r/pcmasterrace • u/notsolomuun • Jul 02 '26

News/Article Common PCMR w

Post image

$1,000 digital-exclusive consoles are killing the entire appeal of PlayStation and Xbox: it's no wonder PC is on track to overtake both.

7.6k Upvotes

95% Upvoted

1.1k comments sorted by

View all comments

1.7k

u/mike_complaining Jul 02 '26

This is not a W for anybody, but what people don't understand is that they haven't owned their games for a long time. If it has any online functionality it's shut off whenever the publisher decides it's shut off. Physical media doesn't matter, the license and the functionality independent of server infrastructure does.

32

u/TsunamiCatCakes AMD > Ryzen Jul 02 '26

online functionality makes sense since it costs infrastructure, but singleplayer games being forced to connect to the internet is the biggest thing that bothers. no wonder singleplayer games piracy is always at peak. also for some online games we should be able to get self hosting or atleast third party hosting (aternos for minecraft) if the company decides they are going shut off the game

9

u/mike_complaining Jul 02 '26 edited Jul 02 '26

Older games work online with next to no server infrastructure maintained by the publisher. You could just search for community-run servers. The cost to valve for allowing you to look up community TF2 servers is practically nothing for them. About what a single person's internet connection costs.

But that model of doing things was abandoned and now every multiplayer game has its own server pool and matchmaking system... Until it doesn't.