Back in April 2024, I wrote about the Stop Killing Games initiative from Ross at Accursed Farms. Now, it's heading to the European Union with a European Citizens' Initiative you can give you vote to.
Here is to hoping something will come out of it. Planned obsolescence is illegal for so much else, but somehow gaas get away with it.
Sure, they shouldn't need to actively support an eol game with servers and whatnot, that would be impossible in some circumstances. Is it too much to ask companies to have a plan to transition their games into a serverless state instead of letting yet another piece of culture die though? I don't think so.
When you bought e.g. half-life, it would come with the ability to run a server.
If a game needs a server, that functionality should be added into the game, not kept separate. I mean it might be a separate executable, but it should be part of the game "bundle" because the server is part of the game.
If we could run our own servers, we would. Publishers know that. Most of their money relies on predatory practices, including instilling a "fear of missing out." They know that artificial scarcity is profitable and they design games with that as a base.
They have gotten away with it bc corps have lobbied for DRM, etc and consistently met success. They just tie fears of piracy into this online only bs and get a pass.