Posted November 25, 2020
low rated
amok: but everything is in the hands of the developers, not only online thingies, but all other dependencies as well. if the developers base the game on a version of DirectX, which then afterwards abecome defunct and you are then not able to get again, that is the same problem.
WinterSnowfall: No, it's not. DirectX is a set of APIs, most of which are documented and can be re-implemented. The are various projects doing that already, like dxvk to get DX9-DX11 onto Vulkan. You can't compare something like a set of APIs the game depends on with a specific online module that only the developers of said game have developed and have access to.
You argument means that the 'gamer' need to have the understanding of how the API works, then the skills and the software / hardware to be able to do so. If we are at this stage, then many (if not all) online prerequsits can be also be re-implemented by virtual / local servers, tricking the packages to think it is online, or any other way.
and edit- most data stored on online servers can be hacked and downloaded. This is why, for example, we have illigal WoW servers - this is done already. if you wanted, you can play WoW offline
Post edited November 25, 2020 by amok