Prohibit publishers irrevocably disabling video games

it's aching to your local chipshop having a street fighter arcade machine.
you can buy access to play it at any time for free for £50 but they can swap it out for a new machine whenever they like and charge 50 again.


A stealthy subscription service, but they tell you that your buying a product.


Mps are all lobbied and paid for so don't expect anything to come of it.


It's like someone trying to get you to change laws that make your boss unhappy... #democracy
accept your boss is probably also your mate and went to your wedding.... and he's got a nice cushy job title for you in a few years, one that has no real work but a fat paycheque.

people don';t really think boris johnson was being paid 500k for speeches after he retired right? money owed....

who was it nick clegg with a cushy job at facebook etc... all in the trough
 
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isn't it too late. the government already responded.
that said I stuck my name down.
I get that games can fail and get turned off. it sucks. however I went to play destiny 2 after barely touching it after buying (like so many of my games) only to log in and not understand what was happening or why my game had disappeared.
I asked on the steam forum and got hounded at for being a troll. it turns out they had turned off most of the content but have since said they may re release it in the future (as paid content).
WTH? I can't see any excuse for disabling content I have paid for when the game is still being supported. it's indefensible imo .
 
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could fall under any right to repair, and ability to take backup / reasonable use same way converting dvds to other formats for personal use.

consider what/how that might effect online gams, so image there would be a clause, were appropriate/cost effective/doesnt impinge on company IP / bankruptcy

edit added : bankruptcy
 
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Not that I'm condoning piracy, but it certainly does give the:

"If buying isn't owning, piracy isn't stealing"

Argument a lot more weight.

While I'm not expecting companies to support online servers until the end of time, there should definitely be some protections in place for buyers, whether that's being forced to to display a "guaranteed online until <date>" prominently on any store page/packaging, or patch out the "always online" requirements or release a standalone local copy of the server or make the server code open source.
 
Haggisman said:
Not that I'm condoning piracy, but it certainly does give the:

"If buying isn't owning, piracy isn't stealing"

Argument a lot more weight.

While I'm not expecting companies to support online servers until the end of time, there should definitely be some protections in place for buyers, whether that's being forced to to display a "guaranteed online until <date>" prominently on any store page/packaging, or patch out the "always online" requirements or release a standalone local copy of the server or make the server code open source.
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it won't work for all games but a significant percentage could simply fall back to P2P and not rely on servers.
P2P may not be ideal, or as good as a proper server but if it's that or nothing I will take it and for games such as football games or fpsers with only a small (32) players it works just fine.

when Xbox live 1st started MS, love em or hate em insisted that ALL games had a P2P fallback for when the servers went dark. it meant games like ghostbusters and various other games still worked long after the same game on pc and Playstation lost multiplayer.
it also meant EA threw their toys out of their pram and dropped multiplayer full stop on a couple of Xbox games.
Not sure when MS dropped the requirement.
 
For technical and financial reasons I don't think forcing companies to open source or provide local or P2P support as a game approaches EOL would be viable but a "supported until x" date, which gets updated as the game does well, would be great to see.
The problem would be the first game to do that is either going to be praised or murdered. Big gamble for the company.
 
Blackstar_solar said:
For technical and financial reasons I don't think forcing companies to open source or provide local or P2P support as a game approaches EOL would be viable but a "supported until x" date, which gets updated as the game does well, would be great to see.
The problem would be the first game to do that is either going to be praised or murdered. Big gamble for the company.
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I don't think P2P should be added at end of life. where feasible I think it should be baked in as a fallback from inception. it is possible, as I said earlier it used to be the standard. IF there was the will to do it valve/epic could make it a prerequisite for listing on steam or EGS
obviously there would need to be exceptions for games that can't be done via P2P but other than MMOs it is doable.
it's just that games companies want to be able to turn off their multiplayer parts of their games.

games like FIFA 23 getting ready to shut down already highlights how bad things have gotten.

I bought SPARC a simple 2 player game and never got to play it. I think I put an HR into EVE Valkyrie (5 Vs 5 arena shooter iirc). they even turned off the single player part.

the whole not owning your game is something valve kept quiet about when pushing steam and I don't even want to think about digital store like Nintendo. They are worse.
 
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Blackstar_solar said:
For technical and financial reasons I don't think forcing companies to open source or provide local or P2P support as a game approaches EOL would be viable but a "supported until x" date, which gets updated as the game does well, would be great to see.
The problem would be the first game to do that is either going to be praised or murdered. Big gamble for the company.
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This basically.

The issue with open sourcing is not necessarily the game but having to open source underlying code which is likely to be carried forward to future games. Given how lots of games are based on 3rd party engines these days. Some/lots of it may not be their IP to open source.
 
b0rn2sk8 said:
This basically.

The issue with open sourcing is not necessarily the game but having to open source underlying code which is likely to be carried forward to future games. Given how lots of games are based on 3rd party engines these days. Some/lots of it may not be their IP to open source.
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I appreciate this but what I don't see people understanding is that it doesn't have to be all of it, it can just be the server side stuff that is being taken away.
 
But the same thing applies, it’s highly unlikely in 2025 a games company is building the server software from scratch, they’ll be licensing some existing code from someone else/parent company that’s used across a wide range of platforms and games.

They could released closed source server software but no one will be able to maintain it and it will eventually break or an exploit found anyway.

Just look at the issues rockstar had with relicensing music to remaster GTA - many rights holders refused despite agreeing to licence for the original game. There is no way a rights holders like that is going to accept open sourcing, not a chance in a month of Sundays.
 
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Haggisman said:
Not that I'm condoning piracy, but it certainly does give the:

"If buying isn't owning, piracy isn't stealing"

Argument a lot more weight.
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their argument then goes to : people are paying to rent our IP, assets, system mechanics/patent usage, for a period of time we spesify.

b0rn2sk8 said:
But the same thing applies, it’s highly unlikely in 2025 a games company is building the server software from scratch, they’ll be licensing some existing code from someone else/parent company that’s used across a wide range of platforms and games.

They could released closed source server software but no one will be able to maintain it and it will eventually break or an exploit found anyway.
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agreed. i gues an alternative would be documentation release and system diagrams with relavant address locations in games, port nubers and data storage and recovery info for data bases ec.
then some one can r-create a similar system from scratchs like planetside 1 / Supreme Commander Forged Allience Forever / earth and beyond / Echo Arena to name but a few.and the numerous other emulation servers.
at some point we might get to a point were a generic open source project can be plugged in to fairly easily with minimal effort
 
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LostCorpse said:
their argument then goes to : people are paying to rent our IP, assets, system mechanics/patent usage, for a period of time we spesify.
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The problem being the "we specify" part not being actually specified, but just "until we feel like it", a licence or rental agreement almost always comes with a term specified, with penalty/compensation clauses if that isn't adhered to. As it currently stands, a company could release a game and decide to turn off the servers a month later, and that would be perfectly "fine".

Even something as simple as a right to a full refund if the service is disabled within X months/years of purchase would be a perfectly reasonable solution IMO.
 
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Haggisman said:
The problem being the "we specify" part not being actually specified, but just "until we feel like it", a licence or rental agreement almost always comes with a term specified, with penalty/compensation clauses if that isn't adhered to. As it currently stands, a company could release a game and decide to turn off the servers a month later, and that would be perfectly "fine".

Even something as simple as a right to a full refund if the service is disabled within X months/years of purchase would be a perfectly reasonable solution IMO.
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Agreed.

Edit: it doesn’t seem like a big ask to guarantee a game will be fully available and functional for a period of at least 5 years plus two years from last sale date.

E.g. if a game is still on sale after 6 years, it must be fully available until at least year 8.
 
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It doesn't seem workable tbh - you can't force companies to spend money/resources keeping things running to protect their code base. Would be great however maybe going after the bigger game studios first using existing consumer laws would help?
 
swillsy said:
It doesn't seem workable tbh - you can't force companies to spend money/resources keeping things running to protect their code base.
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Yeah, the wording of the petition is a bit rubbish - I don't think anyone who is even remotely technical thinks that forcing perpetual support is a feasible solution - but there does need to be some middle ground to prevent the current status quo where a game you spent £30 on yesterday could be turned into a useless waste of disk space tomorrow.
 
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Well I've tried to sign it but then you get a page that says something along the lines of "your signature won't count until you click the link in the email" but they not sent me an email. Tried twice now, both times yesterday. Checked junk etc but no email
 
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