Handing online servers over to consumers could carry commercial or legal risks, she said, in addition to safety concerns due to the removal of official company moderation.
Handing online servers over to consumers could carry commercial or legal risks, she said, in addition to safety concerns due to the removal of official company moderation.
If you don’t want to give the sever away (including the ability to use it) then don’t shut it down or otherwise make the game unplayable.
So if the developers of a game go bankrupt, or a single developer of an indie game dies, what do you suggest happens?
The code should go into escrow when the first game is sold. This is standard practice in industry - you don’t buy something without assurance that if the company goes under you have options.
Which industries is this standard in? I can’t think of any. If Samsung went bankrupt who is replacing your S25 Ultra?
Consumer devices are not industry. they almost never get that treatment.
But the assurance you spoke about is consumer assurance? So you’re saying that your suggestion wouldn’t even apply to video games while suggesting it for video games?
There is no reason consumers cannot demand this even though they haven’t. There is no reason the law cannot demand it even though it hasn’t.
The important part is that the idea exists and is common enough in OTHER situations. When you ask for it there will be people who know what this means and there is a whole industry of “we escrow your code for you” that can handle the details. If you make a new law you have plenty of examples to look at and so are much less likely to accidentally create some unintended consequence that is worse than the current situation.
Which industries take companies source code and hold it hostage in case the company goes bankrupt? Which software?
I think they mean in like B2B. Like if you buy of piece of software x thousand times with y years of support it’s standard practice to have a contract that covers what happens if the company goes under while you still have years of support.
Maybe, but that’s not at all relevant here.