"Always online" is a very American concept. The main concept is to enforce anti piracy and anti-cheat apps are now basically root-kits that force checks to make sure you have no cheating software running along-side their game. DRM content and micro transactions are just a bonus. Once this "rootkit" is running It then calls-out to the game's server to report on its findings or whatever they want it to report. There isn't actually a law against what they can do as long as you agree to it when you're installing the software. Adobe and Office360 are not as bad, but with a subscription service, they check if you're paid-up before letting you use the program. And if they can have half of the functions be cloud based, there's no way to "crack" a copy of the software and get full functionality. x`Tunnelcat wrote: ↑Thu Jun 01, 2023 1:20 pm But the company lives on like a fetid zombie corporation. Kind of like the Weyland Yutani Corporation has outlived Weyland himself in the Alien series.
Isn't that Microsoft's and even Amazon's dream (as well as Sony and Nintendo), to run all games in the cloud on any device? That gives them the greater freedom to micro-charge for things within the game as well. The Holy Grail of moneymaking. A captive addicted audience willing to pay to buff their character or weapons. Once you do that, all you need is a terminal or device to access that game and all computing can be done at the head in main computers. No high zoot video cards or processors needed. Just a fast internet connection and a large display and controller(s). Any advanced AI can be used to control the NPC's in single player games. Players wouldn't have to worry about human cheaters, unless the AI learns how to cheat to win of course. The current sticking point to this dream is not everyone has access to affordable high speed internet.Isaac wrote: ↑Wed May 31, 2023 3:42 pm1. they've called game NPCs as the "ai" since the 80s. Game characters, thought not using machine learning, can use hand coded conditions to interact with the user. So calling them ai will be nothing new. The difference is we now have a higher standard of what qualifies as ai.
2. Yes, I completely believe with "always online" single player games, we'll have games that will have their speech and thinking done on Sony's servers. It will be expensive and I'm sure console players will pay through the nose for it.
3. They're already trying to do this via CHATGPT api, but it's pretty rough at the moment and the api costs money per use.
As of 2023, there are numerous FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) alternatives available for almost everything. I encourage you to divert your patronage away from companies who engage in these practices and invest effort into finding secure alternatives for gaming and productivity software.
This isn't an issue I have, because I'll gladly either trap an app behind a firewall like OpenSnitch (I can't recommend this firewall more, but you need ufw for incoming traffic. OpenSnitch is to approve applications going online.) or find a FOSS alternative. Or even write my own in wxpython.
For modern games that come with rootkits, some say you should run these in an emulator or a container so that they can't actually see the rest of your system. Talk about a loss in performance, but it's crazy to think this is where large budget gaming has gone.
