It’s amazing what a difference a little bit of time can make: Two years after kicking off what looked to be a long-shot campaign to push back on the practice of shutting down server-dependent videogames once they’re no longer profitable, Stop Killing Games founder Ross Scott and organizer Moritz Katzner appeared in front of the European Parliament to present their case—and it seemed to go very well.
Digital Fairness Act: https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/better-regulation/have-your-say/initiatives/14622-Digital-Fairness-Act/F33096034_en
Chipotle isn’t closing though. They still want to sell you games. Just new ones.
Yes
No. Why do I know this? Because it was the norm until way into the 2000s for games to just have a server browser and people running their own servers. That only changed when publishers increasingly wanted to keep players inside their own infrastructure to better sell them microtransactions and subscriptions. Without those, the one time cost of creating standalone server code for a release to the users is easily offset by not having to run your own servers for the game.
There are a number of different possible architectures for online features. Games don’t have to be designed in a way that makes it difficult to release server code after EOL. And if they still are after this regulation passes, the studios and publishers only have themselves to blame.
Which is why it’s a flawed analogy, because this is not about prices. It’s about what you as a customer get to do with the product you bought after you bought it. And it’s about if it’s ok to even design a product in a way where those rights can’t be guaranteed.