Stop Killing Games

[Northadox]

Stop Killing Games

UK Petition
Australian Petition

Youtuber Ross Scott (Accursed Farms) is starting a campaign against the practice of the termination of service of online-only games that run off a centralized server, rendering purchased games that use this practice entirely useless and effectively lost media. This is piggybacking off the shutdown of Ubisoft's The Crew, an online-only racing game that was recently shut down.

The campaign is requesting that once games of these type end official service, to offer means for communities to reestablish the means to play them (i.e., through released server binaries, documentation, etc.) If you're curious about what all of this means and what the campaign is aiming for, check out the FAQ featured on the website.

If you're a citizen in Canada, Australia, Brazil, the UK, or the EU (specifically France and Germany), you likely can take action on this, once the petitions for the respective countries open up. If you bought The Crew, even better. I'll keep this thread updated if there's any news concerning it.

I figured I should bring this campaign to the attention of this community given its multinational userbase, and how the desire to "preserve" games is strong among it (with the bulk of Jiggmin's old titles all being playable nowadays).

If you care about game preservation, you should pay attention to this campaign, and spread the word to anyone who can take action!

[LCPD]

I also hate the trend of games moving over to a digital only releases. Yes, I know PC gaming has already done this for a while but I am a fan of physical media.

[Northadox]

I also hate the trend of games moving over to a digital only releases. Yes, I know PC gaming has already done this for a while but I am a fan of physical media.

Digital goods should be treated as goods in the same way that physical ones are, but unfortunately, we're not at that point yet.

[Delphinoid_]

This seems like a great campaign, thanks for sharing! I'm not really clear on what exactly it's proposing though. It seems like it'll be a legal nightmare.

I also hate the trend of games moving over to a digital only releases. Yes, I know PC gaming has already done this for a while but I am a fan of physical media.

I sympathize with preferring physical media. That said, digital only releases are often the only viable option for smaller studios and indies. There are some exceptions - ZUN still distributes physical copies of the Touhou games for instance - but as far as I'm aware it's mostly just a thing in Asia, since physical media is still king over there.

The other really big thing to keep in mind is that digital releases are obviously a lot more economically sustainable than physical releases. Eventually that CD you just bought will end up in landfill.

[Northadox]

This seems like a great campaign, thanks for sharing! I'm not really clear on what exactly it's proposing though. It seems like it'll be a legal nightmare.

This is what the campaign is seeking to do legally in its petitions; just ensuring that AFTER a live-service game ends its official support, there are means for restoring service in an unofficial capacity (documentation, binaries, etc.) and being able to remove a publisher's involvement entirely.

[Delphinoid_]

This is what the campaign is seeking to do legally in its petitions; just ensuring that AFTER a live-service game ends its official support, there are means for restoring service in an unofficial capacity (documentation, binaries, etc.) and being able to remove a publisher's involvement entirely.

I guess I'm confused about what exactly constitutes "means for restoring service". The laxest interpretation of this campaign that I can think of (at least from the perspective of preserving intellectual property) is that developers would be obligated to provide players with a binary for hosting servers and a modified client that allows connection to these player-hosted servers (for instance). Would developers be obligated to provide support for these? If not, what happens if bugs are introduced in the new client or server software (in other words, what is meant by "a functional state")? Could developers be sued for this? What about if there isn't "enough documentation"? What responsibilities would (or should) players hosting these servers be expected to have? What happens with games where microtransactions have a particularly important presence (e.g. gacha games)?

For any given interpretation of this there are a lot of questions you can ask that, imo, lack clear answers. I'm hoping in the coming months they'll have a more precise proposal.

[Northadox]

I guess I'm confused about what exactly constitutes "means for restoring service". The laxest interpretation of this campaign that I can think of (at least from the perspective of preserving intellectual property) is that developers would be obligated to provide players with a binary for hosting servers and a modified client that allows connection to these player-hosted servers (for instance). Would developers be obligated to provide support for these? If not, what happens if bugs are introduced in the new client or server software (in other words, what is meant by "a functional state")? Could developers be sued for this? What about if there isn't "enough documentation"? What responsibilities would (or should) players hosting these servers be expected to have? What happens with games where microtransactions have a particularly important presence (e.g. gacha games)?

For any given interpretation of this there are a lot of questions you can ask that, imo, lack clear answers. I'm hoping in the coming months they'll have a more precise proposal.

Ross goes more into detail in his original video concerning the matter and addresses common counterarguments, but you can always email him your questions (his email is present on that site posted earlier); he really does want to be clear on what he believes in. I really really invite you to do so because he is VERY comprehensive.

If you were to ask me though, I can't say I really empathize with a hypothetical publisher asking these questions. The baseline message is "stop keeping games attached to a centralized server and killing them unprompted". What the campaign petitioning for is just a clean compromise that will hopefully dissuade publishers from the practice to begin with. Rather than rack their minds about these legal questions, there's always the option to...NOT make their games tethered to a server, which is the goal and is what is best for people who play video games. Courts could also examine these things in more detail, i.e., what a "functional state" is precisely.

[Delphinoid_]

Ross goes more into detail in his original video concerning the matter and addresses common counterarguments, but you can always email him your questions (his email is present on that site posted earlier); he really does want to be clear on what he believes in. I really really invite you to do so because he is VERY comprehensive.

If you were to ask me though, I can't say I really empathize with a hypothetical publisher asking these questions. The baseline message is "stop keeping games attached to a centralized server and killing them unprompted". What the campaign petitioning for is just a clean compromise that will hopefully dissuade publishers from the practice to begin with. Rather than rack their minds about these legal questions, there's always the option to...NOT make their games tethered to a server, which is the goal and is what is best for people who play video games. Courts could also examine these things in more detail, i.e., what a "functional state" is precisely.

I watched the video, he did answer some of the questions I had.

I should clarify that the point of these questions isn't to have you empathize with a publisher. Keep in mind as well that most of the questions I asked refer to legal obligations of the developers, not the publishers, so I assume it's the developers who would be held responsible. My understanding is that the publishers only need to make the software available somehow (or not, if they decide to delist the game or the companies liquidate), so it seems to have very little to do with them.

At the end of the day I definitely agree that the goal of this campaign is an important one that needs to be realized, but I want it to be effective and don't want to see it backfire and leave developers (especially smaller studios and indies) vulnerable to bad actors. I'm asking these questions because I want to see a proposal that is crystal clear on exactly what it expects of both publishers and developers. I'm not convinced Ross has a really good idea on what exactly he wants yet, especially since in the video you linked he was kind of non-committal and left a lot of details up in the air. I think if the proposal is left vague (nothing matters as long as developers / publishers can argue that the game was left in some kind of "functional state"), any legislation will have a hard time getting passed, and even if it does it will at best end up being pretty ineffective.

Maybe I'm jumping the gun though, it's still very early days.

[Northadox]

The UK petition of the campaign has now been made public. If you're a citizen of the UK, or know anyone who is, sign or get them to sign!

[Northadox]

The Australian petition is now open for signing. If you're Australian or know anyone who is, sign or get them to sign!!

Additionally, there has been other strides in the campaign. The UK petition recently hit ten thousand signatures, which means the government will have to respond. Again, if you're from the UK or know anyone who is, get them to sign!