Stop Killing Games

Pokémon Go could never have been made if this was the law.

Why not? What is stopping someone, right now, from setting up a PoGo private server?

That seems an overstatement.

Adding a blurb about "guaranteed to continue working through yyyy/mm/dd" to its app store page would likely be sufficient to satisfy what this is asking for.

I don't know where you and other people in this thread are getting that idea from. That's not what the petition says, and that's definitely not what Ross Scott says in his videos.

The game that sparked this movement was shutdown 9 years after it came out, and had 3 months notice.

The game has millions of pokestops, gyms, and players. A game of this scale CAN'T run on one server.

Even if you could host it on just one or a few machines, if you sign up for one server and your buddy joins another, you can't do raids or anything together. And each of these player hosted servers has a player limit.

Anti-cheat that isn't being actively updated is next to useless. Community servers would be botted to hell.

The game requires a maps tile service. Expecting Niantic to provide map tiles for anyone to download is insane. They might not even own the rights to do that.

It's virtually impossible for Pokémon go to remain in a "reasonably playable state" after the servers shutdown.

Right the problem is that they didn't do that. 3 months notice isn't the same as "making it clear to the customer at purchase time how long this product might reasonably be supported"

I'd certainly encourage a more sustainable solution like a self runnable server, but I'd settle for replacing the word "buy" in marketing with "license" or "rent" with actual terms other than "until we decide to turn it off".

You don't get to make software a "license" but then not have any obligations to your licensee.

That might be "the problem" for you, but that's not the problem as far as stop killing games is concerned. This petition is asking for games to remain in a reasonable playable state after the servers shutdown. No if, ands, or buts. Adding a "playable through" disclaimer changes nothing as far as this movement is concerned.

I agree that clearer language about what you are actually "buying" would be good for consumers, but it's tangential to Stop Killing Games.

How is this problematic? New law impedes on previous practices and renders them unfeasible all the time.

In the specific case of Pokemon Go, and with end-of-life plans in mind, you could probably design the game around that expectation. GDPR has had similar consequences, at the very least.

Also, this text is not law. This will be negotiated and I doubt the gaming industry would leave the initiative as-is.