Curmudgeon Gamer
04 March 2007
Online game servers going dark all over
Almost exactly four years ago I warned this was coming. I said that one key difference between Twisted Metal Black: Online and SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs was the existence of a LAN mode in the former and not in the latter. Now more and more online games are shutting down and some game functionality will be lost forever.
The latest casualties are:
Which makes me wonder how much thought goes into these shutdowns. In particular, companies talk of cultivating online communities of fans and the economic advantages of having such groups identifying with a game and the company behind the game. Taking these ideas at face value, it must take some serious financial advantage to disrupt those communities.
Which means the communities are tiny. Of course, I knew that. Back when I tried to play Twisted Metal Black: Online in 2003, few people playing online. And when I played Outrun 2006: Coast 2 Coast recently, there wasn't even a single other player to be found online. I suspect the same is essentially true about MGS3 and Resident Evil Outbreak, in that the true number of people who will care is small enough to ignore.
Which leads me to wish that more games were like Daytona USA: CCE for the Sega Saturn and Netlink: player-to-player online modes. I believe that Ruffin and I could still play that game right now (as we once did, long distance across state lines) as it only depends on a Saturn, a game disc, a Netlink, and a phone line. I suppose with cell phones overtaking land lines, it might soon be difficult to do even that much. Ah well, I'm committed to being perpetually in the minority.
The latest casualties are:
- Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence (PS2)
- Resident Evil Outbreak: Files #1 & #2 (PS2) [as seen on NeoGAF; note: DO NOT visit later pages in that thread, they've been hacked to take over your browser with some nasty stuff; you've been warned]
- Phantasy Star Online Episodes I & II (Xbox)
Which makes me wonder how much thought goes into these shutdowns. In particular, companies talk of cultivating online communities of fans and the economic advantages of having such groups identifying with a game and the company behind the game. Taking these ideas at face value, it must take some serious financial advantage to disrupt those communities.
Which means the communities are tiny. Of course, I knew that. Back when I tried to play Twisted Metal Black: Online in 2003, few people playing online. And when I played Outrun 2006: Coast 2 Coast recently, there wasn't even a single other player to be found online. I suspect the same is essentially true about MGS3 and Resident Evil Outbreak, in that the true number of people who will care is small enough to ignore.
Which leads me to wish that more games were like Daytona USA: CCE for the Sega Saturn and Netlink: player-to-player online modes. I believe that Ruffin and I could still play that game right now (as we once did, long distance across state lines) as it only depends on a Saturn, a game disc, a Netlink, and a phone line. I suppose with cell phones overtaking land lines, it might soon be difficult to do even that much. Ah well, I'm committed to being perpetually in the minority.
--jvm at 21:55
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[ 6 ]
27 January 2007
Speaking of unused multiplayer
I managed a cheap copy of Outrun 2006: Coast 2 Coast for my PSP last night. It's a completely different racing experience from Ridge Racer, but it does have infrastructure network play. Nine months after release there isnt' anyone online. I tried last night for about 15 minutes waiting for someone to show up and then again today. Now, this isn't like immediately after release (as Ken Levine was discussing), but a full nine months past Outrun's April 2006 release, so it's perhaps not completely surprising, but it is disappointing. Given the sad state of PSP software sales in 2006, there are probably only a few thousand people out there with this game and of those only a fraction probably play online. If there has to be a silver lining, it's that most (perhaps all) networked PSP games don't require a central server for ad hoc gaming, so we can avoid the dead networked game syndrome.
Ah well, if someone wants to play Outrun 2006 for the PSP online, drop me an email or comment. I'm still learning to drive this thing, though, so if you've played more than an hour you'll probably be doing far better than I.
Ah well, if someone wants to play Outrun 2006 for the PSP online, drop me an email or comment. I'm still learning to drive this thing, though, so if you've played more than an hour you'll probably be doing far better than I.
Labels: multiplayer, online, psp, sony
--jvm at 12:02
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[ 3 ]
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