Games Are Not Remote-Controlled Rentals
Vikki Blake, writing at Eurogamer, on California’s Protect Our Games Act passing the State Assembly floor vote:
The bill has now moved onto the California State Senate, where it’ll need wider public support to progress. If it moves into law, it will “require video game companies to give players advance notice before shutting down server-dependent games and provide a way to keep purchased games playable afterward, such as offline access, community servers, or another workable option”.
This is the right fight.
The industry line is predictable: old games are complicated, servers cost money, licenses expire, technology moves on. All true. None of it answers the actual question.
If a publisher sells a game, takes the money, and later flips a switch that turns the product into landfill, that was not a sale. It was a remote-controlled rental dressed up as ownership.
Nobody serious is asking Ubisoft or EA to run matchmaking servers until the sun burns out. The demand is simpler and more damning: when support ends, do not intentionally destroy the thing customers bought.
Offline mode. Community servers. A final patch. Pick one. The burden should be on the company that designed the dependency, not the customer who paid for the game.