As I remember playing in a self-hosted world was one where there were hundreds of barren servers, servers that disconnected mid-game, servers that randomly lagged due to bad internet and unknown server hardware (often shared with the game client) and hacked server galore. If you were in the 'in-crowd' you had the passwords to servers where the hardcore players hung out and had fun - and you were in the 1%.
The market wants free to play. No really. For every player that claims they want to put down $60 before even playing a game there are 1000 that won't even glance at your game if it isn't free. I can't even recommend $5 iOS games to friends and family without them turning up their nose because they only play 'free' games.
There is a vocal minority of games who feel like the games industry isn't listening to them and not giving them what they want. And they are correct, but the games industry isn't conspiring internally to screw those people, they are just trying to price games in a way that maximizes their potential to pay down development costs and pays for ongoing development and devops costs.
Your second paragraph is your memory, but its not what it is now. Empty servers? what about "hide empty" checkbox in serverlist? Or your praised Join Now button finding server with high pop?
Server lagging-disconnecting? Are we in 1995? Most current servers are on par with official. In fact, I more often encounter connection issues in games that only sport Official servers, and the fact that I just cant join different server sucks.
Hacked server galore: Thats the issue with official servers too. Frankly, people devoting time and resources to host a server for their favorite game dont do so so they can hack on it.
"If you were in the 'in-crowd' you had the passwords to servers where the hardcore players hung out and had fun - and you were in the 1%." --- wwwwwwwwwhat? What planet you from?
Citation needed.
An honest test would be to release a game with both options. Might be hard tot count the decentralized players though.
There was a big backlash in the community when matchmaking became the norm. I actually "boycotted" Call of Duty MW2 when it launched because of the lack of server support.
A lot of people say they want the cookies.
But the people will actually pay more for the cake.
It's not that game developers aren't listening. They are listening very closely, and being extremely responsive to where money is being spent.
Maybe most people don't care about, say, the existence of servers that will put their desires above those of the game company (which is one of the things self-hosted software practically provides; no one disputes that running the server on your PC just because is a niche scenario), but the fact that they fail to effectively strategise their spending toward that goal is not evidence in favor of that conclusion, because it's much more easily explained by the known fact that people (note I didn't say "most") are short-sighted, impulsive, technologically-illiterate (okay, that one's most) hypocrites in most of their decision making.
"if I have a factory that can make either cookies or cake, and it operates under capitalism, it seems self-evident that I should make cake."
The system has evolutionary pressures towards financial reward. The game companies that make "cake" are rewarded and gain market share and power. The companies that make "cookies" are financially punished and lose market share and wither.
In the system that we have, with the financial systems at play, it's inevitable that you'll get "cakes".
> > nobody asked for the fucking fancy cake! [...] We were all very happy with the cookies we had before.
> No, [...] you're wrong.
Clearly the the profit-maximizing action is to manufacture cake, 'free'-to-play games, and heroin, rather than cookies, well-designed games, and nothing; no one in this thread (that I've noticed at least) is actually disputing that; we're saying that we don't want cake, as far as we can tell no one actually wants cake, and it's axiologically bad that production is focused on cake rather than cookies.
Some people are then (rightly or wrongly) blaming the baker, but the only thing I was asserting was that no, the fact that people pay money for cake does not mean they want cake. (In the absence of any other evidence it suggests that people want cake - which is the reason capitalism ever works at all for anything - but we have multiple people saying cake is terrible, so there is not a absence of other evidence.)
If they want cookies, but the only option the baker gives is cake or go hungry, of course they're going to pay for the cake. It's their only option!
Doesn't necessarily mean they don't prefer the cookies just because they're spending on cake...
Let's say there are thousands of bakers. There are bakers making cookies and cakes all the time.
Some of those bakers are financially rewarded for their choices, and thus gain power. Others are financially punished for their choices, and slowly are pushed to the margins or die (as a business. The person just moves to a non-baking field).
Over time, you will see an evolutionary pressure toward the baker's baking cakes. You will see fewer and fewer baker's baking cookies.
This is what happened in the gaming industry. There were options for cookies, but they weren't financially rewarded and those options have been drastically diminished because of it.
I will say that, in this now-stretched analogy, I also prefer "cookies". Those games are out there. They're being made by indie developers. Go spend money on them if you want more of them.
Because nobody asked for the fucking fancy cake! Why do people in the industry not get this simple fact?
We were all very happy with the cookies we had before. Which is why we kept coming back to the bakery and telling all our friends how awesome the bakery is. Then the baker says, "hey, those cookies suck, what you really want is the fancy cake! No more cookies, only cake" and despite the customers screaming at the baker, pleading with him to bring back the cookies, he just won't and is surprised that customers are frustrated that they can't get what they want. We eat the fancy cake now because it's the only thing available. But we want the cookies we had before.