Originally a response to a post with the attached link, but i felt it good information to have as its own OC if anyone cares, because the effort was made :)
Yeah this is just a defence of deep-rooted anti-consumer practices thats generalizing the issue.
There are multiple types of online-dependent games, so i will do the world a favor and categorize them here, along with viable solutions to prevent their current inevitable unplayability(sticking to PC games for simplicity):
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1. Single player games (no continuous server dependence, but launching the game has online-only DRM).
-The dev baked in this online requirement solely to prevent piracy. There is no necessary data being exchanged with a server in order for the game to continuously operate, other than the anti-piracy measures.
This means that all a developer needs to do is patch the launcher/game files to not require the online connection, and the game will work fine.
Some examples of this anti-piracy software are Denuvo, or Games for Windows Live.
In the case of GFWL, anyone who owned a game that required that software to play, can no longer do so as the service has shut down.
When denuvo shuts down their servers, those games will be unplayable also.
The solution so far has been to pirate. The community has made their own patches, simple or not, to continue to play games without unnecessary server dependence. This effort should be on the developers.
-Examples -DRM:
---***GTA V*** -rockstar game launcher
---***Diablo 2 Resurrected*** -Blizzard launcher
---***Resident Evil 4 Remake*** -Denuvo
---***Gears of War(2009 PC)*** -GFWL (now unplayable without modifying software)
---***Chronicles of Riddick, AoDA*** -TAGES (now unplayable without modifying software)
2. Multiplayer games with dedicated servers.
-Most of these games have no option to host a local server, and playing matches alone, split screen or with a friend on your network requires connection to an online server.
This has been an intentional design choice for the passed decade or so. Multiplayer games used to come with local or private server hosting baked in, which required no dev-hosted online server connection to continue playing indefinitely.
The solution is more locally/privately host-able servers for multiplayer games. This needs to become the norm again, and has to be implemented as a choice by developers. These games dont need to be redesigned from the ground up for this to work usually either
-Examples -server type:
---***Halo CE*** -private/lan servers 👍
---***Halo MCC*** -Dedicated servers, lan requires online connection 👎
---***Battlefield 3,4,1,5,2042*** -dedicated servers, bf3 was just sunset 👎
---***Battlefield 2/1942/Vietnam*** -Lan AND bots in servers offline 👍
---***Call of Duty's*** -up until MW2019 they all had robust offline modes that allowed offline lan play, many had bots and zombies modes too 👍 but MW2019 and after have such egregious Blizzard DRM and the game content is an absolute mess, even pirates have a hard time cracking them 👎
---***Quake 1-3, CS 1.6/Source, Unreal Tournaments*** - the quintessential multiplayer format with private lan servers, these came out in the golden era of multiplayer games 👍
3. Server dependent games. (Service games usually)
-This category clumps in MMO, Service, PvP and PvE games together. Data must be passed between players and servers in order for the game to operate properly. Again, this is merely a design choice and not the only way that game could ever be developed in many scenarios, but there are games whose data/processing cannot be hosted locally because of their complexity, such as some MMO's.
This server dependence is prevalent in Service games today because the servers tell the account/game what items they have purchased with real money, all of that is tracked and regulated by the developers in order to, you guessed it, continue to make more money.
There are 2 solutions here... Either design the game so it can also be played without server dependence from the beginning(which in many cases is entirely feasable, but devs prefer you to be always connected to their store to be able to buy more microtransactions)... Or when the game is not financially viable to justify server upkeep, a version of the game or server is released to the public.
Yes yes devs dont want to give out their source code and this option requires the most development time, but it prevents people who paid for/into a game from loosing access to it forever.
-Examples -Fixes:
---***Shatterline*** -singleplayer version released on steam after online service was sunset 👍 (not free)
---***Spellbreak*** -devs released files so players could run their own server once their servers were closed 👍 (free)
---***World of Warcraft*** -they would have to do the same as spellbreak, if this game ever shuts down
---***Anthem*** -sunset happening in a month or so, no plan to make playable offline/without EA servers, needs dev time👎
---***Battleborn*** -servers taken offline after 4.5 years and i have missed it ever since, needed dev time to work offline 👎
---***The Crew*** -sparked the Stop Killing Games movement with its end, Ubisoft has no plans for an offline patch 👎 (although they do with The Crew 2 👍)
It is important to remember that most(almost all) PC games today bought via Steam, Epic, Microsoft, Ubisoft, Rockstar or EA stores all require an online account to be able to play the games youve bought there, whether or not the games are then playable offline after purchase. Those games are dependent on those online stores in order to access those games if you alter your hardware or software and need to redownload those games, you will need to go through those launcher's DRM.
Some of those launchers won't let games launch offline ever, as i mentioned in section 1.
GOG and a few DRM free Steam games are some of the only ways to purchase games that have no online dependence once downloaded.
The takeaway here is that many online-only requirements function at best as a means to preserve a distributor's bottom line and at worst as a form of planned obsolescence that eventually takes away a good you paid for, leaving you with the option of buying the remake, sequel, or another game entirely(like the devs/publishers want).
Here's to hoping the EU is going to take consumer interests seriously and impose some new rules around game preservation on these money focused companies.
