> - Put an expiration date on the storefront and make it clear that your software is not guaranteed to continue working after date X.
This software is not guaranteed beyond 0 Unix time.
> - Have your server source code (stripped down of proprietary stuff) ready for public release at EoL.
This isn't viable, and i would expect anyone on this site to understand that. it's roughly equivalent to saying "just make facebook stripped of proprietary code and ready for the public to run"
> - Allow customers to reverse engineer the binaries and communication protocol after EoL.
This is a reasonable path forward, but likely a non-starter in the US for political reasons. I understand that "stop killing games" is an EU thing.
> - Package dedicated server binaries with the game and allow customers to connect to it via a LAN or direct IP option.
No. Because any explanation will come from someone invested in the subject, so will all sound completely reasonable and may even contain aspects of truth.
I want to play games with my friends, not consider how the landscape of always-online services have distributed brokerage connectivity services, global banlists, and whatever powers microtransactions into what should be a game with four little dudes running a kitchen badly. I especially don’t want to consider how rising requirements for stability and cross-platform connectivity which have prompted these services means that P2PoverIP simply won’t work in the face of CGNAT or Sony’s distribution policies or fucking Comcast not having IPv6 yet; and I especially don’t want to think of the lower average technical acumen of the individual gamer has caused dedicated servers to completely fall out of fashion due to user confusion.
I really don’t want to think about the “paradox of polish”, where smaller games can get away with such things like dedicated servers and p2p networking that don’t work sometimes; whereas everything in an AAA title has to work flawlessly out of the gate or it’ll be panned despite the horse’s left testicle contracting appropriately in cold water.
Man, I don’t wanna be sad about market forces encouraging centralization for the efficiency necessary to stay competitive. I just wanna play dead or alive 2 with my bros even tho the dreamcast server’s offline.
Isn't that exactly how these companies scale across multiple data centers?
They write the code once, package it all together, and host it in multiple areas?
Getting back to games, I still don't see why allowing users to host private servers with their friends is impossible. If anything, it seems like its strictly a DRM issue...but at EOL for a game you no longer find profitable enough to keep the servers online, who really cares about DRM
Wat? E-trade is not an application, it's probably dozens of coordinated services. Meanwhile, a game usually has a single binary and another one for the server.
Well, this is about software you bought in advance. The Facebook comparison doesn't really work because you're not paying in advance to use it.
> This software is not guaranteed beyond 0 Unix time.
Grandma goes to the store to buy a game for their grandkid. She sees two game boxes. One says in the front "This game will stop working tomorrow and you will not get a refund" and the other says "This game will stop working in 2030". Which one does she pick?
Better to say Apple failed to lose. The court explicitly left open the question as to whether they are a monopoly. They just didn't provide any meaningful injunctions as a result of that case.
>The court explicitly left open the question as to whether they are a monopoly.
Presumably because that's not a question that generally needs answered. A lot of people growing remembering microsoft getting sued have this flawed idea that monopoly always equals bad. There are plenty of legal monopolies, companies don't get in trouble until they start doing illegal stuff to keep their monopoly. A lot of areas naturally favor a monopoly, that's not illegal or necessarily bad.
According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_Games_v._Apple, the ruling definitively stated that Apple does not need to add third party app stores to its platform, and the appeal upheld that ruling (with the Supreme Court declining to hear further appeals, meaning the case is finished). The only change Apple had to make is supporting third-party payment platforms.
> Judge Rogers issued her first ruling on September 10, 2021, which was considered a split decision by law professor Mark Lemley.[63] Rogers found in favor of Apple on nine of ten counts brought up against them in the case, including Epic's charges related to Apple's 30% revenue cut and Apple's prohibition against third-party marketplaces on the iOS environment.[64] Rogers did rule against Apple on the final charge related to anti-steering provisions, and issued a permanent injunction that, in 90 days from the ruling, blocked Apple from preventing developers from linking app users to other storefronts from within apps to complete purchases or from collecting information within an app, such as an email, to notify users of these storefronts.
> ...
> The Ninth Circuit issued its opinion on April 24, 2023. The three judge panel all agreed that the lower court ruling should be upheld. However, the Ninth Circuit agreed to stay the injunction requiring Apple to offer third-party payment options in July 2023, allowing time for Apple to submit its appeal to the Supreme Court.[79] Both Apple and Epic Games have appealed this decision to the Supreme Court in July 2023.[80][81] Justice Elena Kagan declined Epic's emergency request to lift the Ninth Circuit's stay in August 2023.[82]
> On January 16, 2024, the Supreme Court declined to hear the appeals from Apple and Epic in the case.
Given that the claim I was responding to implied that it was foolish of Google to cite Apple due to them being a monopoly, can you elaborate on why you think this ruling somehow was an obviously bad idea for them to argue as a precedent? To repeat myself from before, I'm _not_ expressing personal opinion about whether iOS and Android should be allowed to operate the way they do, but asserting that the court ruling does in fact state that the current way Apple handles third-party app stores is legal.
Apple wasn't ruled not a monopoly. It was ruled that the evidence Epic brought in the case was insufficient to show Apple was a monopoly, and the court would entertain other arguments in the future.
Apple didn't need to do anything, but they didn't "win" that convincingly.
That’s splitting hairs. By that logic nobody ever wins when they defend a lawsuit, the plaintiffs just fail to prove their point and different plaintiffs and/or different evidence might prevail in the future.
