[game_preservation] Deactivated Multiplayer or Authentication Servers for Games

[Henry Lowood]

Hi Kindra,

I have two general thoughts about this, but first let me know if either 
of these areas have come up yet. If not, I will do a little research to 
find a specific private server or utility.
The two areas are:
1. EA sports games - e.g., the FIFA matchmaking or Ultimate Team servers 
for previous versions or for previous consoles.  There are PC versions, 
and I am pretty sure there are private servers.  There are some 
interesting issues here, due to the various game currencies (coins, EA 
points) and levels earned through XP and FCC points. There might be some 
overlap here with XBConnect, though again, much of the trading occurs in 
the PC version of the game - indeed, EA has shut down the PC web trading 
app for FIFA14, so I wonder if anyone has tried to replace it.
Some context: 
http://ultimatefifa.com/2012/look-back-at-fifa-11-as-online-servers-to-be-shut-down/ 
or http://www.soccergaming.com/fifa/1620/dated-fifa-servers-to-close/
2. I wonder if you have looked into Battlenet servers?  Blizzard, of 
course, explicitly bans their use, and this issue has been brought to 
the courts in the past.  For example, I have read about servers for 
DotA, Starcraft, and such. I have not looked into this, but players 
might want to use older maps and such without having to make them 
compatible with the current version of the game.  I'm thinking of the 
ICCup server, for example.  However, I am not sure that it's raison 
d'etre is right for the exemption request.  It's Abyss server was 
started to support competitive play of Starcraft: Brood War - which I 
don't believe is still supported by Blizzard.  Again, I'm not current on 
this server, just curious if it's on your radar.

Henry




On 7/28/2014 4:26 PM, Kendra Albert wrote:
> Hi all,
> I'm writing on behalf of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. We're in 
> the process of determining whether to pursue a DMCA 1201 exemption 
> request for circumventing video game authentication servers for games 
> where support has been discontinued by the game developer. Basically, 
> the objective of the exemption would be to prevent gamers who crack 
> copies, reverse engineer authentication or run their own multiplayer 
> servers for unsupported games from getting sued.
>
> Currently, we're in the information gathering stage, and we're looking 
> for examples of games where the authentication or multiplayer servers 
> were shut off, and players created alternative solutions to continue 
> to be able to play. We have a number of MMO-related examples, so now 
> we're slightly more interested in either single player games or games 
> where servers played a matchmaking function.
>
> Some stuff that's already on our radar: Allegiance 
> <http://www.freeallegiance.org/forums/index.php?act=home>, XBConnect 
> <http://www.xbconnect.com>; the DWC network server emulator for DS 
> <https://github.com/polaris-/dwc_network_server_emulator>; the Wiimmfi 
> project for Mario Kart Wii 
> <http://forum.wii-homebrew.com/board42-kreativitaet/mkw-server-project-english/51748-wiimmfi-patcher-for-mario-kart-wii/>; 
> Online Consoles support for Dreamcast, Gamecube and PS2 
> <http://onlineconsoles.com/%20>; and the various Gamespy-related 
> shutdowns.
>
> Still, we would love more examples. I'm hoping that folks in this 
> community might have some suggestions on where to look. Feel free to 
> respond to me off-list if you prefer.
>
> Thanks for reading, and any leads are much appreciated,
> Kendra
> -- 
> Kendra Albert
> Legal Intern
> Electronic Frontier Foundation
>
>
>
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-- 
Henry Lowood
Curator, History of Science & Technology Collections;
    Film & Media Collections
HSSG, Green Library, 557 Escondido Mall
Stanford University Libraries, Stanford CA 94305-6004
650-723-4602; lowood at stanford.edu
http://www.stanford.edu/~lowood

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