Online-Only Multiplayer Game Is Reworking Its Servers to Avoid a Shutdown

A game called Deceive Inc., which launched on PC and consoles in March 2023, has decided to rebuild its backend to help fans keep it alive now that the developer has closed its doors. While Deceive Inc. isn’t the first game to put its future in the hands of its PC players, it has earned plenty of respect from gamers for going the extra mile and reworking its entire backend to avoid a shutdown.

Publisher-imposed deaths for online games have been a hot topic in gaming communities in recent years. One of the most notable examples came when Ubisoft decided to shut down The Crew after nearly 10 years of support. Ubisoft’s choice sparked the Stop Killing Games movement, which continues to push back against publishers that sunset their games.

Deceive Inc. Will Continue to Live in the Hands of Players

Announced in a Steam community post, developer Sweet Bandit said, “Although [we] had to close [our] doors, we don’t believe Deceive Inc. should quietly disappear because the services behind it aren’t sustainable forever.” Despite the many technical challenges involved, the team has reworked the game’s backend to support community-hosted servers. Sweet Bandit says most features and functions have already been successfully converted to work with dedicated servers, but the team needs one more month before releasing the update.

For those unfamiliar, Deceive Inc. blends several genres, including social deduction, FPS, and hero shooter, but it also inherits some standard features of battle royale games. It pits up to three teams of players against each other on a map where they can disguise themselves as NPCs. Each team must avoid detection, gather intel, hack secure areas, and extract the objective without being killed by rival spies. Interestingly, SteamDB data suggests the game isn’t attracting many concurrent players as of this writing, but the developer is committed to letting players keep the game alive regardless of those numbers.

Why AAA Games Usually Avoid Community-Hosted and P2P Servers

Sweet Bandit’s post also sheds light on why many AAA games don’t transition to peer-to-peer and community-hosted servers before shutting down. According to the indie studio, “Replacing the backend for a live multiplayer game means rebuilding much of the technology that players never normally see. This touches nearly every part of how players find matches, join servers, manage progression, unlock content, and more.” In other words, the more complex a multiplayer game is, the more difficult it becomes to support community-hosted servers.

Deceive Inc. costs around $20 on Steam, the PlayStation Store, and the Xbox Games Store. Those interested in joining its community should also know that it has mostly positive reviews across all platforms, with many players describing it as one of the most entertaining deception games available. Now that Deceive Inc. is set to join the list of games kept alive by their communities, prospective buyers can feel more confident that their $20 investment won’t simply disappear.

Released

March 21, 2023

ESRB

T For Teen Due To Use of Tobacco, Violence

Developer(s)

Sweet Bandits Studios