Is there a reason why any new launch shouldn't have a self host option from the start? Company servers can be used for tournaments, events, ranked matchmaking, anti-cheat, cross platform, etc. But why can't self-hosted servers be an option in parallel? Then it would be a non-issue for when the studio servers go eol.
this post was submitted on 14 Apr 2026
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Because people would use the self-hosted servers to route around the company's rent seeking and control, and they might make less money. The compromise here is, if the game would be deleted anyway, they don't even have that much of a justification.
I get that that is how management types think, but Minecraft clearly demonstrates that both can exist side by side very profitably.
Doesn't Minecraft have its own controversies with Microsoft imposing various forms of direct control over ostensibly private servers? Anyway it's obviously a special case regardless because of the unusually expansive modding community. It's hypothetically possible for games to have a private server friendly business model, but the trend has been for the biggest successes to have a freemium business model which arguably would make less money if they offered private servers (because people would use them as a way to avoid the exploitative bullshit the game is trying to profit from).
Not to say that such a requirement would be bad for videogames. It's just clearly a much bigger fight if companies have reason to believe a law is a potential financial threat to them, and they would have much more reason to think that with a private server requirement that isn't limited to EOL games.
Probably because
- That would make it easier to circumvent DRM.
- They can’t sell you a bunch of live-service digital junk for a few years.
Both of these things are tracked server-side, and so could be spoofed by a 3rd party server.
All online games should have an offline function added 60 days before end.
Alternatively, self-hosted server option.
They should have this option upon release, that way people can play older builds and if the company goes bankrupt, the customers won't be left with nothing.
The headline was a real rollercoaster