from the to-the-wilds dept
We’ve been talking a lot about video game preservation and strategies for maintaining as much of this cultural output as possible in an industry where the norm is to sunset games after a certain period of time. Most recently, we discussed the comments made by legendary game designer John Carmack, prescribing how game publishers and developers could take steps to ensure their games live on long after they are no longer supported and/or hosted by them directly. At a high level, his suggestions all amount to something that some publishers and developers have a hard time doing: giving up control in order to keep their games alive.
But some developers embrace this sort of thing completely. Proletariat is the publisher of Spellbreak, a PC game published in December of 2020. Proletariat announced months ago that it would sunset support on the game and shut down the servers that hosted the online, PvP game. But then Proletariat went one important step further.
The following is part of the last announcement of the game shut down the publisher released:
Hi Breakers!
Like many of you, we were sad to see the development of Spellbreak come to a close. In order to help memorialize Spellbreak and allow players to continue to enjoy the Hollow Lands, we created a standalone version where players can host their own servers, play with their friends, and explore the game-space at their own pace.
Thank you for playing and being a part of the wonderful and passionate community that allowed us to bring Spellbreak to life. We wish you all the best!
-The Spellbreak Dev Team
And there you have it. Simple, clean, and awesome. The company simply decided that, since it wasn’t interested in continuing to host the game themselves, they would do a little extra work and create a method for fans of the game to host it themselves.
If every game developer and publisher did things this way, it would solve a huge chunk of the problems about game preservation that have been raised. Oh, and it would also make their games more valuable to the public, since it would remove from the cost-calculus when buying games the concern that the game would be a lost purchase should it be sunsetted in the way that most games are today. And the goodwill being generated by doing all of this for Proletariat is a nice bonus.
Hell, the company has even bothered to teach the public how to do all of this.
To host a server, download “spellbreak-community- version-server-windows.zip”
- Read the contained “How to Host a Server” pdf for a step by step guide of how to run your own server.
Note: You do not need the .pdb to play or host.
- The .pdb contains debugging information for the client and server .exes.
Chef’s kiss. No notes.
Filed Under: spellbreak, standalone, sunset, video games
Companies: proletariat
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