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by cable2600·6y ago·view on hn ↗
Software is not always designed to last. Take video games that use servers, the video game company can take down the servers and the video game no longer works. You'd have to set up your own server to emulate what the video game company's server did.

All those mobile games that require a server, once the server goes down the game no longer works.

In the old days you set up Doom as a server on your PC networked to other PCs for multiplayer. Those can last and be remade for new platforms.

1 comments
LAN hosted games are the golden area. Online game servers are a really interesting example of brittle software.

When the server is shut down, the game breaks and the software _is_ unusable.

This often happens because of the misaligned incentives of the business to not release the server code. This disappoints both the original developers and the consumers.

I'd argue that this is not only a software problem, but mostly an problem of copyright distorting the incentives of publishers.

One could imagine a client hosted game or alternative architecture that removes the central dependency on the company could be the way to build software that is built to last to last longer.

In the online game I'm developing - I make sure that every client can also run as a game server. This way if my servers are shut down players can play without depending on me.

My decision to remove myself as a dependency directly goes against the incentives I have as a publisher. I slightly narrow the possible monetization options for the game.

Mostly I'm trying to explain why developers/publishers decide to make brittle software, even if I don't agree personally.