The death of console game servers
by Kyle Orland 
{ Mar 4th 2007 at 1:40PM }
The fine cranks over at Curmudgeon Gamer have pointed out a somewhat disturbing trend of server shutdowns for some high profile online-enabled games from the last generation. Apparently, the online user base for these games is no longer sufficient to justify the expense for the companies running their servers.
It's a little bit troubling to consider that there's an effective time limit for the online features of any console game you buy, and that this limit is totally at the discretion of the publisher. Then again, it's hard to ask a company to continue to devote resources for servers that few people are using and fewer still will likely use in the future.
The solution seems obvious to us -- let players host their own servers, either through a PC or through the console itself. The online experience might suffer a bit, but at least interested players will still be able to play online without being a burden on the publisher. Failing that, follow the Curmudgeon's suggestion bring back the direct connection, player-to-player multiplayer that was available on the Dreamcast. Either way, don't take away our online play.
Previously: Amplitude servers going offline, 'farewell party' Sunday
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
ekes @ Mar 6th 2007 9:27PM
When the PSO servers went offline on the Dreamcast, a group of hackers managed to have created a private server for the game because SEGA left the game out in the dust. They've been up for 3 years now and still get a bunch of people who play online.
http://www.schtserv.com/
John H. @ Mar 5th 2007 8:28PM
Of course, this has gone on for a while. All the Dreamcast online games have gone dark now, even though we're talking about a system that's only a few years old.
The lesson to be learned here is, don't trust companies to provide free game services for any longer than their game stays on the cultural radar. I wonder what will happen to the Wii's server-supported online functionality when the generation after rolls along?
Adam @ Mar 5th 2007 11:13PM
They should just release the software and let people maintain their own servers. It doesn't hurt them as long as they do it with no responsibility. Shoot, open source would be even better.
Frankly, I wonder if a publisher couldn't be sued for this under false advertisement. It's just a matter of time before someone sues them over this.
coyotej @ Mar 6th 2007 1:37PM
#2: I wouldn't doubt that many publishers/dev-houses have it covered in the EULA that they may stop or alter service at their discretion. It's probably hard to do anything about it. The best thing that could happen is for enough people to make noise that it is bad PR for the company, and then they might change their tune. [FWIW, Blizzard doesn't let people run their own servers (see bnetd), but they do still support all their PC-game servers for Battle.net games - however they are a huge and successful company].