News of game servers closing down are becoming increasingly common. There is no month where two or three do not happen, not counting those that are not even announced, closing them without prior notice. Until now, it has been accepted that it was a natural condition of the life of video games. When they are games with any kind of online feature, after a few years, developers close them because there are no longer enough people playing to justify keeping them.
However, this doesn’t have to be the case. Video games are not just consumer goods and it would be logical for them to remain alive over time for those who continue to be interested in them. Even for those who discover them later than their original release. This is something that a group of players has also thought about.
A man named Ross Scott, who has a channel called Accursed Farms, has posted a 31-minute video on his channel explaining his idea for a campaign against the closure of video game servers. His idea is that, if enough people pressurize, they could make a radical change in how these situations are addressed, by forcing governments to legislate on abandoned video game servers. Specifically, the game he has chosen to start his plan with is one that no one would have expected: The Crew.
The Crew is a car game by Ubisoft, which included role-playing elements in a persistent world of urban racing. Although it was not a great critical success, it achieved a relatively high level of popularity, leading to two expansion packs, as well as two sequels, the latest of which was released on September 14th.
Now the question is, why choose The Crew over any other game? Ross Scott has said that this is mainly due to two reasons: that its server shutdown was planned for April 1st, and the fact that it is a game that cannot be played offline. In other words, once The Crew servers cease to exist, it will literally be a dead game. A game that is impossible to play. Something that, even if Scott did not choose this game specifically because it is from Ubisoft, has a lot to do with the fact that it is.
Ubisoft has had a particularly unpleasant controversy this year, when their subscriptions director, Phillip Tremblay, made some statements that did not sit well. Stating that players should get used to not owning their games, he compared the world of video games to that of movies and music. That the natural progression is towards streaming and digital downloads, and that game ownership should not be something that prevents or slows down this transition.
This is something to be expected from a subscriptions director, but it is also expected that they are aware of how they will alienate the audience. Something that led to a tremendous backlash against Ubisoft, which now also faces a coordinated movement against the closure of one of its games’ servers.
The way to achieve this is through two initiatives. The first one is through The Crew. Taking advantage of the closure of its servers, if you own the game, you must contact Ubisoft and explain to them that you consider this to be a form of planned obsolescence, and include evidence that you own the game. The other one depends on your location in the world. If you are in the USA, Canada, or Australia, you should contact the relevant authorities of the country about this situation. If you are in a country belonging to the European Union, wait for the opening of the European Citizens’ Initiative in which they will request that game servers cannot be shut down, and sign it.
All of this is explained in detail on the website that Scott has opened to coordinate his efforts, named Stop Killing Games. A place you should visit if you want to know all the details of how you can join the movement that is trying to take off.
All of this has a clear purpose, and that is for Stop Killing Games to achieve legislation that ensures four rights for players when games are abandoned. That they remain in a functional state. That they do not require connection to the publisher’s or associated parties’ server. That it also applies to games that have sold microtransactions. And that all of the above cannot be replaced through the end user license agreement. An ambitious purpose, but certainly not impossible.
If Scott and Stop Killing Games will be able to stop companies from killing their games, it’s still up in the air. But it’s clear that it’s something that won’t stop happening if we don’t do something about it. And maybe now is the time to do it.
