Gamespy servers closing, no comment from 2K

Timsup2nothin · Apr 13, 2014

Clearly this exchange between Windsor and GPS illustrates two approaches to the question 'who do I trust to take care of my games?'

Windsor's argument appeals to people who lose or damage their belongings and therefore would rather not trust themselves.

GPS's argument appeals to people who would rather not have a faceless and nameless organization that cannot be held accountable take care of things for them.

Choose.

By the way,

"There's a tiny chance Steam will shut down in the future without releasing non-steam versions of my games," is a vain hope, because 'the future' is a very long time. What you could actually say is 'there is a tiny chance this will happen in my lifetime, or while I still care or something like that. Steam will go the way of all things eventually, and that is a pretty much inarguable fact.

"I have no way to install my copy of Civilization 1 simply because I no longer have a floppy drive."

Civ 1 is available on pretty much every abandonware site in the universe.

The Diocletian · Apr 13, 2014

Timsup2nothin said:
-snip-

I would rather say the argument shows two different approaches to the question "How much do I trust this company?"

Trust is born from your perceptions and experiences with the company. In my case, I've had a great experience with Valve, and therefore I trust them. Maybe I'm naive, I dunno. :dunno:

Timsup2nothin · Apr 13, 2014

The Diocletian said:
I would rather say the argument shows two different approaches to the question "How much do I trust this company?"

Trust is born from your perceptions and experiences with the company. In my case, I've had a great experience with Valve, and therefore I trust them. Maybe I'm naive, I dunno.

Trusting 'a company' is basically like trusting 'a nation' or any other entity that is made up of component parts. If it makes you feel good then you might as well do it, but there is ultimately no accountability.

As to VALVe, I have nothing to say about 'experiences with them', but will point out some marketing statements they produce.

Skipping the whole 'we would make sure the games get moved to other servers and/or everyone gets patched versions' bit, which is absurd on its face.

Here are some VALVe spokesmen talking about how they would never develop Half Life 3 as a SteamOS exclusive to promote SteamOS since that would be 'against their company philosophy'. Their philosophy has apparently evolved, since Steam was initially built on being the exclusive access to Half Life 2. Apparently this evolution has just happened and only these spokesmen are aware of it as Steam continues to grow through the simple marketing approach 'if you want to play this you must have Steam like it or not'. Measure of trustworthiness?

The Diocletian · Apr 13, 2014

Timsup2nothin said:
Here are some VALVe spokesmen talking about how they would never develop Half Life 3 as a SteamOS exclusive to promote SteamOS since that would be 'against their company philosophy'. Their philosophy has apparently evolved, since Steam was initially built on being the exclusive access to Half Life 2. Apparently this evolution has just happened and only these spokesmen are aware of it as Steam continues to grow through the simple marketing approach 'if you want to play this you must have Steam like it or not'. Measure of trustworthiness?

It isn't on Valve shoulders to provide other methods on acquisition. If the developer chooses to distribute exclusively through Steam, that's something Valve has nothing to do with. Valve offers the option to distribute via Steam, that's it. It has no other hand in the process.

White Elk · Apr 13, 2014

A solution?

A number of games on the original list are already playable through GameRangerBattlefront II, Civilization IV, Borderlands, Quake III Arena, Medieval II: Total War, and a host of others.

Scott Kevill developed GameRanger, an Internet gaming service, for the Mac in 1999 and released a PC client in 2008. It has some limitations (like no voice chat unless you buy a premium subscription) but the service allows you to host and play games online, effectively duplicating the functionality found in GameSpy

from PCWorld

Timsup2nothin · Apr 13, 2014

The Diocletian said:
It isn't on Valve shoulders to provide other methods on acquisition. If the developer chooses to distribute exclusively through Steam, that's something Valve has nothing to do with. Valve offers the option to distribute via Steam, that's it. It has no other hand in the process.

They did however have a direct hand in the process of launching Steam off the back of Half-Life 2 exclusivity, so for them to pontificate about a philosophy that leaves no room for using Half Life 3 to launch SteamOS is a bit hard to believe, don't you think? Sure sounds noble on their part though.

I regret that I am pointing out a blatant falsehood coming from someone that I understand you want to believe in. However there are certainly people who wouldn't notice otherwise. If VALVe doesn't want to be called out for lying they should not spew whoppers.

Which brings us back to the topic at hand...shutting down of servers. Running servers costs money. Older games do not produce income to cover that cost. So older games will be taken off line by companies that run servers.

In this case there is a general shutdown and there are some 'babies in the bathwater'...games that are still profitable. Those games are being picked up by other companies. But who can be expected to pick up the games that aren't profitable to host?

So when a company says 'we will make sure your game gets hosted somewhere if we aren't going to host it any more that is a blatant lie. IGN told that one, then sold off their hosting operations and is now washing their hands of this entire matter when that reality comes home to roost. Good business, but not exactly a trust builder.

gps · Apr 14, 2014

The Diocletian said:
I would rather say the argument shows two different approaches to the question "How much do I trust this company?"

Trust is born from your perceptions and experiences with the company. In my case, I've had a great experience with Valve, and therefore I trust them. Maybe I'm naive, I dunno.

Why should I trust anyone that is not willing to trust me (me, the paying customer)? In other businesses the cutomer is king, in video games he is a suspected criminal and is treated accordingly...

EvilLurksIntrnt · Apr 15, 2014

White Elk said:
A solution?

Nice. Well thats the best solution so far, there global list of servers can be had.
And global lobby is almost analogous to gamespy.

The Diocletian · Apr 15, 2014

gps said:
Why should I trust anyone that is not willing to trust me (me, the paying customer)? In other businesses the cutomer is king, in video games he is a suspected criminal and is treated accordingly...

No business trusts it's customers, and they're smart not to. Not because of people like me and (presumably :lol:

) you, it's to catch the occasional thief. Because at the end of the day, it's all about profit, the customer comes second.

I suppose the closest thing to DRM in real life are the scanners at the doors of big box stores, if you understand what I mean. They're there to make sure you paid, nothing against you. It's smart business, not some way to keep the consumer base down.

DRM is not exclusive to the games field, it's just in different forms. You may not like it, but realize that it's everywhere in real life too.

Timsup2nothin said:
They did however have a direct hand in the process of launching Steam off the back of Half-Life 2 exclusivity, so for them to pontificate about a philosophy that leaves no room for using Half Life 3 to launch SteamOS is a bit hard to believe, don't you think? Sure sounds noble on their part though.

I regret that I am pointing out a blatant falsehood coming from someone that I understand you want to believe in. However there are certainly people who wouldn't notice otherwise. If VALVe doesn't want to be called out for lying they should not spew whoppers.

Which brings us back to the topic at hand...shutting down of servers. Running servers costs money. Older games do not produce income to cover that cost. So older games will be taken off line by companies that run servers.

In this case there is a general shutdown and there are some 'babies in the bathwater'...games that are still profitable. Those games are being picked up by other companies. But who can be expected to pick up the games that aren't profitable to host?

So when a company says 'we will make sure your game gets hosted somewhere if we aren't going to host it any more that is a blatant lie. IGN told that one, then sold off their hosting operations and is now washing their hands of this entire matter when that reality comes home to roost. Good business, but not exactly a trust builder.

I hate to be that guy, but the idea of Steam originally being a platform strictly for Half-Life dsitribution is a foriegn concept to me. Can you link to an article or somesuch about this?

gps · Apr 16, 2014

The Diocletian said:
I suppose the closest thing to DRM in real life are the scanners at the doors of big box stores, if you understand what I mean.

But after that I can take home my bottle of milk and do with it whatever pleases me. It's my milk and I don't just get a limited drinking-license for it. There's also no milk man with binoculars hanging out in the neighborhood spying on me whether I only drink milk I paid for. Plus the last time I checked there was no server that looks my fridge whenever the supermarket closes for the night - if you understand what I mean.
The same btw. goes for video game CDs and DVDs (PC, Playstadion, XBOX, you name it) - that are actually (in some strange backward places of the world like central Europe for example) still sold thousands and thousand a day in supermarkets and electronic stores. Which is especially remarkable for the XBOX ONE, where online backlash actually prevented Microsoft from establishing a distribution modell comparable to the STEAM platform for PC and MAC. I wish PC-Players had the guts that XBOX players showed with their successfull protest.

Timsup2nothin · Apr 16, 2014

The Diocletian said:
I hate to be that guy, but the idea of Steam originally being a platform strictly for Half-Life dsitribution is a foriegn concept to me. Can you link to an article or somesuch about this?

Steam as digital distribution platform. How do they sell it to developers and publishers? By pointing to 'we can put your product in front of millions of happy Steam users'.

But what about when they started and there were no Steam users? That's a tough sell. But they never actually had to do that.

Because they had millions of Steam users courtesy of Half-Life 2. If you bought Half-Life 2, anywhere, it was a Steam exclusive. I didn't say Steam was strictly for Half Life distribution, I said they launched Steam off the back of Half-Life 2 exclusivity...they took their eagerly awaited game and parleyed it into a digital distribution customer base. Brilliant business...but to claim they are philosophically opposed to exclusivity at this late date is total [deleted].

I would provide a link to an article if I really felt some need to prove this true, but I can't be bothered. Like everyone else who bought Half-Life 2 when it was new I know that it's true because I was there. If you don't want to believe it that's not really important to me one way or the other.

reddishrecue · Apr 16, 2014

I saw this coming really. I actually came back to civilization 4 bts lobby a couple of weeks ago and the room was empty and it was sad. I used to have lots of multiplayer games in that lobby when there were a lot more people around playing bts. Some players in here were making an agreement about not buying games because companies shut down multiplayer. I kind of feel like agreeing but no because you don't make agreements with people. You're not known for making agreements. As for brood war, it still exists and there are lobby chats in other continents since 98. The msn gaming zone also used to have a strategy section but it also got shut down. ..

EvilLurksIntrnt · Apr 17, 2014

reddishrecue said:
I saw this coming really. I actually came back to civilization 4 bts lobby a couple of weeks ago and the room was empty and it was sad.

Well you visited in a wrong time in the morning by european time i guess.
In the evening by european time there are like 30-40 players in global lobby (not counting those playing in games). On weekends more. On weekend you can see there are like 2-3 Earth games with 12-18 people playing simultaneously. FFA Pangeas (5-8 players) on weekend starting each 10 minutes. And teamers 4x4 are starting pretty often too.
Its not quite that bad, even civilization 4 vanilla has many people(like 40% of bts probably).

Sinyail · Apr 18, 2014

Can't say that I'm surprised that this is happening. I played little online with BTS anyway so I'm not too distraught over it. When I did play though I remember rushing my next door neighbors city, which was defeneded by a single warrior, with my 1337 axeman.. ahh good times. Yo, Lymond, you ever consider getting the ole Youtube channel back up and running?

madcat_lives · Apr 20, 2014

I stopped using spy over 10 years ago. I really miss the MSN Zone they use to have.

Afforess · Apr 22, 2014

Apparently 2K is going to patch Civ 3 - Civ4 to use Steamworks instead.

http://blog.2k.com/index.php/home/single/2k-announces-online-service-changes-for-legacy-titles

Does this mean a new Civ4 patch is incoming?

EvilLurksIntrnt · Apr 22, 2014

Afforess said:
Apparently 2K is going to patch Civ 3 - Civ4 to use Steamworks instead.

Hmm... Is it good or is it wack? What is steamworks like? Does it have like global lobby chat and global servers list?
Hope its not gona be like civ5 with none of these

Afforess · Apr 22, 2014

EvilLurksIntrnt said:
Hmm... Is it good or is it wack? What is steamworks like? Does it have like global lobby chat and global servers list?
Hope its not gona be like civ5 with none of these

Steamworks is decent. I'm impressed they are even patching Civ3.

gps · Apr 23, 2014

Afforess said:
Apparently 2K is going to patch Civ 3 - Civ4 to use Steamworks instead.

Interesting. I thought the source code to Civ III was lost...?
Great to see the older titles still going so strong they feel it's worth to upgrade them. But will it work for disk-based versions or does it mean you have to re-buy the titles from STEAM to use this option?

Tatran · Apr 23, 2014

Yes, that's the only interesting question, because, according to the announcement, offline play won't be affected.

Gamespy servers closing, no comment from 2K

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