this post was submitted on 06 Apr 2026
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[–] one_old_coder@piefed.social 1 points 9 hours ago

It reminds me of https://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com/ where companies say "fuck you and thanks for the money."

Funny how a "decentralized" platform can be shut down just like that. Does the word even mean anything at all?

[–] skisnow@lemmy.ca 20 points 1 day ago

1000% if they tried even slightly they could have passed the server to the community to support legacy gamers, but are choosing to just shut it down instead because crypto bros are always psychopaths

[–] brap@lemmy.world 226 points 2 days ago (3 children)

Sounds pretty centralised to me if it can just be turned off that easily.

[–] joshhsoj1902@lemmy.ca 2 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

Am I misundersnding somethings here? It's the ownership/license that is decentralized. So a user could do whatever they wanted with that license (keep it, resell it, give it away). But at the end of the day there always needs to be a way to use that license to download the game files. That's the bit that is shutting down.

This distinction likely doesn't matter to the people losing access to the game, but most of the comments here seem to fundamentally misunderstand the setup here.

[–] brap@lemmy.world 2 points 16 hours ago

Tbf this is the first time I’ve heard of it so have no deeper knowledge than what’s presented here, but it does state a platform shutdown so I assumed the whole lot is being disabled.

[–] MangoPenguin@lemmy.blahaj.zone 40 points 2 days ago

That's pretty much all blockchain stuff tbh, it's all centralized to the extreme around 1 or a few major services.

[–] skisnow@lemmy.ca 5 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Yeah, the irony is that I'm sure you could do some sort of blockchain-based DRM that didn't need a centralized server. Does such a thing exist? Patent pending...

[–] Liketearsinrain@lemmy.ml 6 points 1 day ago

It would be possible, I considered implementing such a proof of concept years ago for fun (when blockchain was not exclusively cryptocurrencies). But then I remembered I don't like DRM so I never released anything about it.

[–] Shayeta@feddit.org 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

The problem is that game sellers would need to be able to add games to the blockchain so that they can be traded. But how do you implement a trusted entity in a trustless decentralized system?

[–] sukhmel@programming.dev 1 points 9 hours ago

It looks like you don't need to add a game to the chain, just build a chain of trust and check the signature of something like that. But maybe that has downsides and with an unpopular blockchain it may as well be centralised

[–] Blackmist@feddit.uk 54 points 2 days ago

TL;DR:

Welp, we've made all the money out of you suckers that we can. Fuck y'all.

[–] hzl@piefed.blahaj.zone 160 points 2 days ago (1 children)

We made it so decentralized that you can't play games that are already on your computer without phoning home for authorization!

[–] explodicle@sh.itjust.works 9 points 2 days ago (1 children)

So many crypto bros think 99% decentralized is good enough.

[–] Murse@slrpnk.net 97 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (2 children)

Doesn't say great things about their marketing that the first time I (a chronically online gaming nerd) am hearing about this company is their notice of shutting down.

[–] VitoRobles@lemmy.today 9 points 2 days ago (1 children)

They advertised everywhere like at all the crypto conferences, all the mobile microtransactions conferences, and all the conferences for business execs who demand movies/TV based on video games to focus on "the non-gamer".

[–] sukhmel@programming.dev 2 points 9 hours ago

Makes sense, no need to let gamers know about your novelty gaming store

[–] 87Six@lemmy.zip 11 points 2 days ago

What do you mean? That's pretty much the golden standard of new multibillion dollar projects

[–] Etterra@discuss.online 12 points 1 day ago

Oh no who could have predicted this.

This is why DRM is a scourge.

[–] lath@piefed.social 102 points 2 days ago

"Yay Blockchain! But we control all of it, can shut it down whenever we want and you get to keep nothing. Yay!"

[–] yetAnotherUser@lemmy.ca 32 points 2 days ago

This is the kind of shit that makes Stop Killing Games' mission so important. If a random company can just revoke your access to games you purchased and downloaded in a situation like this, then any game storefront can do it too.

[–] Tilgare@lemmy.world 18 points 2 days ago (1 children)

How could their costs be high enough that they can't survive more than ONE month after launch? But we all dodged the bullet I guess, can you imagine this happening a year in when people actually had a chance to buy multiple games from them? What a pitiful response. It'll be harder for anybody to enter the market when things like this happen.

[–] tja@sh.itjust.works 32 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Robot cache was founded 8 years ago.

This post only says that it will be shut down in 30 days.

[–] Tilgare@lemmy.world 13 points 2 days ago (2 children)

I mystified what it was that I read in that post that made me think that they only lasted a month to begin with, before announcing they were shutting down in a month. And even more confusing that I've literally never heard of them, that seemed reasonable when I thought they were a month old.

Some people are going to get screwed pretty hard here then, if they've been buying games there for years. Pretty horrific management of the situation if they can't work out a deal with steam to save people's games.

[–] kambusha@sh.itjust.works 11 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I understood the same - the post title implies that it has only existed 1 month. Should say "shuts down in 30 days".

[–] Tilgare@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago

Yeah, thanks - that must have been it. I read their post with the inference I took from the title in my head and didn't re-examine it after reading their message. And they didn't say anything like "it's been a great 8 years" like a lot of similar posts might to dispel it.

[–] tja@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

I also read the title that way, the only thing that made me reread it was that the post itself said sth about the " past few years".

[–] HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Sure it was founded 8 years ago but when did they begin actual operations, not book operations?

[–] saigot@lemmy.ca 2 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

It apparently went into open beta in 2020.

[–] HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 1 points 21 hours ago

five years of real operations isn't bad for an outfit like this

[–] metakrakalaka@lemmychan.org 27 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Pretty much everything 'new' is a scam these days.

Unless you're really involved, it's best to wait awhile and jump onboard only after the guinea pigs have proven its worth.

[–] danciestlobster@lemmy.zip 14 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I don't know anything about this platform in particular, but I will say that early adoption and support for new web services, platforms, and software that try to break conventional molds or even just exist as competition in the current landscape is an important way to combat enshittification. I mean we are all on lemmy which is an example of this, as are a lot of newer OS and privacy tools/apps. It's always risky, but new things can't start unless some people are willing to take that risk early. Especially things that aren't backed by endless dollars.

But in this case super shitty everyone lost everything they purchased

[–] hendrik@palaver.p3x.de 5 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

On the flipside, when we had the Discord age verification thing a few days ago, I saw a lot of Slop "alternatives" being promoted. All with bold claims and shiny at a first glance. But the chance of them going anywhere is slim to none. And the quality of the ones I checked was crap. So I kind of empathize with the argument. Like half of the new stuff is a trap, and you really need to pay attention.

[–] danciestlobster@lemmy.zip 4 points 2 days ago (2 children)

I guess the question becomes if people mass migrated to those platforms would they grow and improve or remain shitty, which is always hard to tell. But small projects without many people are always going to be..at best janky right out the gate. Which discord alternatives did you feel were a trap, so I can avoid those ones?

[–] DaGeek247@fedia.io 3 points 2 days ago

The biggest one I saw was https://fluxer.app/ it has all the right marketing and investing, but also it had a single dev dumping assloads of code per day, but somehow it wasnt ai coded at all. I'm still watching it, because it got a lot of funding in the last push to see if it failss or if it actually goes well.

I wouldn't trust anything important on it though.

[–] hendrik@palaver.p3x.de 1 points 2 days ago

Sorry, I didn't keep bookmarks. I got them from various random places. And some of the posts (in the Threadiverse) got removed. Warning signs are, all files got touched in the last few days. No or little stars, issue reports... A single contributor who programmed a mere 4 days at super-human speed... And if you're familiar with the programming language, you can spot more. Weird project layout, remnants from previous agent runs and the user figuring out how to prompt. Overly verbose comments or none at all...

I'd question if these projects take off after a while. I mostly wasted time with what I tried anyway. Either it works. But it's not even close to the feature set it claims to have and what's available with real Free Software projects. Or you'll find out after a while, the install instructions were made up and none of it runs in the first place. I didn't spot anything in between, that mostly works but is just a bit shitty.

[–] Steve@communick.news 3 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Is it a scam or just a filed business?
How can you tell the difference?

[–] ImgurRefugee114@reddthat.com 5 points 2 days ago (2 children)

That's a great question! But before we get into that, there are opportunities that only a such a keen investor such as yourself will be able to take advantage of; let's talk about my web 3.5 startup venture that's virtually guaranteed to pay out a minimum of 30% annually to early adopters. It's called dongchain; an innovative NFT platform for your dong pics, enhanced with our proprietary AI algorithms. It's fully decentralized and completely reliant on our company existing in order to function.

[–] Steve@communick.news 5 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I'm not an investor. Sorry.
So how do you tell the difference between a scam and a failed buisness?

[–] ImgurRefugee114@reddthat.com 1 points 2 days ago

You'll figure it out after you give me your money

[–] Ediacarium@feddit.org 2 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Sounds great! Can I invest now, but pay in 4 easy rates?

[–] mushroommunk@lemmy.today 3 points 2 days ago

The answer here is Blockchain. Anyone who's bought into Blockchain has been scammed and is just perpetuating it or an outright grifter.

[–] xep@piefed.social 13 points 2 days ago

Ha ha ha ha

[–] yardratianSoma@lemmy.ca 9 points 2 days ago

lol, is P2P not good enough?

[–] regdog@lemmy.world 6 points 2 days ago