this post was submitted on 22 Apr 2026
1389 points (99.6% liked)
Technology
84074 readers
5180 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related news or articles.
- Be excellent to each other!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
- Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.
Approved Bots
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Hopefully we wont see bad actors just pivot to f2p and have a few microtransactions to actually unlock the games.
Some mobile games already work that way where they claim to be f2p but it‘s just a demo of the actual game with ingame purchases for the other levels. However annoying, it‘s not flat out scamming customers like shutting down servers months after release is. Perhaps devs should still be required to label it as a demo just in case though.
Helpful tip. Don't buy trash games that do that.
I played and enjoyed a game based on this principle (Dreadnought). I ran out of bullshit I wanted to buy to keep the game going. Also the whole community was probably a few hundred people at the end. It eventually shut down. Not that there would be much to do solo but fan-run servers would've been cool.
I absolutely loved that game. I was really bummed when they shut it down but like you said there was maybe a handful of people that played it. Reminded me of EVE Online without all the bullshit.
Dreadnought was awesome, unfortunate that it wasn't populare ...
As long as it’s still a one time purchase, with no clear mention of an end of life timeline, that is just buying a game with extra steps. They mention microtransactions and things like paid DLC in their plans too.
I don't think that would work. They could lock their games behind a monthly subscription. At that point you're paying for temporary access with clearly defined end date and thus the game getting shut down later is no longer fraudulend. At that point you just have to not be a dumbass and rent a game instead of buying one.
Netflix has already experimented with putting original games behind a monthly subscription and then killing the games.
I can see other companies trying this too.
Even subscription games should be made playable/hostable after they are shutdown. No game should be immune.
You have a plan for that?
I dont need a plan, I dont host a subscription game.
To elaborate a bit on the "unlocking" of the game: It could be that you get "1000% more exp gain permanently" or "gain a crucial resource from every mission permanently, which is usually locked behind a daily mission", a one off microtransaction that makes the game playable in a sense – but it's not "purchasing" the game, its just an account feature. I hope these arguments won't hold, but I always feel that bad actors find ways to bypass rules ...
Wouldn't work. If SKG succeeds, it would be illegal shut down the game and thus invalidate all these permanent transactions (no matter how "micro" they are) people paid for.
I'd be very okay with that. Scammer scumbags should leave the gaming industry. We deserve the right to refund regardless of purchase date.
🤞