How Stop Killing Games Ups the Ante in the Fight for Video Game Preservation

ign.com:

Last December, Ubisoft announced it was delisting its MMO racing game The Crew from all digital storefronts but shutting down the servers on March 31, 2024. Weeks after the servers were slated to shut down, Ubisoft began notifying players who owned a copy of The Crew that it was removing it from their Ubisoft accounts.

Though Ubisoft is not the first company to shut down servers for an online-only game, the recent closure of The Crew’s online servers has inspired one individual to push for legal and government intervention to address the ever-growing industry trend. It's a trend that has sparked even debate in the industry after Microsoft announced the closure of Arkane Studios, the developer behind Redfall. This decision has led to the cancellation of future updates and planned DLC for this online-only game.

Although Redfall's servers are still operational, its long-term support remains uncertain, as it remains to be seen how long Microsoft will keep the servers up and whether or not it will provide an offline mode once it finally sunsets its support for Redfall.

Aside from the obvious fact that it means that players who spent money on this game feel cheated, there are plenty of stakes for the hundreds of people who poured their creative energy into bringing it to market in the first place. Shutting down and delisting a game becomes more than a surface-level decision; it’s stripping away the creative work of the thousands, possibly millions, of people who played or developed it.

Enter Stop Killing Games.

An initiative created by YouTuber Ross Scott, Stop Killing Games aims to hold publishers accountable by ending the common practice of making games designed to be “completely unplayable” after support ends, particularly MMOs and other online-only games. The initiative itself is a new branch in an even bigger fight to preserve video games for future generations.

Scott’s strategy is simple: file public complaints. Lots of them. After Ubisoft shut down the servers for The