That publishers shut down the servers of multiplayer games after a certain period is no longer uncommon. A petition across the EU now aims to combat this practice. It hopes to initiate a law that secures games from being permanently discontinued.
What is this petition? On the YouTube channel of Accursed Farms, Ross calls for mobilizing one million EU citizens. He has reportedly been working on a campaign for months to prevent the destruction of video games:
Many games would stop support after some time, which would signify the end for the respective video game. Although the video game would have already been sold and the money taken, the customer would no longer have access to the product.
The petition he started therefore demands the following from the publisher:
- The video game should be in a playable state once work on the game is stopped.
- The video games should be designed in such a way that they can function independently of the publisher even after the end of support, without the need for a connection to the publisher or other parties.
- The same should apply to games that include microtransactions.
This way, the publisher could comfortably stop support without annoying customers. He would still retain his intellectual property and would not even have to provide servers. Instead, he would need to find another way to make the game accessible or allow the creation of private servers.
Battlefield 2042 could potentially be affected at some point:
Petition could actually become law
Why could this become a law? The creator of the petition is confident that his proposal could become a law. Because as soon as 1 million signatures from EU citizens are collected, the EU must discuss the proposal as a potential draft law.
The following points would suggest that the proposal could indeed become law:
- Politicians would not be interested in video games and would love easy gains.
- The legal situation regarding this is currently unclear.
- The initiative would correspond to consumer policy.
- It would stand out from more serious topics.
However: For each EU country, a specific number of signatures must be reached; otherwise, the entire country will not count. Additionally, the petition has a time limit of one year.
If you are a citizen in the EU and have reached voting age, you can support the petition at the following link.
Why does the petition exist at all? It often happens that publishers shut down the servers for certain games, rendering them unable to connect to the internet. This happened with Dragon Quest 7, for example, resulting in some DLC content becoming inaccessible.
Such a practice is also not uncommon with EA, as reported by our colleagues at GameStar. Last year, many multiplayer titles, such as FIFA, Battlefield, or Crysis 3, had their servers shut down.
Some players have managed to temporarily save an MMORPG. The community tried to donate money and subscribe to ensure the development team has enough resources to continue developing the title. However, the money donation unfortunately cannot prevent an ultimate end, which is why the petition would be a ray of hope: Steam: Players temporarily save an MMORPG that was about to be shut down: “Can retrieve team members”
