Amid More Game Shutdowns Occurring, John Carmack Weighs In On Preservation
from the preserve-culture! dept
The conversation about preservation in the video game industry is continuing at a nice pace. Honestly, the most encouraging part of all of this, as someone who has been writing about this topic for several years now, is seeing how much more mainstream the topic has become. It used to be that certain servers or services being shut down by publishers, thereby breaking the games that people had bought, mostly resulted in shrugs an utterances of, “Oh well, thems the shits.” But at present, far more people are acknowledging that these games, online or otherwise, are pieces of human culture worthy of preservation.
And if you’re looking for a true titan in the gaming industry weighing in on the topic, well, you just got it. Amid the shutdown of several games recently, John Carmack gave a comprehensive statement to UploadVR on the topic. Amid all kinds of discussion about the shutdown of Echo VR by Meta, he goes right into the preservation angle.
After noting up front that companies are far too quick to shut down games in general, purely over potentially misguided profit motives, he then launches into what really should be SOP for game makers moving forward.
Every game should make sure they still work at some level without central server support. Even when not looking at end of life concerns, being able to work when the internet is down is valuable. If you can support some level of LAN play for a multiplayer game, the door is at least open for people to write proxies in the future. Supporting user-run servers as an option can actually save on hosting costs, and also opens up various community creative avenues.
Be disciplined about your build processes and what you put in your source tree, so there is at least the possibility of making the project open source. Think twice before adding dependencies that you can’t redistribute, and consider testing with stubbed out versions of the things you do use. Don’t do things in your code that wouldn’t be acceptable for the whole world to see. Most of game development is a panicky rush to make things stop falling apart long enough to ship, so it can be hard to dedicated time to fundamental software engineering, but there is a satisfaction to it, and it can pay off with less problematic late stage development.
And at this point you really do have to keep in mind that Carmack very much knows what he’s talking about. After all, consider the early Doom games. Those games came out decades ago, yet they are still played regularly today. Why? Well, part of the reason is that they are great games! Other reasons are that there is a healthy modding community still making content for those games, and that nobody like Carmack or id Software has gotten in their way.
But what really allows that game to continue its popularity to today is the fact that there are no online or server requirements for it to work. The game is preserved digitally because, frankly, how could it not be? This is a stark difference from more modern games that either require online connectivity to servers that might disappear, or connectivity to online DRM servers, or, such as the NBA 2K series of games, suffer from what is essentially planned obsolescence.
And that’s what Carmack is really getting at. He’s advising that game makers code their games in such a way that the online check-ins and DRM checks either don’t exist at all or can be patched out once the publisher no longer wants to support the game. That way, if publishers themselves aren’t interested in preserving their own cultural output, museums, curators, and the general public could do it for them.
Filed Under: john carmack, ownership, video game preservation, video games
Comments on “Amid More Game Shutdowns Occurring, John Carmack Weighs In On Preservation”
The first 4 “id Tech” engines (that is: Doom 1+2, Quake 1+2, Quake 3 Arena, Doom 3) are preserved digitally because Carmack himself pushed for them to be released as free open-source software. Additionally, he and Romero wanted Doom to be easily modified by users, so the editor came out long before the source release. This is well beyond “not getting in the way”.
“No online or server requirements”? Perhaps you don’t realize you’re talking about 1993. People did spread it over BBSes, but often overnight when their parents didn’t need the phone line. There was no online requirement because people were mostly not online, certainly not in any standard way, so nobody had invented the concept (and, had anyone wanted to, they’d have had to pay to run a toll-free modem pool in every country where the game was sold). The full game could only be officially obtained by having floppy disks sent in the mail.
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““No online or server requirements”? Perhaps you don’t realize you’re talking about 1993.”
Perhaps you don’t realise that nothing about online requirements are actually needed for single player games. It gets more complicated when you’re talking about multiplayer games that require servers, etc., but if a game had no inherent online component then it’s an issue easily solved with a basic patch (which is why pirated games don’t have these issues). If a single player game requires online access, it’s usually DRM or something that’s designed to break the game, not a vital component of it.
Most of these issues can be solved by the developer removing the gam-breaking DRM before they shut down (which should be a no-brainer since there’s no longer risk of losing money since the game will not be for sale). The rest can be solved by open sourcing the server code., though that can be a harder sell since they’re often using off the shelf code they don’t own, or is being reused by other people.
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Even multiplayer shouldn’t need to connect to official servers. If people want to set up small servers for close friends and family play then why not? Or even offer a simple LAN option.
Online should be completely optional. Maybe not with MMO stuff but even then, if one wants to play on a dedicated server with a few friends and custom drop rates, why not?
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Multiplayer requires code outside the game, and since many devs use shared code for that, it’s a place where excuses can be made. I’d rather they didn’t, but it’s more defensible than single player being blocked.
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So do tell us why single player games should have online requirements because I can’t see any reason. And other than MMO stuff if you want to play with friends why not let it be done via local LAN or home servers besides official ones?
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I don’t understand where this or Paul’s reply are coming from. Of course single-player games shouldn’t have server requirements, and nothing about the preceding message suggests they should.
The point is (1) it’s not like Carmack decided against online key checks: there was no such thing; and (2) they’re quite irrelevant when one’s released the source code to the game: were they present, their removal would be the first change anyone made.
In 1993, it was because people mostly did not have LANs. Operating systems didn’t have networking stacks, and when they started to, they were mostly IPX and NetBEUI, not IP. Modems (and the AT command set) were the only really practical way to connect.
By the time of Quake 3 Arena, it was as you said. The game, I think, did have a “server requirement”, but anyone could run their own (and it was included in the later source release). Again, though, that was more about practicality than the grace of id Software: in 1999, lots of people had sub-56k dialup internet (if any) and were sometimes even paying by the minute, so of course they’d release a version that didn’t require an internet connection.
We might as well be celebrating id for not requiring a 3D accelerator, a VR headset, or an AOL account for Doom. I’d rather celebrate the unforced and unusual actual decisions they made: to enable easy modding and to later release the code (and under a real Free Software license, not some “research only” or “non-commercial” thing).
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It isn’t being celebrated for it, the article is merely pointing out that online requirements get in the way, and games like Doom are still super-playable because it lacks them. It isn’t about it being a decision, it’s about it being a fact.
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“I don’t understand where this or Paul’s reply are coming from. Of course single-player games shouldn’t have server requirements, and nothing about the preceding message suggests they should.”
There’s several issues. One is that single player games are increasingly requiring online access. Sometimes this is DRM (easily removed if the publisher is no longer offering the game for sale). Other times, there’s games with half-assed multiplayer or other online components shoehorned into single player experiences.
The point is – if you “own” a game and the online severs go offline, the game should remain functional in a reasonable way. There’s no reason why game X today shouldn’t be playable in the same way as a fully purchased Wolfenstein 3D copy was back in the day, but some publishers have different ideas.
Uphill battle
As someone who was playing netrek and MUDs on the university network in the 90s, I disagree. Network gaming has been around for a really long time.
As for the network requirements, they are often forced on single player games, mostly to fasten their obsolescence. I bought a copy of “DiRT Rally” and this game constantly connects back to show me how much my times suck, and to offer me daily/weekly challenges against people who are either gods, or cheating. What will happen when Ubisoft retires the servers? Will I still be able to play? Probably not.
Same thing with “Elden Ring”: playing without a network connection throws a bunch of warnings and errors at you. The value of a network connection is at best marginal, at worst negative!
However I think part of the reason that games are not open-sourced after e.g. 20 years is that this could create competition against newer games that publishers are hoping to sell. The original Doom and Quake are still played and are ported to every platform in existence. Even though a lot of these games do not make much money anymore, their continued use means people are less likely to purchase new games, unless they’re sequels or remakes?
I’m a developer, I would love to see more games open-sourced, it generates a flurry of activity and new ports, mods etc. There’s so much work that goes into crafting software and art to make a game, and all of it is forever locked, and eventually lost (who knows what happened to the source code of old arcade games?). But then I look at car makers and they never open sourced the plans for their engines or their cars, even for models that haven’t been produced in decades. So I’m not sure how the game industry could be convinced to act any differently…
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While I can certainly see your point…
I would like to point out that Elden Ring is not a fully single player game. To my knowledge it’s got PVP (which is multiplayer by definition) and a co-op summoning system for boss battles.
I realize it’s a rather pedantic thing to comment on, but it’s what instantly stood out in my mind.
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The exact requirements will vary from game to game, but all too often online functions are shoehorned into games where they’re not central to the game. I’m sure many people would be happy with an version of Elden Ring without those features as long as they can still play the main single player campaign.
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Those features are optional. At least they were in previous From Software games. Bloodborne is the example I will use (I think its the only souls-game made by From Software I’ve played for any real length of time). I had to proactively choose, when I loaded it up, to use online features. Maybe that was done away with in DS3, and my limited scope of play is impacting my impression, but there is nothing about Elden Ring, from what I’ve read, that requires an online connection if you are uninterested in the multiplayer component.
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Dark Souls 2 was much better if I unplugged my PC’s network cable before booting the game, thereby forcing it to offline mode. Keeping hackers/trolls from invading was more positive for gameplay than being able to summon a friend player.
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I never got the point of that stuff – your game can change if some random person decides to join? Nah, just let me play. If I want to play online I’ll go to a multiplayer mode.
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How would playing a 30-year old game stop someone from purchasing a modern game that’s completely unrelated?
If a game seems/looks interesting, people will buy it, even if they have other games to play as well. See: the Steam Library meme.
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On the other side of the coin, depending on what type of game, the player’s time spent in a game is rather important itself.
Multiplayer games, particularly MOBAs and other type of MMO games, tend to need a sizable active player base. Nobody wants to be in a matching lobby for a long time due to lack of players. Nor dose anybody want to fight a boss with 5 or less people when the boss is designed to be fought with at least 10.
Relatedly, oftentimes there are tricks that a person who has played the game for a while may learn that are passed down though the community. Newer players may be put off and leave if there aren’t enough people to pass down this knowledge.
Finally, these types of games often have revenue sources from in-game. A lack of players hinders the ability to make money from those methods.
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Your hypothetical concerns are good to consider, but do today’s non-indie multiplayer games actually have a problem of not enough players? I’d expect the “only 5 people raiding a boss for 10 people” problem to happen more with older games, especially games for which sequels were made. And if people intentionally stick to a predecessor without also/instead playing a sequel, it might be because the sequel is worse in some way (not excluding planned obsolescence).
People who love the games from a game developer/company will usually give the new games a try. I don’t see how intentionally lessening an old game’s archivability would promote archivability of knowledge about the old game. At best, it would have no effect. At worst, veteran players would spend precious, possibly fruitless, time trying to salvage what remains of the old game or would feel turned off from playing the company’s newer games. Furthermore, what about the gameplay discoveries that veterans make long after a game’s prime? And what about the knowledge/culture not necessarily tied to gameplay, such as lore, assets, music, and dev secrets? Newer games might not play similarly to older ones either.
I think that convincing players to play newer games by worsening or disabling older games (again, not excluding planned obsolescence) is not a good means even for the end of making money. It’s disrespectful to people who rightfully think they own the game because they bought it. Of course, I’m speaking in social terms, not legal terms. Maybe a court will find that today’s games aren’t bought, but merely licensed. Current copyright law lets game makers/publishers do whatever they want to their games, but that doesn’t mean they should. Surely there are business models which don’t rely on older games’ becoming unplayable or more difficult to play.
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I was talking about the concept of selling an installable game to people and making them go periodically (or constantly) online to check licensing. If you were playing internet games in the early ’90s, you were at the leading edge of that medium, and were probably in computer science or a similar program. Few non-computer-nerds would’ve owned computers or been able to acquire and configure a TCP/IP stack, which didn’t come with any mainstream OS till Windows 95. Campus dorms were probably just being wired for computer networks (possibly thicknet or token ring), but few people outside of universities or large companies would’ve had LAN cards.
Such games were therefore a niche within a niche: netrek was only the third known internet game (per Wikipedia), and was nearly impossible to run on a home computer (FreeBSD came out at the end of 1993, Linux a bit earlier), so I guess most people were playing in public labs. As for MUDs, BBS gateways were common exactly because most people didn’t have TCP/IP. Sure, SLIP and the Web existed when Doom came out, but again were basically unknown to most computer gamers. Early Doom deathmatches were mostly done over dialup connections (local ones unless you were rich or doing something illegal), with IPX/SPX used for LAN parties, labs, and campuses. “Internet DOOM” (iDOOM) was a third-party thing that came later.
Gamers would have to insist on it, refusing to buy games without some binding promise of preservation. But they won’t even organize against DRM—not really—so I don’t see it happening.
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It’s kinda hard to organize against such a thing when it’s practically forced into the game by execs who hate us and think of us as money…
Also, boycotts have very limited success, and yes, I have seen some of the evidence, so I do know it works. You’d need a truly global effort and even I don’t see that happening for the gaming industry.
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Well, yeah, forcing changes like this has always been hard. But unlike, say, the labor movements of a century ago or the Montgomery bus boycott, it doesn’t involve putting lives on the line or walking for hours.
Because too many people are willing not just to put up with shit like DRM, but to give companies money for it. Often with the attitude of “meh; someone will crack it eventually”.
That’s what always makes boycotts hard: you’d have to avoid buying many popular products, including of course any Nintendo/MS/Sony game consoles in this case. But people seem to love the Steam Deck, which is free of hardware DRM (Steam itself supports DRM but doesn’t have to be used), and there are lots of DRM-free games in general—Dwarf Fortress was featured on Techdirt just recently.
If you want to start smaller, maybe push Valve to add a Steam account setting that hides all games with DRM. That’s a popular platform, and they’d certainly inform game developers how many accounts have turned the feature on. If it shows people care, maybe preservation-related options (e.g. source-in-escrow or already-open-source) could come next.
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Yeah, preservation in general feels like one of those things where there’s no market incentive, so it would probably have to be mandated by regulation. Easy enough to insist that any games release in the country provide source code for that release to the national archives, but that’s an awful lot of code…
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As someone who doesn’t appreciate the inherent artificial scarcity that copyright promotes in general, I would be in favor of preservation mandates if they weren’t likely unconstitutional (compelled speech). I think players will have to normalize preservation in addition to generating (being) the market incentive. “Everybody else is doing it” might catch on once enough new game makers prioritize preservation.
I don’t think that the volume of code is a significant problem considering that the Internet Archive, which is not a government agency, stores an ever increasing number of webpages, books, videos, audio files, games, and other software. Transitioning to make a national archives capable of storing that much would take time, but clearly it’s technologically feasible.
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Hmm… wouldn’t this have been litigated long ago? It’s long been the case that “Mandatory deposit (17 U.S.C. section 407) requires the owner of copyright or of the exclusive right of distribution to deposit in the U.S. Copyright Office for the use of the Library of Congress two complete copies of the best edition within 3 months after a work is published.” Also, copyright, despite the name, is not a right; it’s something that the government can grant people, not something they’re required to, and it seems perfectly fair to attach conditions to this (like saying object code is not the “best edition” for things built from source, or simply clarifying that “all works under copyright protection that have been published or distributed in the United States” includes all forms of “downloadable content”).
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Thank you for telling me about mandatory deposit. Currently, most electronic-only works are exempt, though the Copyright Office could change that.
The copyright registration process fulfills the mandatory deposit requirement, which also applies to unregistered works (https://www.natlawreview.com/article/mandatory-copyright-deposit-provisions-are-they-really-mandatory). Theoretically, the Copyright Office contributes toward preservation. However, more copyrightable content is electronic-only now. DRM and server-side opacity get in the way of preservation, and It’ll be a long, long time before the Copyright Office demands that publishers of electronic-only content give the Copyright Office copies made to be usable for posterity, if ever. I think Congress would need to pass a law specifically designating preservation of all copyrightable works (above a certain size/complexity threshhold), electronic or otherwise, as a function of the US Copyright Office.
You have to understand that none of the big software houses give a shit about the users, beyond keeping them happy enough that they keep forking over money. None of them care about preservation or what the community wants.
And beyond online servers and activation, can you even manually download and save computer game patches today? Or are patches all handled automatically by digital services like Steam and Original now? Automatically patched into the games, such that you can’t preserve them for the future? Not that it matter much, since every game on those systems is tied to an online account…
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Original = Origin
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Its funny you mention that; the only game that I know of that allows you to play all its older versions without major fuss is Minecraft. God only knows how much longer that will be the case with Microsoft in charge of it.
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Microsoft has left Mojang alone for the most part.
And all that you said? Errr, still is available for now. There’s been some backend hiccups with legacy Mojang accounts being converted to Microsoft accounts, but apart from that…
Everything is fine for now.
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Too oversaturated. Too much money and time required to play many of them.
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WOW, way to misgender Commander James Stephanie Sterling – their pronouns are they/them, which they’ve pointed out several times in their videos over the years.
You mentioned these sports games and I honestly don’t think it’s a loss if you can’t preserve every iteration of them. They have become indistinguishable from each other for a few years now.
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In a sense, that could be the value in preserving them. You could accurately display the stagnative years of a franchise.
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Good point. People often ask me to remove environmental monitoring points where we don’t see pollutants and altered parameters but the absence of problems is also a result and it provides information if something happens to the area.
I stand corrected.
If preserving old video games is illegal, then many of us will end up being put in jail. But I’d rather pay a fine or spend a few nights in a prison than see a game die because the company that made it doesn’t want it to be saved.
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Nitpicking: It’s not jail/prison (criminal), but lawsuits (civil) worth potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars in statutory damages for copyright infringement.
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And yet there would still be a way to preserve these games- just depends on finding someone with nothing to lose (uber-rich preservationist, guy with terminal cancer who wants to release media he doesn’t have the rights for, guy who can flee country at a moment’s notice) and voila, the game is saved.
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Except that having a copy to preserve in the first place depends upon someone cracking it. And not all of today’s games have been cracked/pirated.
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