Remember The Crew? It was an open-world racing game developed by Ubisoft and released in 2014. It was rendered completely unplayable earlier this year, and players lost all progress in the game. This isn't something that should happen, yet Ubisoft was under no obligation to keep the game going and, instead of putting in the minimum effort to allow the game to be playable offline, they just shut it down for everyone.
Well, we now have a way to fix that. On July 31st, 2024, a petition went live that would allow the EU to pass a law that would force publishers, in the event they want to stop supporting an online game, to make sure the game is in a playable state. What that means is up to the publishers themselves, and it doesn't affect the development of the game itself.
In order for the campaign to be successful, it needs to meet two criteria:
- Gather 1.000.000 signatures.
- Have at least 7 countries go over a specific threshold.
- This is a minimum number of signatures a country needs to gather for them to be considered eligible (so if they don't pass that threshold, the signatures don't count).
- The threshold varies by country, you can check what it is on an interactive map from the link below.
So, what can you do? If you're an EU citizen (and of legal voting age), go to the petition's official page and press the "Support this initiative" button (this link). You'll need to complete a form that asks for an identification number (varies by country), your name, a captcha, and two tick boxes. That's it! Be careful when completing this form, any wrong information would invalidate the result and you can't complete it again.
If you're not an EU citizen? Spread the word. And that goes for those in the above category as well. The more people know about this, the better.
We have until the July 31st, 2025 to get all the signatures, so there's plenty of time, but let's not rest on our laurels. If you want more information, visit the Stop Killing Games website or watch the video below. Let's improve the games industry just a bit!
Comments
When Polyphony Digital stopped supporting Gran Turismo Sport, they kept the game available because it still has a single-player campaign mode and they enabled offline saving when they did this so that people could still play it as a traditional Gran Turismo game from way back when.
I've always respected Polyphony Digital as a company, and after reading this, I respect them even more.
Firstly, don't get me wrong because what i would say might be misunderstood but i'm like you too.
I feel bad for us really because we need to respect or even promote companies/people because they do what they should. I mean, what Polyphony Digital did is what it had been needed to do already and we feel like they are doing great job. "Show people worse, they will think avarage is great" kind of thing.
Game ownership laws needs some tinkering for this in my opinion. Well, we all are agreeing these terms while buying and creating accounts for these companies without reading them most of the time and when we buy copies, we don't take possession of that copy most of the time, we are paying for the services and most people thinks that they are paying for the product.
Actually, paying for game services is almost same for paying for meal from a restaurant but isn't treated like it. you mostly pay for services and how they harmonized the ingredients to make the meal but in the end, restaurant can't make you that you can't eat it the product. Games should be treated like meals and at least the copy which we bought must be preserved at least playable after companies shut the online service servers.
I know that servers cost money etc. but if a company stops supporting a game, they already taking the decision of not caring of piracy of the game anymore and they should make games compatible with offline use.
It becomes even more complicated with intracompany/extracompany agreements with how Microsoft or steam forces game studios for listed games to get some periodic updates, i can see that but something really needs to be done for this ever-growing industry with decillions of games. I agree that we are paying for the services but i want to play the game i was paid for even after 20 years has passed and no more supported and even it is not supported for more modern operating systems anymore. There will be always some fan groups for oldest games which has the capability to make it available for newer operating systems but it is another deal-breaker for companies probably because they always want us to consume "newer" stuff.
Online services and frequent updates are not just for technological advancement or making products better or preventing piracy, we are not blind and I don't think capital world governments will do exact stuff that we demand.