a bit low due to issues with OBS again. The sound comes out of sync towards the end also due to OBS also. I didn't feel like editing and repairing it the way I do with the videochats. Welcome to Accursed Farms Junk. I have an idea for possibly increasing the quality on future recordings, but it will take some experimenting. None of the sound to the game is included (just me talking), but I may be able to add that in the future also. The session went better than I expected, although I'm still trying to determine the full story of how it played out. Many people were unable to join me on the continent I was on most of the time, though that was to be expected. I hope those who weren't able to join me were able to still play the game on another continent however. If not, let me know how bad the wait time was. I did end up stopping the game sooner than I planned since we had multiple server crashes, though I was feeling a little worn down from it after about 2 hours, mostly because I'm not used to talking continuously while playing a game. I might be able to build up my stamina in the future however. Anyway, assuming nothing went seriously wrong, we'll have another session sometime next month, I'm still figuring out the date. I think things will flow a little better next time. I initially set a delay on the twitch stream since I was anticipating the stream being used against me, but it ended up not being too much of an issue and I think it probably hurt things more than it helped. I've also been talking with the outfit that helped us (VCO) and have come up with some ideas to make the gameplay more interesting if the normal plan gets a little stale. In the meantime, I should have another small video introducing the new channels on Youtube soon, otherwise, it's back to work on getting future videos out, the movie, another Ross Rants and more Game Dungeon. COMMENTS