Are there any open protocols for facilitating online gaming?
I'm interested in something that games and front-ends can implement in order to play online and connect with friends, independent of the actual front-end in use.
This would allow gamers to connect without being reliant on companies' stores.
Is there such a thing? Are there any discussions about creating one?
Like https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributed_Interactive_Simulation or you mean the match-making protocol?
I think matchmaking should be done on a per-game basis (or at least it's a different issue.)
I'm more referring to how players connect, such as having friend lists, joining those friends, and the profiles we see in and out of games.
This protocol looks interesting, and I'll have to learn more about it.
The standard protocol for friends list and "who's online" would be https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/XMPP
I sometimes use VPN software like LogMeInHamachi or Tailscale to play Minecraft multiplayer with friends over the internet.
Basically it makes your computers act as if they are on the same LAN. It should work for playing any game with LAN multiplayer support over the internet.
I think this depends on each games programming in terms of which websites they check to set up hosts. Great idea if it can work, though.
https://www.partykit.io/ sort of? maybe?