That said, with the prices being where they are, a single subscriber basically funds the entire cost of running the server.
Comment on I remember getting a PS3 just to avoid this back then
hperrin@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Online gaming requires servers to run, and servers require money. Either the game is more expensive, the online is a subscription, or you have to run the server yourself. There are games that do each of these.
kakes@sh.itjust.works 7 months ago
520@kbin.social 7 months ago
Not exactly. Electricity aside, servers also require maintenance. That requires server admins.
You999@sh.itjust.works 7 months ago
Then solve the problem the same way the PC industry did by allowing anyone to host the server.
NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip 7 months ago
Which has its own drawbacks. Community servers are great for something like Battlefield/Battlebit where a single server covers 30-128 players. Less so for smaller groups and as games “die”. Time has no meaning, but I want to say it was mid 00s Unreal Tournament (so after 2k3/2k4 came out, but while UT was still alive) where it increasingly became nigh impossible to find servers not running instagib or “pro” mods. Which made sense since it was mostly the various clans making their servers public when they weren’t practicing.
But also? Look at a live game like Destiny or Warframe. For the purely PVE content, you can get away with users running listen servers. And just ask any Warframe player about how much we just LOVE host migration. But once you add any form of competitive aspect, that is no longer viable. And community hosted servers for eight players in a matchmaking queue are just not going to be a thing.
On the console side of things? That monthly fee covers (some) game servers but also the content servers to download all the patches and games.
On the PC side? Generally you are either dependent on a major publisher/studio that can afford to leave a few racks running in a closet while they make new games. And you are fucked when they realize that and shut down the game. Or you hope that it is subsidized by DLC and microtransactions.
NoIWontPickaName@kbin.social 7 months ago
Online gaming requires servers to run, and servers require money. Either the game is more expensive, the online is a subscription, or you have to run the server yourself. There are games that do each of these.
520@kbin.social 7 months ago
If I had it my way this is exactly how it would work.
Alas, even non-Valve PC games are moving away from that model unfortunately.
x4740N@lemmy.world 7 months ago
There is also peer to peer which is basically the same way torrents work
aniki@lemm.ee 7 months ago
[deleted]Spuddlesv2@lemmy.ca 7 months ago
“There’s no servers”
What exactly do you think those “host machines” are?!?
aniki@lemm.ee 7 months ago
[deleted]Kolanaki@yiffit.net 7 months ago
It’s too bad every dev runs their own (often piss-poor) servers instead of giving us dedicated server hosting software to run our own.
huginn@feddit.it 7 months ago
GameSpy was such dog shit tho
aniki@lemm.ee 7 months ago
[deleted]huginn@feddit.it 7 months ago
You got some hella rose tinted glasses on my guy.
GameSpy was a bloated piece of garbage that is only fondly remembered because the other options were worse. It crashed constantly which ripped you out of your game and it performed this trick especially often right when the game launched.
Ping was always wrong, lobbies displayed as full when they weren’t, server filtering was non-existent, required login every time you disconnected…
I was thrilled to move off of it to basically anything else
BolexForSoup@kbin.social 7 months ago
That was probably just your connection
Waluigis_Talking_Buttplug@lemmy.world 7 months ago
PC games run on servers, but you don’t pay for a Windows monthly subscription to play the games, you just pay for the individual games themselves.
These servers are hosted by third party companies anyway.
hperrin@lemmy.world 7 months ago
I’m not sure what you mean. PC games usually run on your PC, unless you’re streaming. It’s the multiplayer server software that run on servers. And the servers are paid for by the company that makes the game, usually. Or the publisher. The actual server hardware is rented from cloud providers, if that’s what you mean. Servers aren’t free, that’s my point. If you want multiplayer online functionality, someone has to pay for the server. And ultimately that cost gets passed on to you, the end user.
Waluigis_Talking_Buttplug@lemmy.world 7 months ago
What I mean
Xbox: you have to pay to even be able to play online at all, even if the third party servers are paid for and operated by other means. Third party games require you to pay xbox. They own the servers and pay for the servers. Even free games require you to pay Xbox.
PC: you can play games online without paying your OS provider.
BolexForSoup@kbin.social 7 months ago
I wish more games would let us run the servers ourselves these days. Too many of them won’t even let you if you want to.
Franzia@lemmy.blahaj.zone 7 months ago
Dont grt it twisted the main thing a subscription is funding is shareholder value.
Kolanaki@yiffit.net 7 months ago
Most modern games do not have server software to run your own. And yet they don’t cost extra on PC. Hm. 🤔
pimento64@sopuli.xyz 7 months ago
Cost of doing business. Publishers who can’t afford to literally just forget about the cost of running servers have no need to be in business.
hperrin@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Most companies aren’t in the business of giving away free services, and it’s wild to expect them to be. You wouldn’t expect a landscaping business to do all your landscaping for free after you pay for the first time.
jmankman@lemmy.myserv.one 7 months ago
I don’t expect to have to pay another company to walk across my own lawn
hperrin@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Alright, then play games where you can host your own server. There are plenty. That doesn’t work for all games though (particularly ranked games where the server software has to be verified or people could easily cheat), so you’ll be limited in what you can play.
linuxdweeb@lemm.ee 7 months ago
Most companies aren’t in the business of giving away free services,
First of all, this is wrong. Free to play is an insanely profitable business model.
But also it’s wrong because non-F2P multiplayer games aren’t a free service. You paid $60/$70 for the game, and whatever the cost of the servers is would have been factored into the sale price. The per-unit cost of hosting an online game is nowhere near the cost of the game, especially back in the day when most “servers” were just a matchmaking service for P2P game clients.
Nowadays, the cost of running a multiplayer game is lower than ever. Cloud hosting gives a ton of flexibility to design an online service that is affordable to run, not to mention the money printing machine that are microtransactions (often sold in non-F2P games that also require a subscription to play).
Online subscriptions are not meant to cover server/hosting costs. They’re a monopoly tax from the platform holder, who can charge you money to connect to the internet simply because they can, and they know you have no other option.
hperrin@lemmy.world 7 months ago
In my comment I mentioned about the game costing more to cover the cost of multiplayer servers. So that’s already been covered.
_number8_@lemmy.world 7 months ago
tell me more about how landscaping with physical labor and materials is just like having a server turned on
hperrin@lemmy.world 7 months ago
They both require money.
Electricity is not free, hardware is not free, engineering and maintenance is not free, and an internet connection is not free.
pimento64@sopuli.xyz 7 months ago
You’re right, that’s why it costs money to play online multiplayer on PC
Oh wait
rockSlayer@lemmy.world 7 months ago
What do you know, all three happened because of the unrelenting pursuit of profit.
hperrin@lemmy.world 7 months ago
All three happened because servers actually cost money. Do you give away things for free to strangers on the internet?
There’s no profit in letting users run their own servers, btw.
AnonTwo@kbin.social 7 months ago
How much money do you pay to login to Mozilla/Chrome/Edge to make this post?
Various PC games before and after Xbox do not charge anything just to be online. it's not an outright requirement. To add consoles usually restrict internet entirely, which is a completely different thing from hosting rounds.
Your second sentence is closer to what the actual reason is, and goes more in line with rockslayer's post.
BolexForSoup@kbin.social 7 months ago
but i'm fairly certain still that no P2P or just outright free online games exist on consoles
Fortnite, Rocket League, Apex Legends, COD Warzone, Halo: Infinite. Plenty more those are just top of my head.
rockSlayer@lemmy.world 7 months ago
There’s no profit in letting users run their own servers
Yes, there is. They make the game more expensive, charge a subscription, and then cut all the cost of hosting. That is where the industry is heading.
hperrin@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Ok yes, if they’re charging you a subscription to run your own server, there’s profit in that. I don’t know of any companies that do that, but I would not be in favor of them doing that. Considering that is not a common practice in the industry, I think we can move on.
x4740N@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Hperrin your getting continuously downvoted here, perhaps that should be a good wakeup call to step back and look at why you are being downvoted
hperrin@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Because people disagree with me? That doesn’t change the fact that that’s how the industry works. Multiplayer is always paid for by something. If nobody bought Shark Cards, GTA Online wouldn’t be free.
DavidGarcia@feddit.nl 7 months ago
BolexForSoup@kbin.social 6 months ago
This is basically an argument for itemizing any and all things that can be articulated tbh. I don't pay a "kitchen" fee or an "electrical" fee or a "dishwasher" fee when I go to a restaurant. They calculate what things cost on the whole then price accordingly. That's how 95% of non-single-item transactions occur.
x4740N@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Peer To Peer
Look it up
Your comment is exactly the same type I’d see from toxic users on reddit arguing that people should pay because Microsoft hosts servers for multiplayer and that the commenter gladly pays for it whenever I’d go to look at reddit posts calling out bullshit on pay walled multiplayer on consoles
hperrin@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Oh I don’t pay. I don’t play on PlayStation or Xbox, and I honestly don’t think people should, but I understand why people do. It’s easy, and playing on PC is harder.
AnonTwo@kbin.social 7 months ago
Right, there are games that do each of these.
Meanwhile consoles lock the whole damn thing behind the payment models.
Shake747@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 months ago
Normalizing needless online servers is part of the issue here (only with AAA titles). These companies set up servers and say shit like “well it has to be paid for somehow!”
Games like Diablo 4 where you need internet to play single player. Diablo 2 resurrection removed all the LAN/Self hosting features of original D2.
Blizzard isn’t the only company doing this either.
Fuck that noise.