Stop Killing Games

I wholeheartedly agree with this. Add an expiration date on the "box" (I dunno what you call it in modern times):

"Online-only: This game will be playable until 2028-06-30"

This forces the publisher to put their money where their mouth is. If the game is successful, like WoW, by all means extend the time it's playable for. If it 'flops', you're on the hook to support it for 3 years, since you shouldn't be putting out made-to-fail slop.

Also, storefronts should have a button that says "Rent" or "Subscribe" instead of buy, if the EULA has clauses like "we have the right to remove access for 'any reason, or no reason'.

The word 'buy' implies some level of ownership (not to the rights to IP or anything, but at least to the product being purchased).

Yeah, this level of uncertainty is annoying. It gets extra annoying when we are talking about games like BF2 and the like, that have zero real reason to not have the ability to be played on lan or similar.

I think having expiration dates is very reasonable and I wish their FAQ would cover this. Current FAQ entries seem to suggest companies must make the games playable forever, and suggest this is somehow possible without ongoing support or divulging intellectual property. I am not sure this is always possible to satisfy in the most general sense.

https://www.stopkillinggames.com/faq

Or provide the server code for self-hosting[0]

[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/Battlefield/comments/1jxcaj3/battle...

Publishers could just put "Guaranteed playable until 2026-07-02", and then extend those games that are profitable.

You really need either a minimum term of support in law, or a requirement to publish a docker of the server into escrow, to be released if the company fails or decides to discontinue.

It isn't with the status quo, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't do it. The EU as a market has enough sway to solve every vendor insisting on restrictive licensing. And we'd only be talking about already sold copies anyway.

Yes, I suggest they divulge the intellectual property. Games are an art form similar to paintings or music, and we as a society should be able to experience previous art.

Keep the IP while you run the servers and sell the game, when you are no longer interested in running the servers, drop a tarball of code. It doesn’t need to be simple, it just needs to be possible and complete. The community can take care of it. If the IP is valuable, then you have your incentive to keep the game playable until it isn’t valuable to you.

> Publishers could just put "Guaranteed playable until 2026-07-02", and then extend those games that are profitable.

A one-day warranty would almost certainly run afoul of the EU's merchantability laws.

Edit: Misread the date (sorry, American here -- we write dates weird). However, the point still stands: selling a product to consumers involves some warranty of merchantability, and breaching that entitles consumers to refunds (and can even get the publisher in trouble with regulators).

I wouldn't be concerned with publishers going the "guaranteed playable until" route because there's already consumer protections that discourage this type of thing.

And CRA. I really doubt that one would be acceptable lifecycle.

An expiration date could be hard to estimate, but a minimum level of support based on sales might be worth thinking about.

As I understand it, that's not the main focus of this initiative though. It's mostly about opening up dead games for stuff like private servers, so we are not forced to lose access to all the art within when the developer pulls the plug.

It seems like a relatively small ask to at least _allow_ hardcore fans to keep something alive. I can imagine publishers that have a great connection with their community (like Coffeestain) actually benefitting from handling stuff like this in a decent way.

There can be a lot of interwoven licensing with games. fmod, speedtree, SDK terms, music... you can't just open source it in most cases and call it good.