Under the constraint that I’m only picking from developers who already have multiple games under their belt, it’d be hard to choose between Zachtronics and Supergiant for me. Both of them have a perfect track record in my book. The only difference being that there most likely won’t be any new releases from Zachtronics anymore, whereas Supergiant is only becoming stronger with each release.

Ok, now I kind of want this. I only have my PC connected to the TV, so I only need the power button, volume controls, settings and the D-Pad. A specialized cover would make hitting the right buttons in the dark much easier and also remove the ads disguised as buttons.

And you can even go a step further and configure it so all the ISOs go into a subdirectory. Then you can still use the USB for other stuff without it becoming a mess. Right now I have the following structure:

├ apps // Lots of portable apps, using the PortableApps system
├ data // For copying files between devices
├ images // ISOs go here, separated into Linux, Windows and Utilities
├ installs // For apps that need to be installed
├ secure // Encrypted Veracrypt store
└ ventoy // Ventoy config

All that on a tiny USB on my keychain and super useful when you’re the IT person for the family.

As much as I’d like to see this game preserved, I don’t think the dev can be held responsible when they’re refunding everyone who purchased the game.

Now I’m thinking about a proper “programming language” for cooking recipes.

Just imagine the possibilities: Automated checking for for allergies and such, easy substitution of ingredients as well as portion calculations, being able to fork recipes and change them to your liking, and later diff the recipes.

Yes, you’re just explaining regular piracy here. I do not care. It’s a thing that’s already been possible for almost every single-player game in existence, and yet, there’s a constant stream of new single-player games releasing every day. Weird, right?

At least try to make an effort to understand what I write.

I said it’s their job to figure out how to do DRM -if- they want DRM. If they can’t figure out how to do that then the answer shouldn’t need to be spelled out explicitly: No DRM. Simple as that.

If you’d rather see games you spent money on being taken away from you based on the whims of corporations, just to make sure others who might not have payed for it also can’t play it, then I don’t know what to tell you.

If they want to keep some form of DRM then that’s not my job to figure out. This wasn’t a problem back in the day when server software being distributed was the norm, so it shouldn’t be a problem now.

Though personally I’d be in favor of abolishing online DRM entirely, but that’s another story.

If they can play against bots, which already exist in the game, or band enough people together with access to the game to play on a server one player is able to host, then yes. That’s what I’d expect at a minimum.

nobody paid

That’s just blatantly false. People bought the founders pack were never refunded for example. Those people being entitled to the server software or a refund is anything but greedy, even if that only applies to a single person.

The other answer from @[email protected] already covers most points, so I’ll just a few things:

• Most game servers out there are already built in a way to allow for easy deployment. After all, devs have to have way to test changes, so being able to run a small server locally for debugging purposes is hugely beneficial to development.
• I also can’t imagine that there’s any game server out there that shouldn’t be able to run on a single system. The heaviest one game I can imagine is Minecraft, due to the whole open world terrain generation, world streaming and physics calculations, and even that can be run off a Raspberry Pi for a small number of players.

If a game asks for money in any kind of way: Yes. That should be the cost of (trying to do) business.
Alternatively, a full refund for everyone involved, even Kickstarter backers, would also be acceptable.

Hello, sole arbiter of a game’s worth.

Of course not every game is a certified banger, but there’s more than enough notable games on that list that made an impact on the industry and should’ve been preserved for that fact alone.

Taking away a game you bought because the game was intentionally made to rely on a server is always scummy behavior. That’s the whole point.

https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Category:Unplayable_games

And that’s only PC games.

“A single company does this and while the other 99 won’t, saying pretty please will certainly work. See? No intervention required!”

Bootlicker indeed.

That’s one thing I checked first, but compared to Germany for example, the average age and percentage of people playing video-games is apparently just a few percentage points of difference. Though “people playing video-games” could of course mean anything and I’d wager that the average person playing casual games on their phone might not care as much.

At this point I’d that say getting enough individual countries is almost inevitable in the process of getting 1M signatures. If the distribution between countries remains as it is, every country with more than 25% right now would reach the threshold by the end.

Seems to me like the individual country threshold is only added to prevent initiatives getting single-handedly pushed by a single big country and never be the blocker for regular initiatives.

So yeah, the best strategy would most likely be to keep pushing the big countries: Germany, France, Spain and Italy. Speaking of Italy, what’s up with them? Only 18%? Those are rookie numbers.

At the very least, a save game editor wouldn’t be too hard to create when running your own server.

Though that got me thinking if there’s some kind of GDPR shenanigans one could already utilize to get all your account data. I kind of doubt it, but it would be hilarious.

Looking at this map there seems to be at least some correlation. There really needs to be popular advocates for each language and country, particularly for the smaller ones and those with a low english speaking population.