this post was submitted on 17 Apr 2024
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UK Petition: Require videogame publishers to keep games they have sold in a working state (petition.parliament.uk)
submitted 6 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
6 comments fedilink hide all child comments
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[–] [email protected] 30 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Whilst I agree in the spirit of the petition, the wording isn't great.

Server infrastructure has significant opex costs to run & maintain - it's impractical to demand publishers to keep them alive, especially if the running cost far exceeds the player demand & potential revenues. What happens if that publisher goes bust? What happens if a significant security vulnerability is found?

Might be better to have legislation for software publishers (not just games) to both plan & implement a sunsetting strategies when they intend to retire software.

Eg. If the online component was just performing license checks, make software publishers remove the DRM. If it's to host a DLC store, release all DLC items for free & remove the store. If its for multi-player mechanics, release both the client & server software as limited open-source license so the community can maintain those assets going forward.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I've been thinking the same thing. While I like the idea that publishers are responsible for maintaining the needed infrastructure, I can only see that resulting in even more predatory pricing to cover the costs and unreasonable pressure on smaller publishers leading them to fold and leave behind the greedy ones

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago

I would argue that once the game is being planned to stop being maintained serverwise, a working version of the game server should be released so that people can make custom servers and keep the online functionality alive. This is how most of the online communities of old games survive anyway.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 months ago

If this petition is part of the stop killing games organization:

That's what it's supposed to say? Ross Scott made a video on the topic as he's the guy organizing this and that's basically exactly what he said they're pushing for, which basically everyone thought was reasonable.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 6 months ago

Hope this applies retroactively as well. Would love for server files or source to get released so old games can finally be playable again on modern systems.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago

Glad to see the Stop Killing Games initiative continuing even if the most likely response from the UK government is going to be "No".