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this post was submitted on 13 Apr 2026
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Yeah that's not how online games work though. Servers cost money, probably way more than you would expect, which is why online games used to use monthly subscriptions until people decided they didn't like that so they moved to free-to-play with micro transactions instead. Guild Wars 2 is a good example of how an MMO can be run without needing a monthly sub by making everyone by each individual expansion, in the beginning you even had to buy the content for each story patch but the newer patch content is free with the expansion afaik. Online games don't have to be predatory with their pricing but they do need to make a lot of money to keep the lights on.
I think the point is more that when they decide they don’t want to run the servers anymore they should have to release the server code or in some other way allow the server to be run locally so that the game isn’t useless.
Also, until about 15 years ago, it was completely expected that you would buy a software once and they would still run their servers. That’s why windows used to cost like $350 in mid 2000s dollars, you could still reasonably expect to get online updates for it years later.
Yeah but do you think people will pay $350 up front for a video game?
People already pay that much just as a subscription. Given that that $350 came with like 10 years of support; Yes I honestly think that people would pay a couple hundred dollars for a game like RuneScape or something that came with a 10 year guarantee.