> I meant to say games that can play [both] on PC and PS4

Okay... that's a thing you can talk about, I guess, but it's not what cwhiz was talking about:

> Go back 10-12 years ago and most PC games had server software [emphasis added]

Also that doesn't really address my point at all; did console games released in 2004 have closed servers, or did they not support network play at all?

> as in, cross platform games

If you can give me examples of games that run on linux I'll be happy to discuss them at length. :)

Sorry, I think we somehow ended up talking passed each other.

Parent said that "if we go back 10-12 years and games had dedicated server software", tried to find some examples games that are of similar deployment to mine (IE; multi-platform AAA games with network play) to see if that assertion held true.

It seems like, aside from Valves games (which exist on XBox afaik) most do not offer a dedicated server software.

If we go far enough back (2004) then there's only the Xbox which had network capability, meaning that there's not so many networked games that work multi-platform.

I think it's inferred but when I say "cross platform" I mean Windows and whatever the presiding consoles are.

> Sorry, I think we somehow ended up talking passed each other.

I think so, yes.

> "if we go back 10-12 years and games had dedicated server software"

Assertion was specifically PC games, and I read it to mean games that people (PC users) 10-12 years ago were playing (regardless of whether console ports existed, or when they came out), which I think was the intended interpretation.

From what you've said, it sounds like the addition of network functionality to consoles was contemporaneous with PC games losing working peer/private-server functionality, which seems in line with cwhiz's position, if not their timeline.

> I think it's inferred but when I say "cross platform" I mean Windows and whatever the presiding consoles are.

I vehemently disagree with this, but I think it's mostly a difference of terminology, so I'm disinclined to argue it versus just ad-hocing around the problem[0].

0: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/GKfPL6LQFgB49FEnv/replace-th...

I'm a huge linux enthusiast, so I share your dislike of "cross-platform" meaning consoles and Windows. I couldn't think of a better terminology though.

Linux (plus other unix and unix-like) exclusive here; I actually don't mind "cross-platform" for "console A or console B", but describing a mouse-and-keyboard game as "cross-platform" implies it works on other mouse-and-keyboard platforms, which in practice amounts to either OSX (which... sucks, basically) or unix (linux/bsd/etc tend to be compatible enough that you can get anything from one working on another with enough hammering).

> I couldn't think of a better terminology though.

Well "games that run on both PC and console" works, but it's a bit unwieldy.