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But you pose a good question if Early Access release counts as release, especially if it’s been in EA for this long.
I feel like there’s “real” Early Access, where major features and other wholesale changes like replacement of placeholder art are still being implemented, and “fake” Early Access, where the devs just avoid calling the game “finished” for some reason (possibly because they overpromised and have abandoned it). Timberborn is very much in “real” Early Access.
My point was 50% that the game is still too new for this sub and 50% that “early access” is ridiculous, LOL.
Still, I’m pretty sure the game genuinely isn’t feature-complete yet. They only implemented the “real” water flow algorithm (allowing for aqueducts and underground pipes) a month or so ago, after all.
In the United States, copyright exists for the sole and express purpose “to promote the progress of science and the useful arts.” (US Constitution, article 1, section 8, clause 8). Protecting artists has nothing whatsoever to do with it; the monopoly privilege is given only as a means to the end of enriching the Public Domain.
so noone is allowed to recreate it
Arguably that’s not true, as doing stuff for the purpose of interoperability is fair use.
I don’t think its on the company to prop up everyone else after they no longer have ownership of the IP.
This is a perfect illustration of how toxic it is to let the copyright cartel frame the debate with loaded language like “ownership” of “IP.” FYI, “IP” is not actually a thing and ideas are fundamentally different from property and cannot be “owned”.
relevant paragraph
It has been pretended by some (and in England especially) that inventors have a natural and exclusive right to their inventions; & not merely for their own lives, but inheritable to their heirs. but while it is a moot question whether the origin of any kind of property is derived from nature at all, it would be singular to admit a natural, and even an hereditary right to inventions. it is agreed by those who have seriously considered the subject, that no individual has, of natural right, a separate property in an acre of land, for instance. by an universal law indeed, whatever, whether fixed or moveable, belongs to all men equally and in common, is the property, for the moment, of him who occupies it; but when he relinquishes the occupation the property goes with it. stable ownership is the gift of social law, and is given late in the progress of society. it would be curious then if an idea, the fugitive fermentation of an individual brain, could, of natural right, be claimed in exclusive and stable property. if nature has made any one thing less susceptible, than all others, of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an Idea; which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the reciever cannot dispossess himself of it. it’s peculiar character too is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. he who recieves an idea from me, recieves instruction himself, without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, recieves light without darkening me. that ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benvolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any point; and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement, or exclusive appropriation. inventions then cannot in nature be a subject of property. society may give an exclusive right to the profits arising from them as an encouragement to men to pursue ideas which may produce utility. but this may, or may not be done, according to the will and convenience of the society, without claim or complaint from any body. accordingly it is a fact, as far as I am informed, that England was, until we copied her, the only country on earth which ever by a general law, gave a legal right to the exclusive use of an idea. in some other countries, it is sometimes done, in a great case, and by a special & personal4 act. but generally speaking, other nations have thought that these monopolies produce more embarrasment than advantage to society. and it may be observed that the nations which refuse monopolies of invention, are as fruitful as England in new and useful devices.
In other words, copyright is a privilege, and there is absolutely no reason we shouldn’t expect those granted that monopoly to “property up everyone else” in exchange for receiving that privilege.
Online services going away is fine. That’s been a thing that’s happened for years with other games. But the game should still remain playable in some fashion. If it becomes fully inaccessible at the end of life, customers have a legitimate reason to be upset.
It’s not even just that. Society at large has an even more legitimate reason to be upset, because the whole social contract by which we agreed to even grant the publisher copyright in the first place was predicated on the work eventually entering the Public Domain. Destroying the work to prevent that from happening is more truly “theft” than “pirating” copies of it could ever be!
The server component of online games ought to be required by law to be submitted to the Library of Congress for eventual release to the public.
there are huge outstanding questions on the nature of ownership
There really aren’t, though. There is only the well-established and correct understanding of it as embodied by things like the Uniform Commercial Code, and lying criminals trying to gaslight us into letting them steal our property rights.
Reminds me of the story from the other day about how 80%? of hours spent playing PC games are on titles more than 6 years old.
Hell, I just upgraded my video card for the first time in seven years, but the reason I did it was mainly due to factors like avoiding increased future costs due to tariffs and wanting modern API support for stuff like raytracing and experimenting with LLMs, not because there was some particular new game I had in mind that required it.
Paired with the top hat, the bow tie is better.
But I’d like to see other options, such as a cowboy hat and bolo tie, a scarf, a “dixie cup” sailor hat and neckerchief, a casual ascot, etc.
That’s a strawman argument. First of all, plenty of people would be happy to self-host a game for their friends, if they were still allowed the option. Second, even people who want to run a public server would still be free to ban people (for whatever reason they wanted). We’re not talking about being forced to tolerate antisocial fuckwads.
Plus “AI” bullshit is sucking up all the fab production capacity.