Community fights back against publishers (i.e. Ubisoft) killing live-service games (i.e. The Crew)

[Ryzza5]

 

Summary

Ross Scott, a community member who 'enjoys video games' and 'owning things', has relentlessly undertaken months of research to determine the best possible course of action to challenge the growing industry practice of killing video games that rely on online servers to function, and has launched the largest campaign ever to stop publishers destroying these video games.  Parliament Petitions are being launched in multiple countries to force governments to investigate the legality of destroying these games and if consumer protection laws need refining, assuming enough participants register their support by following the helpful guides published at stopkillinggames.com

 

 

 

Quotes

Quote

An increasing number of videogames are designed to rely on a server the publisher controls in order for the game to function. This acts as a lifeline to the game. When the publisher decides to turn this off, it is essentially cutting off life support to the game, making it completely inoperable to all customers. Companies that do this often intentionally prevent people from 'repairing' the game also by withholding vital components. When this happens, the game is 'destroyed', as no one can ever operate it again.

 

While videogames are primarily just for entertainment and not of much consequence, the practice of a seller destroying a product someone has already paid for represents a radical assault on consumer rights and even the concept of ownership itself. If this practice is not stopped, it may be codified into law and spread to other products of more importance over time, such as agricultural equipment, educational products, medical devices, etc. It is important consumers maintain a basic level of rights so as not to be overrun by predatory practices. Additionally, videogames are unique creative works. The concept of destroying every existing copy of a book, song, film, etc. would be considered a cultural loss for society. While a less recognized medium, videogames still deserve to have basic protections against the complete and willful destruction of many of its works.

 

If companies face penalties for destroying copies of games they have sold, this is very likely to start curbing this behavior. If a company is forced to allow customers to retain their games in even one country, implementing those fixes worldwide becomes a trivial issue for them. So, if destroying a game you paid for became illegal in France, companies that patched the game would likely apply the same patch to the games worldwide. An analogy to this process is how the ACCC in Australia forced Valve to offer refunds on Steam, so Valve ended up offering them to people worldwide as a result.

 

Continues at https://www.stopkillinggames.com/faq

 

My thoughts

While some may attempt to explain away the issues by suggesting that music or vehicle licence expirations may prevent the continued sale of video games, or that players can get their money's worth during the time that the game remains supported, this in no way should prevent existing owners from being able to continue to use the product that they purchased, even if some online features are no longer available.   It is noteworthy that Polyphony Digital provided a patch to allow the game Gran Turismo Sport to become playable offline before sunsetting the related online services.  This is especially true when games do not publicly advertise the amount of time that the product will remain functional at the time of purchase, resulting in a scenario where players are expected to 'rent' the games they 'purchased' for an unknown amount of time.

 

Sources

Website with directions and FAQ: https://www.stopkillinggames.com/

YouTube video explaining the issue and possible solutions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w70Xc9CStoE

 

Video Game History Foundation:  "87% Missing: The Disappearance of classic video games":  https://gamehistory.org/87percent/

 

[Shrinks99]

Came here to post this, happy to see that somebody already has!  Their website is quite well put together and it seems like as good a time as any to attempt to get the attention of regulators on this issue.  Unfortunately it doesn't look like the Canadian petition is up yet — hopefully it will be soon!

[dizmo]

The developer can't give a timeline for how long a game will remain popular. No one has that kind of crystal ball. 

 

I don't really know what this will do beyond making companies give the ability for people to host the game on their own after they decide to stop support. So congrats to the dozens of people they will play those titles I guess

[TatamiMatt]

16 minutes ago, dizmo said:

The developer can't give a timeline for how long a game will remain popular. No one has that kind of crystal ball. 

I understand that developers dont know this and it is costly for server upkeep, especially when say 10 people are playing the game max

 

16 minutes ago, dizmo said:

I don't really know what this will do beyond making companies give the ability for people to host the game on their own after they decide to stop support. So congrats to the dozens of people they will play those titles I guess

But is this not enough? They bought, regularly play and enjoy the game, why shouldnt they be able to keep playing it?

[Lunar River]

29 minutes ago, dizmo said:

I don't really know what this will do beyond making companies give the ability for people to host the game on their own after they decide to stop support. So congrats to the dozens of people they will play those titles I guess

yeah, how dare people want to play games the paid for, even if that game is 20 year old

[Stahlmann]

The problem is not killing old games. The problem is making games unnecessarily dependent on online features. I don't have a problem with a 10-year-old game losing its online functionality. I do find it problematic when a 10 year old game loses ALL functionality.

[Avocado Diaboli]

54 minutes ago, dizmo said:

I don't really know what this will do beyond making companies give the ability for people to host the game on their own after they decide to stop support. So congrats to the dozens of people they will play those titles I guess

I think you're missing the bigger picture here. This isn't solely about keeping online-dependent games around. It's a first step in actually achieving the goal of owning digital property you bought, instead of merely licensing it and being at the whims of the IP's owners if you still get to play the game you bought or not. And while this is as of now just limited to games to keep it focused, this could have ripple effects on broader software ownership in the future.

[SansVarnic]

-= Moved to PC Gaming =-

[Ryzza5]

27 minutes ago, SansVarnic said:

-= Moved to PC Gaming =-

Will this no longer appear on a future GameLinked episode as a result?

[porina]

Will be interesting to see if this goes anywhere at all. Might need mainstream gaming press to amplify it if not already.

 

Even on an initial think there will be several levels of difficulty in game support:

1: games that need a connection for reasons but is single player. Should be easy to do on these.

2, games that are primarily single player with some online content or parts. Hopefully single player/offline parts can remain fully intact. Online parts, may be degraded or missing.

3a, games that are online multiplayer but have potential to run isolated and not require a central server. e.g. user run servers (e-sports games)

3b, games that are online multiplayer but mainly make sense with large player base (e.g. MMOs)

4, games where "new" content is regularly delivered online, and would have little value without ongoing new content e.g. many gacha

 

Picking one game for example: Genshin Impact. This mainly sits at 2 with elements of 3a and 4 in my list above. Fundamentally the bulk of the game could be implemented as a pure single player game, or with limited co-op (3a). Where #4 enters the room is because it does often hold time limited events, which also drive along the story. At the end of the story that would be a known thing so it wouldn't be a driver any more. Based on current story progression there needs to be at least 2 years more content to round off the expected story path, then what? Maybe it doesn't end? Does it keep going? Can they sustain interest past that point in the story? Some day, maybe sooner, maybe later, people will move on. I really do hope they will repackage it as a stand alone single player game at that point then all the anti-gacha people can still get a chance to explore what I'd consider one of the top games of all time.

[Ryzza5]

If we ignore existing games and focus on games still in active development, the main win will be to emphasise the need to design games from day one to eventually function without online services, so that developers can simply flip a switch in the game code by means of tiny patch when the time comes.

[Mark Kaine]

54 minutes ago, Ryzza5 said:

If we ignore existing games and focus on games still in active development, the main win will be to emphasise the need to design games from day one to eventually function without online services, so that developers can simply flip a switch in the game code by means of tiny patch when the time comes.

... i think the main focus should be on games being designed to allow users self hosting  *if* (or when) the developers (for whatever reason) decide to shut the servers down. 

 

 

And that's the crux, it'll never happen as long there isn't a law demanding exactly that (aka yet another anti-gatekeep law is needed)

 

this initiative definitely goes in the right direction (i just find it difficult to see how the get around the unfortunately very real Stockholm syndrome,  aka "leave my walled garden alone" to be totally honest with you) 

[SansVarnic]

1 hour ago, Ryzza5 said:

Will this no longer appear on a future GameLinked episode as a result?

That is not really how it works, topics in the TN are not guaranteed a spot in a video.

[Stahlmann]

If enough people actually cared about stuff like this, they wouldn't play the latest life-service online-only games. Most people just move on once their current game falls off. If all the life service games stopped making money because gamers don't want to support that model anymore, this problem would solve itself. But alas, nostalgia gamers are a very small part of the market that isn't profitable.

[Lunar River]

11 hours ago, Ryzza5 said:

Will this no longer appear on a future GameLinked episode as a result?

Post things for discussion here on the forum, not for the hope of it being featured on an lmg channel

[Ryzza5]

13 hours ago, SansVarnic said:

That is not really how it works, topics in the TN are not guaranteed a spot in a video.

I realise that, but figure topics not in the TN are guaranteed to not have a spot in the video.  I put a fair amount of time into following the template and have no incentive to do so again in the future it seems.

[SansVarnic]

2 hours ago, Ryzza5 said:

I realise that, but figure topics not in the TN are guaranteed to not have a spot in the video.  I put a fair amount of time into following the template and have no incentive to do so again in the future it seems.

It is unfortunate you feel this way. But to give a little insight, not all topics featured in a video are pulled only from the TN section.

 

Your efforts are not wasted, and if you feel that it was because you believe the placement of a topic in another section has the negative effect you are placing on it then your intentions are in the wrong place. I do not wish you to discontinue your efforts to post good topics. But if your goal is only to be featured on a video you are aiming for the wrong goal. Each section has its place for a reason, the TN section guidelines are clear as to the type of topics to be posted. We remove topics all the time that don't meet the definition of TN and this has no effect on videos featuring topics of discussion. LMG determines this not the forum.

[Ryzza5]

All good bro, I was expecting that response.  I would've been happy to share either way, just would've been easier to drop a link and a couple of lines rather than rewatch the whole video again to capture quotes and useful screenshots.

[eric1830]

Summary

Petitioning multiple governments around the globe to stop game companies from shutting down online functionality of videogames, without letting the consumers host private servers.

 

Quotes

Quote

"No matter how you look at it, this is such an obvious assault on consumer rights, and in any other industry, a company destroying what they sold you would be illegal."

 

My thoughts

This is very important to everyone playing games. If this goes through, the persistent for how future and current games are made/played will be changed forever. This is for the benefit of everyone. Its a lengthy watch, but he explains everything in great detail in the video.

 

Srces

 

[doubleagent214]

I'm 100% for this. Allow people to keep support going like City of Heroes and the old classic wow server before it was eaten by Blizzard 

[jaslion]

53 minutes ago, eric1830 said:

No matter how you look at it, this is such an obvious assault on consumer rights, and in any other industry, a company destroying what they sold you would be illegal.

A lot of industries have this as a standard that you simply just dont own what you buy at all.

 

You buy the right of use for the time you are allowed to use it by the company. Its all in the Eula. Super bullshit but if this goes anywhere I hope it snowballs into other industries. Going back to I buy it I own it.

[PocketNerd]

Private servers are what have kept a lot of old MMOs alive, you can't underestimate the passion of gamers for sure.

I'm all for this, its one thing to stop giving updates but another thing to shutdown servers to kill the means of playing a game your paid for.

[leadeater]

Won't work, nice ideal but that doesn't make policy makers and regulators care and it doesn't actually result in the majority of gamers not buying games to prove the point.

[SolarNova]

If a game has a dedicated enough fan base, even if most of game code is server side, the fans can rebuild it from scratch if they have to, to keep it alive.

 

An old example from a simpler time it may be, but. Westwood Studios Earth & Beyond was/is a space based MMO, a spiritual predecessor to Eve Online.

It like games like Blizzards WoW, and D3, had the vast majority of its game code server side, the client was non functional without it.

When EA (fk EA !) bought out Westwood studios, for the sole purpose of owning the C&C franchise, they immediately shutdown Earth & Beyond.

it took many ..MANY years, but a small dedicated group of fans rebuilt the game from scratch using what little info they could get there hands on, and now you can play the fully functional game online again.

 

It would have been nice if this wasnt necessary as the player base most likely would have been much bigger in the years following the official servers demise.

And while games that are good enough and popular enough can always be 'resurrected' with enough dedication from talented fans, forcing publishers to release the code neccesery to maintain private servers or otherwise allow client side solo play is a much desired and needed thing, im all for this.

[Beerzerker]

3 hours ago, eric1830 said:

Summary

Petitioning multiple governments around the globe to stop game companies from shutting down online functionality of videogames, without letting the consumers host private servers.

 

This used to be how many games were and I have a few capable of it.
Some older ones from about 2005 and earlier has this feature, I can name the original COD through COD2 at least and a really old one, Jane's WWII Fighters (Circa 1998) with this capability.
Load it up, let whomever else will be in know what the IP will be for you hosting the game and go for it.

With games around 2006 and later this began to die off because of Steam and Valve coming to be as online services, if you wanted to go online with your buds after that then it's login through either one and play while paying them to do the same thing you could have done yourself for free before.

In the case of something that's an MMO or just a really large game period, it makes sense to have a dedicated server so you don't have to pony up for all that in terms of hardware/local storage but they swept it all under the same "Pay-Rug" you play under these days. 

If there are any around these days still capable of it, I don't about them since I quit all that when Valve and Steam came around.