Stop publishers from destroying games

Buy physical copies of games which don't require perpetually online servers to work

Problem solved

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Its impossible to get people to understand that all they ever own are keys, and the digital "locks" into which they fit can be unilaterally removed by the supplier because there's no law that says they need to maintain them in perpetuity!

What's more its completely unenforceable because who'd pick up the slack were the supplier go out of business or noone remained able to maintain said digital locks?
 
I know it doesn't mean much, but if you're from the UK please consider signing the 'The Stop Killing Games' petition.

 
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Nah , we pay $20 to go watch a movie once. We pay $70 to play a game for 10 years. Then one day you die.
 
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Multiplayer games get sold physically too. And when those servers get shut down, if they can't open source the online netcode they should at the very least refund you everything you paid
They could release a vm image with binaries and let anyone pull up servers...
 
For every schlub that fast-forwarded through the terms of service and user agreements and clicked [I AGREE], let me sum up from the other side what you agreed to:
Lose Willy Wonka GIF
 
I totally get why this upsets people, but at the end of the day, money has to be spent to keep servers online, if the money isn't there, who's going to pay to keep a game online just because? These ain't fucking charities.
 
I totally get why this upsets people, but at the end of the day, money has to be spent to keep servers online, if the money isn't there, who's going to pay to keep a game online just because? These ain't fucking charities.
Don't force the game to check with servers then? Let players make their own servers? There were various cases of fans being able to run private servers from games that supposedly needed company servers.
 
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Don't force the game to check with servers then? Let players make their own servers? There were various cases of fans being able to run private servers from games that supposedly needed company servers.
Sure, those are actual solutions, what I'm saying is it's weird people expect companies to just throw money just cuz (tbf, they do that a lot these days anyway)

Game devs could also move away from this stuff back to single player focused.
 
Sure, those are actual solutions, what I'm saying is it's weird people expect companies to just throw money just cuz (tbf, they do that a lot these days anyway)
Even more reason to make a law on it. They weren't forced to give refunds for digital purchases 15 years ago either, nor would some since they'd only have to lose.
 
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I totally get why this upsets people, but at the end of the day, money has to be spent to keep servers online, if the money isn't there, who's going to pay to keep a game online just because? These ain't fucking charities.
Very true, but at the same time media preservation is important. It's always been a thing. Games are a major new media and this capability is being compromised. The companies themselves shouldn't be responsible for maintaining it, as you're right, it costs, and companies go out of business. It needs to be funded and performed by either publicly funded, or charity based archival libraries. But companies should be made to ALLOW that to happen. Currently most don't. They just turn them off and they vanish into history.
 
Really ? That vhs collection doing well for you now? 🤣

Technology advanced since VHS and we have DVD, BD and UHD BD formats - modern players can play them all (including consoles).

You buy them once and own them for the rest of your life, same is true for majority of games through history. You also have ability to sell or trade/borrow them.

You probably don't care about things like that but many people do, letting corporations do whatever they want will be bad for everyone in the end (including you).
 
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I don't see how anyone wouldn't want to support this initiative. Unless you are a corporate shill that cares more about short term $$$ vs preserving games as a form of art.
 


Europeans can save videogames from being destroyed! The European Citizens' Initiative has just launched and represents the biggest and most ambitious chance to create new law against publishers destroying games they have already sold to you. Get EU citizens to sign it!
 
They could, but why would anyone choose to place their work in the public domain decades before their copyright expires?
Copyright for a videogame is 50 years I think?

But the vast majority of games don't make any money after a decade.
 


Stop Killing Games is in a tough spot at the moment, but it's not over. There's still a month to reach the 1 million signatures necessary for the initiative to succeed in being put into the lawmaking process in the EU. This video is an update on the current problems the initiative is facing. Ross also clarifies misunderstandings that were popularized by Pirate Software. Luckily this seems to have sparked discussion on SKG again.

SKG could have a major positive ripple effect on games made in the future. With some luck and a little help, it can happen.

If you like what Ross is trying to do and live in the EU, get your signature in there! If ya know people who live there that value preserving games, share it with them! Let's help stop games being sent to purgatory 🍻
 
Ross has always been outspoken about this. Now he decided to use the last case involving The Crew, a game he liked which servers got shut down a couple of days ago, to kickstart this campaign.
It might (and I think should) work for offline games but it for sure will not for online-only.
Who will pay servers costs, they are not free. Expecting company to maintain them forever at their own expense is naive. Going offline is a part of any online game lifecycle, any player involved should know and be prepared to it.
 
It might (and I think should) work for offline games but it for sure will not for online-only.
Who will pay servers costs, they are not free. Expecting company to maintain them forever at their own expense is naive. Going offline is a part of any online game lifecycle, any player involved should know and be prepared to it.
Many older online games are still operational, developers don't have to run the servers themselves.

Besides, one of the points brought up is that if it's a case where the game absolutely needs the developer support and cannot operate without it under any circumstance, what should be done is estabilish clear service terms, which in this case would be to tell buyers for how long the "service" will remain for the fee you paid.

Games like WoW and FF14 for example are very clear on that. You pay the dev X money and you'll get to use the "service" for Y amount of time, until when the game either shuts down or you pay again for more time. If the game were to shut down before that time is up, you get a refund.
 
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It might (and I think should) work for offline games but it for sure will not for online-only.
Who will pay servers costs, they are not free. Expecting company to maintain them forever at their own expense is naive. Going offline is a part of any online game lifecycle, any player involved should know and be prepared to it.
No part of this says that the devs need to keep running the servers themselves. There are plenty of alternatives, and those alternatives were actually the way online games used to run back in the day.
 
No part of this says that the devs need to keep running the servers themselves. There are plenty of alternatives, and those alternatives were actually the way online games used to run back in the day.
Online games and live service games are different
Preserving live service games require compromising server code that is much bigger part of the game that of online game and might involve intellectual property of the company
 
Multiplayer games get sold physically too. And when those servers get shut down, if they can't open source the online netcode they should at the very least refund you everything you paid
What's bad is they're sometimes still sold in physical form when there's no way to play them. Some games don't get pulled from store shelves.
 
Signed. It takes less than one minute, literally. So move your lazy ass and do it if you live in the EU.

PirateSoftware can eat my ass.
 
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Online games and live service games are different
Preserving live service games require compromising server code that is much bigger part of the game that of online game and might involve intellectual property of the company
And this would require corporations to prepare for that when they plan game servers in the future.

Yes, it would be very inconvenient for massive corporations.
 
All the problems in the world and OP is worried about if the Crews servers get shut off.

Who fucking cares? What have you ever lost that had any value taken from you as a gamer?

Lulz
 
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I can't think of a single example of the situation in the OP happening with any publisher of note. Perhaps it's an indie thing or I just missed it because the game was inconsequential?

Can anyone provide one or is this more a future concern problem?

While I wait, I will add one thing, there is no product anywhere in any industry that guarantees eternal support and / or availability (well outside religion but the customer support there is glacial and the product is bug ridden), so the initial demand is a non starter - the software equivalent of a pinky promise.

But, if you're happy for the price of games to go even higher because they have to pay for support for eternity, be my guest. No one works for free, even in an AI future, power and support has to be paid for to keep the thing running.
 
And this would require corporations to prepare for that when they plan game servers in the future.

Yes, it would be very inconvenient for massive corporations.
It will not work.
Even if petition get through it would be hard to pass legislation. IP is protected by law and you can't force companies to share it just because you want to continue play. And there will be numerous ways to circumvent law even if it's passed in hard scenario (one can create SPV company, transfer operational rights to it and than close it, shutting down game in process - and legally you have no one to complain to as operational company no longer exists).
At most I would expect that closure process would be standardized - i.e. minimum grace period of 6 month before shutdown when announcement is made and sales are stopped.
 
Now piracy is the only way to play this game (outside of used copies on X360 and PS3).

That part true? I see people on SteamDB.

You probably just can't buy the game. Kind of lazy to discontinue selling the game if it does have a functional single player.
 
That part true? I see people on SteamDB.

You probably just can't buy the game. Kind of lazy to discontinue selling the game if it does have a functional single player.

You can play the game if you have it your library already, yeah. But you can't obtain it "new" in any official way.

So far they are not removing games from libraries (at least on steam).
 
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