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EFF asks for the right to revive “abandoned” online games

A

Asgaro

Member
EFF = Electronic Frontier Foundation.

DMCA exemption would allow "dead" games to live on through legal, third-party servers.

While playing the original versions of classic games on aging original hardware can sometimes be difficult, it's at least typically possible. That's not the case for many online games, which are functionally inoperable once the developer or publisher decides to shut down the official servers that provide the only way for players to communicate with each other. Unofficial hobbyist projects that try to create new servers for these abandoned games could run afoul of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and its ban on "the circumvention of access control technologies."

The Electronic Frontier Foundation wants to change that. In an official exemption request (PDF) filed with the Library of Congress this week, the nonprofit advocacy group asks that users be allowed to modify access controls and online authentication checks in legally obtained games "when the [game] servers authorized by the developer are permanently shut down." In this way, those users can access third-party servers in order to regain "core functionality" that is no longer available through the defunct official servers.

The EFF gives the specific example of Nintendo's Mario Kart games, which used a proprietary protocol to communicate with Nintendo's servers before Nintendo shut those servers down for the Wii and DS. Reverse-engineering that protocol could be considered "circumvention" in the DMCA's current broad prohibitions, as could modifying the game's code to allow for connection to new, non-Nintendo servers.
The EFF's requested exemption would also apply to single-player games that have to "phone home" to since-dead authentication servers to confirm an activation key, making them unplayable without modification. The group carves out space for restrictions on massively multiplayer games, though, saying the exemption should not apply to "'persistent worlds,' in which the game’s audiovisual content is primarily stored on the developer’s server and not in the client."

As the law stands now, "archivists, historians, and other academic researchers who preserve and study videogames are currently inhibited by legal uncertainty," the EFF argues. "The computer programs described above are used for continued play, study, and to preserve them in a usable state for future generations... The threat of liability inhibits the archiving and preservation community, in both its formal and informal guises."

But the EFF says this exemption is important for regular gamers as well, to prevent them from losing access to online features or even entire games as servers go offline. "Already, authentication servers for some products using the always-online single player model have shut down, suggesting an uncertain future for these games," the EFF points out. The organization noted that the accelerating transition to digital sales will only increase this in the future.

In a perfect world, it would be nice if game makers took the trouble to add their own open, non-proprietary server support that could be activated once the "official" servers are offline. Since that seems unlikely to happen, though, the least the Library of Congress could do is allow for the community of researchers and fans to add this functionality after a game's original maker can't be bothered to offer continuing support.
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- Source: http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2014/11/eff-asks-for-the-right-to-revive-abandoned-online-games/


- Article at EFF's website: https://www.eff.org/mention/eff-asks-right-revive-abandoned-online-games


- Some personal remarks:

Battlefield 2: Complete Collection can still be purchased on Steam for € 9.99.
EA didn't even bother to put a big disclaimer to state you can't play online anymore.
http://store.steampowered.com/app/24860/

That is, playing online using the official service.
There is a community initiative available that allows you to keep playing BF2 online.
http://www.battlelog.co/
(Server list at http://www.battlelog.co/servers.php . Also note there are 3 tabs: ranked, un-ranked and mod servers.)

Also, I personally still play Forgotten Hope 2 (= WW2 total conversion mod for BF2) and the devs also managed to work around the shutdown of Gamespy's back end.
Same goes for the famous Realism mod Project Reality.

But this is only regarding BF2. A lot of shut down games don't allow for these community revivals at the moment.


--

Edit:
I don't know how this would work regarding console gaming.
All game networking traffic goes through Sony's/Microsoft's/Nintendo's back end (for authentication and matchmaking purposes among others) I assume.
The console manufacturers would have to publish an Open API so community members can make their own servers available to players at free will and anytime they want.
Would they risk this kind of "openness"?
Would like to hear your thoughts.
 
D

Deleted member 47027

Unconfirmed Member
Hope it works out, I'd like to see a lot of things revived that I can never come back to.
 
sakipon

sakipon

Member
If this would happen, would companies keep servers alive longer to prevent third parties reviving the games?
 
D

decoyplatypus

Member
It's a good idea. One wrinkle with the argument that it would give players and researchers "legal certainty" is that the Library of Congress would have to renew the exception every three years.
 
A

Avari

Member
That would be incredible if it were to come to fruition. Could be a boon for developers/publishers as well as they could continue to sell older games, and wouldn't even have to support them anymore.
 
O

Orayn

Member
This wouldn't immediately lead to games coming back, it would just ensure the safety of projects meant to revive dead games.

Still, I really want this to happen.
 
T

TheSeks

Blinded by the luminous glory that is David Bowie's physical manifestation.
Danneee said:
I'd buy BF2 in an instant if I could play it online.
Click to expand...

You still can. AFAIK Gamespy's "shutdown" hasn't really shutdown all the servers, last I checked. That or Origin's copies or BF1942/2/2142/Bad Company 2 completely switched server browsers to non-Gamespy master servers. Even if they aren't up anymore, you have various methods of file messing about to get them to point elsewhere.

My Surface Pro 2 should run it fine, right?
Click to expand...

Yes. Though you might play things on Low anyway due to graphical bugs that EA/DICE never fixed for Win 7+.


---

The major problem isn't the shutdowns, per se. The MAJOR problem is that publishers no longer provide server creation files to allow people to host servers and developer consoles to allow people to "/connect ip.goes.here.okay" to connect to those servers. Master server shut downs happened in the past, but you could still point the games to specific IP/servers to join servers so long as you knew the server was there (or on consoles, provided LAN tunneling options via "system-link"/Hello X-box Halo 1!). But they've been removing these options over the years to where they are no longer standard and people simply do not care to RABBLE RABBLE RABBLE about them.
 
J

JCX

Member
I hope this goes through. With more and more games going online, there are fewer options to play games whose online heyday has officially/unofficially ended.
 
A

Alric

Member
I don't see why companies should halt this. I know they'd want money but games Like Myth 2 soulblighter I wouldn't be able to still be able to play online if it wasn't for fan servers. Bungie abandoned Myth back in 2002 and since then fans have patched the game and kept it alive. So I hope something like this passes.
 
O

Orayn

Member
Kade said:
Man, I would love a revived Homeland for Gamecube.
Click to expand...

IIRC that still works online if you manually input the IP address of the GameCube that's hosting the game. A lot of console games don't easily allow for the creation of a new master server since some parts are hard-coded into the game.
 
R

RyanPierre

Member
TheSeks said:
The major problem isn't the shutdowns, per se. The MAJOR problem is that publishers no longer provide server creation files to allow people to host servers and developer consoles to allow people to "/connect ip.goes.here.okay" to connect to those servers. Master server shut downs happened in the past, but you could still point the games to specific IP/servers to join servers so long as you knew the server was there (or on consoles, provided LAN tunneling options via "system-link"/Hello X-box Halo 1!). But they've been removing these options over the years to where they are no longer standard and people simply do not care to RABBLE RABBLE RABBLE about them.
Click to expand...

If they are intent on not having those options during normal server operation, it'd be nice for devs to at least issue a final patch to enable these options once the servers are shut down.
 
K

Kade

Member
Orayn said:
IIRC that still works online if you manually input the IP address of the GameCube that's hosting the game. A lot of console games don't easily allow for the creation of a new master server since some parts are hard-coded into the game.
Click to expand...

I didn't know that, I'll have to check it out. Does it require owning two copies of the game?
 
Z

Zaku

Member
This is incredibly important for archival of the medium. The very nature of online video games means that games are far more likely to be lost forever than a book, movie, or piece of music.
 
M

Mael

Member
What a great news if that could be done!
This and the Sonic Xtreme are really good news this week.
 
O

Orayn

Member
Zaku said:
This is incredibly important for archival of the medium. The very nature of online video games means that games are far more likely to be lost forever than a book, movie, or piece of music.
Click to expand...

To be fair, online more difficult to keep around since they require one or more active services that all have upkeep costs associated with them. Books can be scanned or transcribed, movies transferred, and music recorded, but those all leave you with a relatively stable, passive copy. Games, on the other hand, demand more expansive, complicated services depending on the amount of online functionality that's offered.

The most responsible thing for developers to do is release the code for their server software, or at least build in some kind of back door that would allow players to host the game themselves.
 
G

galvatron

Member
sakipon said:
If this would happen, would companies keep servers alive longer to prevent third parties reviving the games?
Click to expand...

There are a lot of ways around having the online functionality classified as abandoned of which any company that values their IP would avail themselves.

What's the difference between shutting down fast servers and providing maybe one that runs on a slow connection shared with all your other shuttered games? Or a temporary outage that lasts years?

Would yearly games be able to claim that the new game is actually a patch/expansion that comes with a one-year online pass making it so that you have to buy the new game to play?
 
T

TheSeks

Blinded by the luminous glory that is David Bowie's physical manifestation.
RyanPierre said:
If they are intent on not having those options during normal server operation, it'd be nice for devs to at least issue a final patch to enable these options once the servers are shut down.
Click to expand...

It would be, but their excuse is "Middleware Intellectual Properties prevent us from doing this" (same with mods on Frostbite/DICE's engine and others like it) which really begs the question: If "ease-of-use development" hinders being able to archive your work and improve/fix it when you're done from a dedicated community surrounding it... why wouldn't you put in the extra effort to not middleware?
 
Z

Zaku

Member
Orayn said:
To be fair, online more difficult to keep around since they require one or more active services that all have upkeep costs associated with them. Books can be scanned or transcribed, movies transferred, and music recorded, but those all leave you with a relatively stable, passive copy. Games, on the other hand, demand more expansive, complicated services depending on the amount of online functionality that's offered.

The most responsible thing for developers to do is release the code for their server software, or at least build in some kind of back door that would allow players to host the game themselves.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, games as an industry really, really don't have archival figured out in the slightest. Outside of a few releases which are considered a reason for celebration in this industry, it's nigh-impossible to get legal copies of the majority of games which have been released in North America.

Think about how insane it'd be if people considered a BluRay rerelease for The Matrix trilogy or Firefly were considered major news instead of a "Yeah, they printed more to keep copies available in circulation."

That's the case for video games these days. Even the Virtual Console, PSN Classics, collections and remasters only cover a very small fraction of gaming as a whole. If Konami were to reissue, say, 50,000 copies of Suikoden II it'd be considered a shock... Unlike Sony reissuing 50,000 copies of Spider-Man 2 dvds.
 
O

Orayn

Member
Zaku said:
Unfortunately, games as an industry really, really don't have archival figured out in the slightest. Outside of a few releases which are considered a reason for celebration in this industry, it's nigh-impossible to get legal copies of the majority of games which have been released in North America.

Think about how insane it'd be if people considered a BluRay rerelease for The Matrix trilogy or Firefly were considered major news instead of a "Yeah, they printed more to keep copies available in circulation."

That's the case for video games these days. Even the Virtual Console, PSN Classics, collections and remasters only cover a very small fraction of gaming as a whole. If Konami were to reissue, say, 50,000 copies of Suikoden II it'd be considered a shock... Unlike Sony reissuing 50,000 copies of Spider-Man 2 dvds.
Click to expand...

Oh, I definitely agree. It's a bit better on PC because we have services like GOG, but the way many publishers handle their back catalogs on consoles is half "Disney Vault," half shenanigans that caused us to lose the Moon landing footage and the best copies of Star Wars. It's compounded by the fact that backwards compatibility isn't universal and old consoles simply stop being produced.
 
Z

Zaku

Member
Orayn said:
Oh, I definitely agree. It's a bit better on PC because we have services like GOG, but the way many publishers handle their back catalogs on consoles is half "Disney Vault," half shenanigans that caused us to lose the Moon landing footage and the best copies of Star Wars. It's compounded by the fact that backwards compatibility isn't universal and old consoles simply stop being produced.
Click to expand...

Copyright laws aren't helping, either, especially for consoles which are fragile and discs with poor cases, like the Saturn.

Pretty sure every copy of Dragon Force is going to be unplayable before that copyright expires.
 
A

Avari

Member
Curtis Kendall said:
That would be incredible if it were to come to fruition. Could be a boon for developers/publishers as well as they could continue to sell older games, and wouldn't even have to support them anymore.
Click to expand...

decoyplatypus said:
I wonder whether they'll see it the same way.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately I suspect not. Even if they do I suspect they will not like making exceptions to the DMCA - a few more sales of an already old game may not be enough temptation.
 
K

KojiKnight

Member
I want to see this happen! We lost a lot of great games when Gamespy went down, but it's also really good for games like Star Wars: Galaxies which, while progressing, still runs a risk of legal troubles if Disney ever felt the need to kick up a stink.
 
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