Interoperability for games is fundamentally flawed reasoning

Interoperability for games is fundamentally flawed reasoning

Posted Aug 25, 2005 5:15 UTC (Thu) by proski (subscriber, #104)
In reply to: Interoperability for games is fundamentally flawed reasoning by FlorianMueller
Parent article: On the defense of piracy enablers

If Blizzard doesn't even create a game like Starcraft, then there's no need for anyone to "interoperate" with it.

Sure. If Microsoft didn't create Windows, we wouldn't need Samba. If mp3 compression wasn't invented, we wouldn't need LAME. Every market has its rules. If rules are too tough for some players, others will fill the niche. Maybe they will have less money to make a quality product. Maybe it will take them longer. The same applies to software patents too - some companies could not function without them.

But let's see what is on the other pan of Justitia. It's freedom to develop compatible products. The damage from restricting this freedom cannot be limited to entertainment products, because almost every software has some entertainment applications, whether it's a game, a video codec or an operating system.

As for cheating, it works the other way too. What if the creator of software allows some cheats in its server and refuses to patch them (e.g. because it wants everybody to buy a new version of the game that uses a different protocol and server)? Some of the customers would prefer to use an alternate server known not to allow such cheats.

An open source server could provide transparency that no close source code can provide. I could inspect the server to see that my opponent cannot cheat, and so can my opponent. Sure, we have also a problem of verifying that the game server is running exactly that software. It's a totally different question, but it's easier to insure when no marketing departments are involved.

Disclaimer - I'm neither gamer nor lawyer and I have never played Blizzard games.

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