Akronymus

Battle passes/mtx would IMO definitely fall under monetary considerations, which would make the excemption not apply. But as is written now, there still needs to be a precedent set for that, to really cement that interpretation

Gray area, as in it has to be ruled on in court because that's 100% gonna be an avenue for some companies to try and weasel out of obligations.

My comment was not meant as any form of value judgement upon the game at all. Only that it is an example I could think of where the death of the game was communicated upfront and where it was expected.

It's not endless support but more "Don't stop me from playing the game". For example, win xp is no longer supported. You can still use it.

For a lot of games the current situation is essentially the same as "The OS is no longer profitable enough, so the developer prevents you from using it"

And then lose the rights to those franchises/codebases/etc? I don't think that'll realistically happen.

Then communicate that lifespan front and center. One game I can think of that did that, afair, was "the cube" from peter molyneux.

I doubt it, as that'd not nullify the contract established by people who bought the game before it went FTP.

I can absolutely see how you came to your interpretation. Thanks for being so cordial.

This definitely has to be ruled on to know one way or another for sure.

> Currently I'm heavily playing both a free-to-play with microtransactions title (Heroes of the Storm) and a subscription title (EVE Online), both of which are live service games which would be exempt from this bill by definition, but are both games I would meaningfully like to play even if the companies decided they didn't want to run them anymore. (Yes, I'm aware both games I am playing regularly are old as time itself.)

[emphasis mine]

AFAICT, the MTX would make HOTS not be eligible for the "no monetary considerations" carveout.

Edit, didn't realize you were the same person I replied to on another comment, sorry for repeating myself.

> > (2) Any digital game that is advertised or offered to a person for no monetary consideration.

I'd argue buying any form of MTX creates a monetary consideration. Though, I guess it is kind of a gray area that's gonna have to be ruled on.

> This solely refers to the game being available for free, not for any additional powerups or cosmetics being available for free.

I didn't intend to mean additional stuff being free. I meant additional stuff you can buy, resulting in the no monetary considerations carveout not applying.

Subscription only games get way less revenue than pay once for the most part. So I don't think moving to subscriptions isn't gonna be as attractive to publishers as you think.

Also, with a subscription the customer has VERY different expectations, compared to a one time purchase. As in, they expect the access to go away once they no longer pay.

No, the reasonable compromise should be that the game remains playable, how that is achieved is up to the dev. Some will release the binaries, some make the spec open to the public for people to implement their own, some will patch out the online requirement, etc...

That'd IMO count as a monetary consideration, and thus not be excempt.

As someone in the movement since basically the beginning, this bill is enough in a lot of areas.

Subscription games already always had a "no pay, no play" expectation, so I don't see any problem with that carveout. The only real problem I can see is that in-game purchases in free to play games are not additionally explicitly named. (Though, "no monetary considerations" shouldn't include ftp + mtx)

Also, most gamepass games are available for purchase as well, so I don't see the problem there either, except the possibility that a game is removed from gamepass so you lose access despite paying, but that's something for the courts to figure out.

It also covers games with any form of MTX, even if the base game is free. So most live service games.

> This isn’t the controversy the title suggests.

Yeah, I too am so sick of ragebait titles on HN by now, that my bar for contacting the HN mod team has become very low.

> The dev did yank the previous releases, which wasn’t maybe the wrong choice.

I'd argue that it isn't really dropped as all previous releases still seem to be accesible via the tags on the repo. You "just" have to compile it yourself. If the git history were dropped too, that'd be a different story.

To me, it read like you implied the poster to be an astroturfing account. Though I may have misinterpreted that.

From the HN guidelines:

> Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents, and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data.

Not quite, as the compiler wouldnt let let you use the "value" in that case. So if you discard the error path, you simply wont have any value to use further on in the code.

> I think I get it but I'm not really sure what I'm gaining over exception types. With an intelligent use of exceptions I can easily specify the happy path and all the error paths separately which seems really nice to me, ...

Until your coworker comes along and accidentally refactors the code to skip the exception catching and it suddenly blows up prod.

With tagged unions you can't accidentally dereference to the underlying value without checking if it's actually proper data first.

Easy code is much easier in f#, a lot of the time. Hard code is usually easier in f# due to the type system helping a lot. F# is also a lot more concise.

And yes, you can combine them, but afair, only in terms project boundaries. (You can include a c# project in an f# one and vice versa). There are a few cases where it's quite useful. For example, rewriting a part of a big project in f# to leverage the imperative shell - functional core architecture. Like rewriting some part that does data processing in f#, so that you can test it easier/be more confident in correctness, while not doing a complete rewrite at once.

Sort of like rust parts in the linux kernel.

> First, you need to make sure Minecraft is installed on your device. Once this is complete, log in to the launcher while you are still online. This will save your login details for offline access.

It still requires an initial authentication.

those movements can use gaming as a precedent to push foe their own legislation, at least.

Doesnt the client need an initial authentication to microsoft servers?

Not quite, afaict. When the auth servers are shut down, you wouldnt be able to play it anymore, even in single player.

Or patch out the online requirements. In many cases, the only real online requirement is a license key check. Also the refund is, afaict, intended to be essentially a last resort option to make the customer as whole as possible.

> So game should be playable forever then? You bought an online game 20 years ago, it should still work today.

yes

> For 20 years you need to support, patch, keep people and infrastructure.

No, you should just not make it impossible for people to do so. (via stuff like online activation and such). Most 20 year old games you can still run via a VM or something like that. If it requires online activation and the server for that are shut down, you can't.

> Why the tech industry does not do it? I still want to use windows XP. Why my Nexus 5 does not work anymore ect..

You can still use windows xp and a nexus 5.

Because going up against all types of big software publishers at once would invite MUCH more lobbying which would make any progress likely impossible. Better to start in one area, gaming in this case, to get a precedent out there, which then makes the fight against general software publishers easier.

Going for all apps at once is, IMO, an impossible ask. So the better option is to tackle one area first to set a precedent then that can be used to make the fight in other areas easier.

> So they just make their game free two months before they want to close?

Which, afaict, wouldn't change anything in terms of liabilities, because of the people that paid for the game before it went free.