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UK Petition: Require videogame publishers to keep games they have sold in a working state
(petition.parliament.uk)
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this post was submitted on 17 Apr 2024
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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.
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
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.