• hperrin@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    Online gaming requires servers to run, and servers require money. Either the game is more expensive, the online is a subscription, or you have to run the server yourself. There are games that do each of these.

    Edit: or microtransactions. Fuck microtransactions.

    • Shake747@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      11 months ago

      Normalizing needless online servers is part of the issue here (only with AAA titles). These companies set up servers and say shit like “well it has to be paid for somehow!”

      Games like Diablo 4 where you need internet to play single player. Diablo 2 resurrection removed all the LAN/Self hosting features of original D2.

      Blizzard isn’t the only company doing this either.

      Fuck that noise.

    • kakes@sh.itjust.works
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      11 months ago

      That said, with the prices being where they are, a single subscriber basically funds the entire cost of running the server.

      • 520@kbin.social
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        11 months ago

        Not exactly. Electricity aside, servers also require maintenance. That requires server admins. Those don’t come cheap.

        Edit: also network costs. With the requirement of handling high user numbers at stupidly low latency levels, they’ll need a seperate internet connection from corp and the data service will also not be cheap.

        • You999@sh.itjust.works
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          11 months ago

          Then solve the problem the same way the PC industry did by allowing anyone to host the server.

          • NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip
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            11 months ago

            Which has its own drawbacks. Community servers are great for something like Battlefield/Battlebit where a single server covers 30-128 players. Less so for smaller groups and as games “die”. Time has no meaning, but I want to say it was mid 00s Unreal Tournament (so after 2k3/2k4 came out, but while UT was still alive) where it increasingly became nigh impossible to find servers not running instagib or “pro” mods. Which made sense since it was mostly the various clans making their servers public when they weren’t practicing.

            But also? Look at a live game like Destiny or Warframe. For the purely PVE content, you can get away with users running listen servers. And just ask any Warframe player about how much we just LOVE host migration. But once you add any form of competitive aspect, that is no longer viable. And community hosted servers for eight players in a matchmaking queue are just not going to be a thing.

            On the console side of things? That monthly fee covers (some) game servers but also the content servers to download all the patches and games.

            On the PC side? Generally you are either dependent on a major publisher/studio that can afford to leave a few racks running in a closet while they make new games. And you are fucked when they realize that and shut down the game. Or you hope that it is subsidized by DLC and microtransactions.

            And, if it is your primary platform, I think the multiplayer fees on consoles (other than switch) are handled pretty well these days. You aren’t paying for halo matchmaking. You are paying for an instant game collection every month and gamepass. Which is more or less exactly what sony did after clowning on MS for charging money.

          • NoIWontPickaName@kbin.social
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            11 months ago

            Online gaming requires servers to run, and servers require money. Either the game is more expensive, the online is a subscription, or you have to run the server yourself. There are games that do each of these.

          • 520@kbin.social
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            11 months ago

            If I had it my way this is exactly how it would work.

            Alas, even non-Valve PC games are moving away from that model unfortunately.

          • Spuddlesv2@lemmy.ca
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            11 months ago

            “There’s no servers”

            What exactly do you think those “host machines” are?!?

          • huginn@feddit.it
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            11 months ago

            You got some hella rose tinted glasses on my guy.

            GameSpy was a bloated piece of garbage that is only fondly remembered because the other options were worse. It crashed constantly which ripped you out of your game and it performed this trick especially often right when the game launched.

            Ping was always wrong, lobbies displayed as full when they weren’t, server filtering was non-existent, required login every time you disconnected…

            I was thrilled to move off of it to basically anything else

            • 🇰 🌀 🇱 🇦 🇳 🇦 🇰 ℹ️@yiffit.net
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              11 months ago

              GameSpy was a bloated piece of garbage

              Bloated? It literally did 1 thing, and that was give you a list of servers that you could filter, despite your attestation it had no filtering.

              The other options were worse

              All Seeing Eye was often considered better; though I remember it being exactly the same program just with a different name.

              It crashed constantly, ripping you out of the game

              All it did with the game was connect you to the server you selected using the game’s own commands. If GameSpy itself crashed after you’ve connected to the server, the game wouldn’t be affected.

              You sure you’re thinking about GameSpy?

      • hperrin@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        I’m not sure what you mean. PC games usually run on your PC, unless you’re streaming. It’s the multiplayer server software that run on servers. And the servers are paid for by the company that makes the game, usually. Or the publisher. The actual server hardware is rented from cloud providers, if that’s what you mean. Servers aren’t free, that’s my point. If you want multiplayer online functionality, someone has to pay for the server. And ultimately that cost gets passed on to you, the end user.

    • BolexForSoup@kbin.social
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      11 months ago

      I wish more games would let us run the servers ourselves these days. Too many of them won’t even let you if you want to.

    • Franzia
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      11 months ago

      Dont grt it twisted the main thing a subscription is funding is shareholder value.

      • hperrin@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        Most companies aren’t in the business of giving away free services, and it’s wild to expect them to be. You wouldn’t expect a landscaping business to do all your landscaping for free after you pay for the first time.

          • hperrin@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            Alright, then play games where you can host your own server. There are plenty. That doesn’t work for all games though (particularly ranked games where the server software has to be verified or people could easily cheat), so you’ll be limited in what you can play.

            • BolexForSoup@kbin.social
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              11 months ago

              The problem is that there aren’t plenty. Every year number of online games that allow you to host your own server decreases.

            • Ech@lemm.ee
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              11 months ago

              I’m not super familiar with current console allowances, but are you suggesting that people can just “host their own server” and not pay the psn or Xbox live fees that are forced onto them? I just don’t think that’s true. You have to pay the fee to connect to any server, even your own.

              • hperrin@lemmy.world
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                11 months ago

                This was more about general gaming, but you can connect to some games online without a subscription on Xbox. Not all.

        • _number8_@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          tell me more about how landscaping with physical labor and materials is just like having a server turned on

        • linuxdweeb@lemm.ee
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          11 months ago

          Most companies aren’t in the business of giving away free services,

          First of all, this is wrong. Free to play is an insanely profitable business model.

          But also it’s wrong because non-F2P multiplayer games aren’t a free service. You paid $60/$70 for the game, and whatever the cost of the servers is would have been factored into the sale price. The per-unit cost of hosting an online game is nowhere near the cost of the game, especially back in the day when most “servers” were just a matchmaking service for P2P game clients.

          Nowadays, the cost of running a multiplayer game is lower than ever. Cloud hosting gives a ton of flexibility to design an online service that is affordable to run, not to mention the money printing machine that are microtransactions (often sold in non-F2P games that also require a subscription to play).

          Online subscriptions are not meant to cover server/hosting costs. They’re a monopoly tax from the platform holder, who can charge you money to connect to the internet simply because they can, and they know you have no other option.

      • hperrin@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        All three happened because servers actually cost money. Do you give away things for free to strangers on the internet?

        There’s no profit in letting users run their own servers, btw.

        • AnonTwo@kbin.social
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          11 months ago

          How much money do you pay to login to Mozilla/Chrome/Edge to make this post?

          Various PC games before and after Xbox do not charge anything just to be online. it’s not an outright requirement. To add consoles usually restrict internet entirely, which is a completely different thing from hosting rounds.

          Your second sentence is closer to what the actual reason is, and goes more in line with rockslayer’s post.

          edit: I will concede that browsers aren’t locked anymore behind the payment models it seems. But I will still stand by that everyone is arguing as if individual games don’t have to do this, but i’m fairly certain still that no P2P or just outright free online games exist on consoles, which makes the argument moot.

          • BolexForSoup@kbin.social
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            11 months ago

            but i’m fairly certain still that no P2P or just outright free online games exist on consoles

            Fortnite, Rocket League, Apex Legends, COD Warzone, Halo: Infinite. Plenty more those are just top of my head.

        • rockSlayer@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          There’s no profit in letting users run their own servers

          Yes, there is. They make the game more expensive, charge a subscription, and then cut all the cost of hosting. That is where the industry is heading.

          • hperrin@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            Ok yes, if they’re charging you a subscription to run your own server, there’s profit in that. I don’t know of any companies that do that, but I would not be in favor of them doing that. Considering that is not a common practice in the industry, I think we can move on.

            • rockSlayer@lemmy.world
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              11 months ago

              remember Call of Duty Black Ops: Cold War? The game that didn’t have dedi servers for Zombies for several months after launch, cost $70, and had a battle pass?

        • x4740N@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          Hperrin your getting continuously downvoted here, perhaps that should be a good wakeup call to step back and look at why you are being downvoted

          • hperrin@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            Because people disagree with me? That doesn’t change the fact that that’s how the industry works. Multiplayer is always paid for by something. If nobody bought Shark Cards, GTA Online wouldn’t be free.

            Also, consoles are subsidized. Microsoft makes money on your subscription, not your Xbox.

    • BolexForSoup@kbin.social
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      11 months ago

      This is basically an argument for itemizing any and all things that can be articulated tbh. I don’t pay a “kitchen” fee or an “electrical” fee or a “dishwasher” fee when I go to a restaurant. They calculate what things cost on the whole then price accordingly. That’s how 95% of non-single-item transactions occur.

      I’m not even necessarily against the concept of paying for the service on consoles (I kind of go back and forth on it personally) but this argument simply doesn’t hold water.

    • x4740N@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Peer To Peer

      Look it up

      Your comment is exactly the same type I’d see from toxic users on reddit arguing that people should pay because Microsoft hosts servers for multiplayer and that the commenter gladly pays for it whenever I’d go to look at reddit posts calling out bullshit on pay walled multiplayer on consoles

      • hperrin@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        Oh I don’t pay. I don’t play on PlayStation or Xbox, and I honestly don’t think people should, but I understand why people do. It’s easy, and playing on PC is harder.

        The more middlemen you put between the developer of the game and the end user the more money you’re going to pay. You might get a better/easier experience, but it will cost more. That’s just economics. So minimizing that is good for the end user if they’re cool with having a harder time setting things up and playing.