Comment by nerdjon | Hacker News Reader

Comment by nerdjon | Hacker News Reader

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> Many of today's GaaS are single-player games that have no business at all being online-only.

I am still looking for an example and I have yet to see one. From what I can tell The Crew is an online game? What am I missing here.

> many users are totally unaware that after a few years the game they have paid for is basically worthless.

Sorry I don't buy this, online gaming isn't some niche thing anymore. The internet obviously isn't niche. I feel like it is well understood that an online game, like Fortnite, WoW, whatever requires a server to work and may at some point stop working. Also for the record, I just checked every online xbox game I have and on the back it makes it clear that this could change at any point so they can likely all argue that the warning is already there.

> online-only form of DRM

I feel like we are talking about 2 different problems. One is DRM that requires a game to be connected to the internet to play, that is valid and should never be a thing if it is truly a single player game.

However from what I can tell the examples that we are talking about are not just simple single player games that require an internet connection to run and are actually online games.

> From what I can tell The Crew is an online game? What am I missing here.

The main selling point of The Crew was the large, open-world map. All people I know who played that game completely disregarded any multiplayer features (of which there was not that many, at most amounting to co-op throughout the game's campaign).

> I feel like it is well understood that an online game, like Fortnite, WoW, whatever requires a server to work and may at some point stop working.

For most online games, it is absolutely possible to provide basic server functionality, even for MMOs like WoW. See another comment I wrote on here about CSGO/CS2. WoW (and Fortnite i think?) are in a different class than The Crew since they follow a subscription model, where it is more obvious that you do not own the game.

The Crew actually has single player campaign! It's absurd that they made a $50 game that has single player contents completely unplayable instead of simply disabling the online components.

I have said this in a few places now, but this is my fundamental problem with this petition. The front page is horribly written to actually convey the problem (I should not be required to go to the FAQ to get a basic understanding) and then the FAQ is arguing for 2 very different things.

On The Crew (which I have not played) if there is truly a single player component that does not rely on any server side systems, than I agree. Online DRM should not exist.

However the OP used "Many of today's GaaS are single-player games that have no business at all being online-only" which a single player game is not a GaaS. Those 2 things cannot be the same.

The problem is the FAQ tries to make claims about truly online games and how those also should somehow be preserved, which is a very complex problem.

So to be clear, I fully agree that if it is truly a single player game than yes that should be able to be played without an online connection. However the OP and this website is conflating 2 massively different things and makes standing behind it impossible.

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