Moonface

Recently news broke of Crash Bandicoot: On The Run, a F2P mobile game in the runner genre, would be closing down in Feb. 2023. When that date arrives, the game will become entirely unplayable, as it requires a connection to the servers in order to be played.
Obviously, that's a rather small and niche title, but there's large games that use this approach too. Overwatch is entirely online, and when the sequel launched the original game was entirely closed down, leaving nothing from it in a playable state. Even single player games with a multiplayer component will have part of the experience lost forever when the servers are closed for those games, of which I'm sure everyone here can think of at least one example without me giving any.
While there are plenty of ways to preserve old games, whether it be through digital copies, emulation, etc. all of those games are offline experiences. But when it comes to games that rely on a server connection, how can those games be preserved at all when they become unplayable without the server? The best you can do is keep the game files on your PC/mobile/console, but I don't consider that preserving those games for history when you can't play them to see what they were like. I suppose YouTube videos could be made of the gameplay, but I'm sure even in the most popular games with an online element don't have every single thing in them extensively documented and recorded so we'd lack a complete picture of the experience.
So do you think anything can be done when it comes to preserving online-only games, or games that feature an online component that will eventually be turned off?

I hope it doesn't happen, since I prefer physical media over digital for most of my games. Plus I can't see a good reception to consoles that are solely streaming or digital with no way to preserve your library or purchases.

Resident Evil 4 (Remake) Dead Space (Remake) Octopath Traveler II Star Wars Jedi: Survivor The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom There are others. but they don't have a confirmed 2023 release date/window so I'm not going to list them for now.

Recently news broke of Crash Bandicoot: On The Run, a F2P mobile game in the runner genre, would be closing down in Feb. 2023. When that date arrives, the game will become entirely unplayable, as it requires a connection to the servers in order to be played.
Obviously, that's a rather small and niche title, but there's large games that use this approach too. Overwatch is entirely online, and when the sequel launched the original game was entirely closed down, leaving nothing from it in a playable state. Even single player games with a multiplayer component will have part of the experience lost forever when the servers are closed for those games, of which I'm sure everyone here can think of at least one example without me giving any.
While there are plenty of ways to preserve old games, whether it be through digital copies, emulation, etc. all of those games are offline experiences. But when it comes to games that rely on a server connection, how can those games be preserved at all when they become unplayable without the server? The best you can do is keep the game files on your PC/mobile/console, but I don't consider that preserving those games for history when you can't play them to see what they were like. I suppose YouTube videos could be made of the gameplay, but I'm sure even in the most popular games with an online element don't have every single thing in them extensively documented and recorded so we'd lack a complete picture of the experience.
So do you think anything can be done when it comes to preserving online-only games, or games that feature an online component that will eventually be turned off?

Recently news broke of Crash Bandicoot: On The Run, a F2P mobile game in the runner genre, would be closing down in Feb. 2023. When that date arrives, the game will become entirely unplayable, as it requires a connection to the servers in order to be played.
Obviously, that's a rather small and niche title, but there's large games that use this approach too. Overwatch is entirely online, and when the sequel launched the original game was entirely closed down, leaving nothing from it in a playable state. Even single player games with a multiplayer component will have part of the experience lost forever when the servers are closed for those games, of which I'm sure everyone here can think of at least one example without me giving any.
While there are plenty of ways to preserve old games, whether it be through digital copies, emulation, etc. all of those games are offline experiences. But when it comes to games that rely on a server connection, how can those games be preserved at all when they become unplayable without the server? The best you can do is keep the game files on your PC/mobile/console, but I don't consider that preserving those games for history when you can't play them to see what they were like. I suppose YouTube videos could be made of the gameplay, but I'm sure even in the most popular games with an online element don't have every single thing in them extensively documented and recorded so we'd lack a complete picture of the experience.
So do you think anything can be done when it comes to preserving online-only games, or games that feature an online component that will eventually be turned off?

Hey Moonface, i hope you are well and thats great news, ive only waited how many years lol 🙂 well that's my March sorted for this year then hahaha thx for the heads up mate! 🙂

If you didn't see, The Last of Us Part 1 was announced as coming to PC on March 3, 2023 at The Game Awards.

Source: https://www.talkesport.com/news/gaming/miniclip-has-officially-shut-down-its-servers-except-for-8-ball-pool-and-agario/
I thought at first Miniclip as a whole was basically going away barring 8 Ball Pool and Agario, but it turns out they've shut down the servers for their web-based games and are shifting focus entirely to their mobile gaming ventures, which have been successful for them as the death of Flash gradually killed off what I expect a lot of people grew up with.
Did anyone here ever use Miniclip at any point? If so, what memories or stories do you have to tell from it?

I adored this place back when Flash games were all the rage. My school would even unblock the website on Sponsor Day for us to play games on there if that was one of the activities we chose to do for that day, and it was always one of the most popular choices for that day. I'm trying to find a list of all the games they had that were exclusive to them so I can see what ones I played a lot of, but haven't had any luck yet.
I hope the games they had were at least preserved by one of those Flash game preservation groups that are out there. I understand that hosting all that stuff is costing more money than it brings in but it would at least be nice to have the ability to play some of the games offline.

Kratos - God of War 2018
I can't speak about Kratos as a character in any of the other God of War games since I've never played them, but going into God of War 2018 as my first experience with the franchise in any capacity I love how Kratos develops throughout this game. Even without having any major knowledge of the previous games, the game makes it clear that he feels out of his depth when it comes to raising Atreus and trying to express his feelings properly, and seeing Kratos get explored with layers and depth beyond "murder fucking everything!" was really cool to watch unfold and it might be one of my favourite character developments that happens in a single game.
 
Nathan Drake - Uncharted (Series)
The initial Uncharted games don't go too heavy on character development, mostly because of how they're made to be standalone stories that don't require playing the previous one to understand the characters and what's going on. Despite that, the series does try to push some heavy character exploration of Drake throughout Uncharted 3, where we get to see how destructive his obsession is with treasure, as it's put a strain on his marriage with Elena to the point they're practically separated between the second and third games, and everyone around him constantly questions what his deal is. By the end of the game he comes around on trying to prove himself and opts to give up treasure hunting entirely to settle down with Elena and live a normal life. Uncharted 4 however shows his unhappiness with such a life though, and the game goes harder on character development than anything until this point as we learn about Drake's backstory and his brother, among other things. It basically takes what Uncharted 3 started to do and goes all in to wrap everything up and give all of the characters a send-off that I think couldn't be done any better and gives us a true insight into a cast that we'd been hunting treasure with for almost a decade.
 
So, what about the rest of you? What game characters do you think had good development? 🙂

Source: https://www.talkesport.com/news/gaming/miniclip-has-officially-shut-down-its-servers-except-for-8-ball-pool-and-agario/
I thought at first Miniclip as a whole was basically going away barring 8 Ball Pool and Agario, but it turns out they've shut down the servers for their web-based games and are shifting focus entirely to their mobile gaming ventures, which have been successful for them as the death of Flash gradually killed off what I expect a lot of people grew up with.
Did anyone here ever use Miniclip at any point? If so, what memories or stories do you have to tell from it?

I adored this place back when Flash games were all the rage. My school would even unblock the website on Sponsor Day for us to play games on there if that was one of the activities we chose to do for that day, and it was always one of the most popular choices for that day. I'm trying to find a list of all the games they had that were exclusive to them so I can see what ones I played a lot of, but haven't had any luck yet.
I hope the games they had were at least preserved by one of those Flash game preservation groups that are out there. I understand that hosting all that stuff is costing more money than it brings in but it would at least be nice to have the ability to play some of the games offline.

Source: https://www.talkesport.com/news/gaming/miniclip-has-officially-shut-down-its-servers-except-for-8-ball-pool-and-agario/
I thought at first Miniclip as a whole was basically going away barring 8 Ball Pool and Agario, but it turns out they've shut down the servers for their web-based games and are shifting focus entirely to their mobile gaming ventures, which have been successful for them as the death of Flash gradually killed off what I expect a lot of people grew up with.
Did anyone here ever use Miniclip at any point? If so, what memories or stories do you have to tell from it?

I adored this place back when Flash games were all the rage. My school would even unblock the website on Sponsor Day for us to play games on there if that was one of the activities we chose to do for that day, and it was always one of the most popular choices for that day. I'm trying to find a list of all the games they had that were exclusive to them so I can see what ones I played a lot of, but haven't had any luck yet.
I hope the games they had were at least preserved by one of those Flash game preservation groups that are out there. I understand that hosting all that stuff is costing more money than it brings in but it would at least be nice to have the ability to play some of the games offline.

Their loss. Anyone who's that bigoted and closed minded in 2022 is an idiot and shouldn't be catered to or have their views on this sort of stuff even entertained. Even better if any of these players spent money on the game before dropping it so they actually lost something more than just their time spent in the game.

Phasmophobia is the first that comes to mind for me. You can play it alone, but to me the only way to play that game is with at least one other person because it adds more variety and life to the game. For example, you're less likely to mess with cursed objects in single player because of the risk of dying, and the game ends if all players are dead so you're just going to coin flip if your game will end. At least with others present there's more freedom to have fun with them provided they're still alive.

Hi and welcome to VGR.

Hi @Moonface, thanks for joining VGR. Glad to have you hear and looking forward to seeing you around!

Hi everyone! Some of you may recognize my name from other forums, and if so, hello again, and if not, greetings! :D