Current Events > Stop Killing Games is a new campaign to stop developers making games unplayable

(+) Yeah! (+)

We've all been there right? You paid for a game, it required an active internet connection and a couple of years later the publisher decided they're done with it and shut it down leaving you with a broken game. Annoying.

Very annoying. It repeatedly happens, mostly AAA publishers that do it and their games are often quite expensive too. One of the most recent is The Crew from Ubisoft, a game that until late December last year cost 25.99. The developers at Ubisoft Ivory Tower announced on December 14th that as of March 31st, 2024 the servers would be shut down and so it will no longer be playable for anyone. The Crew 2 is still online, and Ubisoft are about to launch The Crew Motorfest on Steam on April 18th.

So now YouTuber Ross Scott of Accursed Farms, has launched the Stop Killing Games campaign to try and better highlight the issue. As noted on the campaign website: "An increasing number of videogames are sold as goods, but designed to be completely unplayable for everyone as soon as support ends. The legality of this practice is untested worldwide, and many governments do not have clear laws regarding these actions. It is our goal to have authorities examine this behavior and hopefully end it, as it is an assault on both consumer rights and preservation of media. We are pursuing this in two ways:"

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=w70Xc9CStoE

It's definitely an interesting and often frustrating issue, especially for games that could seemingly continue to let you play offline without too much trouble. It's a complicated issue though, and the campaign might not end up going anywhere, but it's certainly going to be interesting to watch.

Unquestionably a campaign I can get behind though, because I've said for years it's a really poor situation for consumers to have your purchase suddenly stop working forever that you've not just put money into but often a ton of your time. It's a question of preservation too, the games are just gone. I miss the days where you could just host your own server.

What are your thoughts?

They have a point. I understand if the game is meant for online play. Like an mmo. But shutting down a single player game is not ok

How about just... dont buy those games. they're only going to improve when the numbers show what they're currently doing isnt working

1. "Just stop hundreds of millions of people worldwide from buying all mainstream games ever released ever." is impossible and you know it.
2. That still wouldn't solve the fact this is unsettled law (At least outside the US) and would just kick the can down the road. A big part of the goal here is just to make a clear distinction for consumers.
3. If no one bought games like The Crew then Ubisoft would just stop making them. They wouldn't go "Hmm, sales are low. So let's not kill this one" they'd kill it even faster

I'm not optimistic at all but it's a nice thought.

This is dumb for a couple of reasons.

1. "Just stop hundreds of millions of people worldwide from buying all mainstream games ever released ever." is impossible and you know it.
2. That still wouldn't solve the fact this is unsettled law (At least outside the US) and would just kick the can down the road. A big part of the goal here is just to make a clear distinction for consumers.
3. If no one bought games like The Crew then Ubisoft would just stop making them. They wouldn't go "Hmm, sales are low. So let's not kill this one" they'd kill it even faster
People don't want to make Ubisoft or EA suffer (Well at least Ross doesn't) he just doesn't want these games to go away forever when there is 0 need to. Publishers "stopping support" used to mean "Now it has be on a private server." now it means "Now the game no longer exists, fuck you. Hope you liked our false advertising bitch."

You're just being too lazy to think critically solely so you can judge people.

Completely misguided when 9 out of 10 times it's the publisher dictating the arbitrary short release dates and monetized implementations, not the actual game developer.

They have a point. I understand if the game is meant for online play. Like an mmo. But shutting down a single player game is not ok

Most games don't require an active Internet connection.

What a non sequitur.

What does that have to do with anything?

This topic is about games that require an active Internet connection to work.

Ah, that's the thing, it's not.

Ah, that's the thing, it's not.

Would there be any reason to shut down a single player game?

That's all I buy. Some games have an online mode sure, but I don't see why they'd ever have to end the single player modes.

It says it in the second sentence of the OP.

Well it wasn't a good game, but the Avengers game on playstation and Xbox (and maybe steam as well) had a single player story mode. But they ended up shutting down everything, and delisting the game for purchase, and then several months later even if you had bought the game, it became unable to be played

This is dumb for a couple of reasons.

1. "Just stop hundreds of millions of people worldwide from buying all mainstream games ever released ever." is impossible and you know it.
2. That still wouldn't solve the fact this is unsettled law (At least outside the US) and would just kick the can down the road. A big part of the goal here is just to make a clear distinction for consumers.
3. If no one bought games like The Crew then Ubisoft would just stop making them. They wouldn't go "Hmm, sales are low. So let's not kill this one" they'd kill it even faster
People don't want to make Ubisoft or EA suffer (Well at least Ross doesn't) he just doesn't want these games to go away forever when there is 0 need to. Publishers "stopping support" used to mean "Now it has be on a private server." now it means "Now the game no longer exists, fuck you. Hope you liked our false advertising bitch."

You're just being too lazy to think critically solely so you can judge people.

Im always reminded of how much shit I got when the 3ds and Wii shop closed down and I moaned about it on here. Glad people have seen sense finally.

That's a tad different. If you bought a game on there (and maybe, if you still have it downloaded? Not sure if Nintendo still allows redownloading old purchases) you can still play it. You just can't purchase any new ones.

I feel this is an issue that has a lot of underlying case by case nuances they aren't factoring into consideration (licensing, whether or not the game truly does need a server component for computation or data streaming, how feasible it would be to remove the online requirements, etc.) but good on them for shining a light on it.

Thats because in most cases any defense for the developers/publishers given online is going to be seen as shilling/boot licking so its best to consider any potential reasons to be unjustified.

It is difficult to have a western dev piss in your mouth everytime you open it for and still believe that maybe THIS is the time they won't piss in it.

And yet that still doesnt negate that reason for things exists. Like there is only so much money that can be constantly thrown at older projects and still be justified.

If a game is online only, it should be legally mandatory to publicly release the server source code upon end of services.

See my free and easy solution:

Not really a good solution considering there are probably factors into why that isnt the case (biggest being potential security risks associated with doing that)

What security risks? The servers have already been shut down. What are you going to hack?

And yet that still doesnt negate that reason for things exists. Like there is only so much money that can be constantly thrown at older projects and still be justified.

People accounts? Since you would still need to have some connection to the servers?

They have a point. I understand if the game is meant for online play. Like an mmo. But shutting down a single player game is not ok

Would there be any reason to shut down a single player game?

Even killing MMOs kinda sucks
So much work but into these games that are just gone forever

Lots of mobile/gacha games that are like 99% single player but still require active connections and get shut down. I'd love to play Terra Battle again, but that game is gone now

I think about Star Ocean Ananmesis every single day of my life and I will never not be mad about it. I will tell my alien grandkids on my deathbed about one of the most fucked up events of human history, SOA's closing, with nothing but hate in my eyes.

How about just... dont buy those games. they're only going to improve when the numbers show what they're currently doing isnt working

If they designed a game that needs to connect to their servers to play single player knowing full well it is going to be a literal brick for anyone that bought it in few years then yea I really don't have much sympathy.

Yet those arent the only games impacted by this and you damn well know this.