Yet another game falls victim to dedicated servers..
Yet another game falls victim to dedicated servers. I know I’ll get dogpiled for speaking up against them, but ever since dedicated servers became standardized in place of peer-to-peer systems, we’ve had more and more games with expiration dates.
LEGO 2K Drive was one of the few games I own physically, sad to see it go (it heavily relied on servers for most things).
People defend dedicated servers because for their reasons, but they also hand total control to publishers. Once they decide support is over, the game loses major functionality or dies entirely.
Older P2P and host-based games had flaws, but they were often far more survivable. Games like Left 4 Dead 2, Payday 2, Deep Rock Galactic, Phasmophobia, Lethal Company, Content Warning, older Call of Duty titles, and Halo 3 could still live on through LAN, direct connections, host migration, or community workarounds.
Steam is full of co-op “friendslop” games that prove this works. They may not be perfect, but they remain playable without the publisher holding the power button forever. LEGO 2K Drive could very much benefit from P2P servers for coop play. Dedicated-server games usually don’t get that chance.
We traded inconvenience for disposability. Now we “buy” games that come with an expiration date.