In the world of video games, dying doesn't necessarily mean death, thanks to extra lives.
Now, players across the country are coming together to demand the same thing about the games they bought and paid to play, about to be killed off before their due date by a greedy industry.
Role-playing gamers are returning to the real world, joining fans of sim, strategy, survival, sports and fighting games, as well as first-person shooters, and have turned to the government, launching a new petition demanding that “video game publishers keep their games for sale in working condition.”
If 100,000 signatures are collected, the petition will be considered for consideration in parliament.
Avid gamer Euan Brook explains why the government needs to intervene:
“More than 25,000 people have signed a petition to Congress asking video game publishers to keep the games they sell in working order.”
This may sound like a given, because when you buy something, you expect it to work and to continue to work for as long as possible. However, gamers have had no choice but to watch in horror as games they enjoy are removed, without complaint, by their respective companies. Once the games are removed, there is no legal recourse to play them.
In the early days of gaming, games were sold and shared through external sources such as floppy disks, cartridges, and CDs. When you bought a physical copy, the entire game was saved there, and unless your dog ate it, it stayed with you for life.
There is currently a market where working copies of old GameCube and PlayStation games are sold as collector's items.
The advent of a more accessible Internet has pushed the gaming industry to distribute games through digital downloads.
This allows players to play with each other online, saving on manufacturing and distribution costs, as games like Fortnite, Minecraft, and Roblox are all primarily purchased over the Internet and played over an Internet connection.
This accessibility has made the games industry one of the most profitable and successful in the world – nearly twice the value of the film and music industries combined – but it has also had some well-known, sinister consequences beyond the games industry.
Last May, TV fans were shocked by the news that Willow, the sequel to the 1988 fantasy film starring Warwick Davis, would be removed from the Disney+ streaming service. The show is his Disney+ exclusive and has no physical media release, making it unwatchable in any legal capacity. The show has since been removed from the service and appears to have been removed for good.
In April 2024, game developer Ubisoft shut down its video game The Crew, a large-scale racing game that recreated a scaled-down version of the entire United States. One of the fun things about this game is that you can drive around the country as his one big interconnected space.
However, Ubisoft has since released The Crew 2, and it's clear that if you want to continue playing The Crew, you'll need to buy the sequel. The Crew itself will no longer be playable, even for gamers who have purchased it.
This is why a new petition asks Congress that “publishers must leave video games (and related game assets/features) sold to customers at end of support in a reasonably working condition and ensure that there is no further intervention.” This is why we are calling for the consideration and discussion of a law that requires the government to do the same. Required for the game to function. ”
One argument is that since these are typically online-only games, it's inevitable that the companies running the games will have to shut down their central servers. The exception is local area networks (LANs), which allow players to set up their own local servers for games, which have existed long before international online gaming, and popular games such as Quake, Starcraft, and Unreal Championship all It can still be played decades after its original release and continues to this day. . These days, Minecraft takes advantage of his LAN access.
The problem is if gaming companies don't make this LAN system an option, gamers will be forced to only play on central servers, effectively giving them a death sentence for future games.
In a world where we mourn the loss of countless movies and TV shows, including lost episodes of Doctor Who and silent-era movies, it's hard for a game company to be so deliberately anti-artistic. is noteworthy.
Observant gamers could only watch as works of art were thrown into the bonfire over and over again with naive laments from gaming media.
The government initially responded to the petition after it gathered 10,000 signatures, saying many of gamers' concerns were covered by the Consumer Rights Act 2015.
“The Government is aware of the concerns recently raised by video game users regarding the long-term usability of the products they purchase. Companies should be aware that there is no requirement to force support for older versions of software or connectivity products based on the high running costs of maintaining older servers for video games that have a declining user base. may also make commercial decisions.
“However, video game sellers must comply with existing consumer law, including the Consumer Rights Act 2015 (CRA) and the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 (CPR).”
But the Petitions Committee, a group of MPs who oversee the petition system, felt the government's comments did not directly respond to the petition's requirements and called for it to be tried again.
The petition, launched by YouTube video game critic Ross Scott, is an attempt by British gamers to stop this anti-consumer practice.
In 2019, Scott released a video entitled “Games As A Service Is Fraud” in which he discussed the practice of “killing games” after purchase and how it could be a fraudulent act by a company. We analyzed that there is.
In response to the announced closure of The Crew, Scott launched a campaign to take legal action against Ubisoft as well as political action against the act itself.
The lawsuits are primarily being fought in France, but also in other countries with stronger consumer rights laws.
Scott clarified that the campaign is not asking companies to run servers in perpetuity, but simply providing a means to keep games running after a server shutdown, and that this does not affect free-to-play games.
This campaign is specifically against companies taking money from customers and destroying their products after purchase.
The goal of the UK petition is to make politicians aware of the issue and have it debated in parliament once it reaches 100,000 signatures.
Changing laws to address the shutdown issue in just one country with the highest gaming consumption could have far-reaching implications for game preservation and online-only practices around the world.
As our world becomes increasingly cloud-based, it is essential that the law understands and protects our culture.
This is an ongoing problem that has plagued the gaming industry for years, and is sure to be even more devastating in the future, unlike AI, where technology is constantly changing and legislators have to keep up.
