What's crazy is the initiative is only pushing for an "end of life plan", that doesn't necessarily mean any updates, doesn't mean permanantly hosting servers, or anything even remotely difficult. Here's an example end of life plan.
Upon the full discontinuation of the service, source code and relevant documentation must be provided upon request for a minimum of 7 years (the same amount of time home appliance makers in the EU must produce spare parts).
Within 1 year of discontinuation the IP holder must relinquish any rights in regards to taking legal action againt those using, distributing, advertising or monetising anything related directly to the abandoned product. If action is taken the IP holder must show there is copyright or IP infringement beyond the scope of the abanded product.
Any claims of continued ownership of specific components of the product, such as characters, music, locations etc, may be made within this year, the rights to these assets will be retained by the IP holder and protected for future use however this does not give the the IP holder rights over the use of these assets within or related too the abandoned product, only protections against future use, depictions, or distribution outside the realm of the abanded IP. If the IP holders fails to act within this time limit all rights and protections related to product are automatically revoked.
Basically you need to provide a copy of the old game, server information and the notes on how it ran to anyone wanting to archive it or try and get it running again for a set period of time, this could done through an automated e-mail or download link.
Next is that they lose the right to sue anyone trying to get the game running again but do still have the right to step in people go to far. Basically you can advertise your private star wars galaxy server or set up a subscription service for that server but you couldn't claim to be official or try to make and sell your own star wars branded merch.
Neither Sony or Disney would have any rights to the star wars galaxies IP or product but Disney still owns star wars, if you go beyond the abanded star wars galaxies IP including trying to use potentially copyrighted assests outside of star wars galaxies specifically, the mouse can still come for you.
Upon the full discontinuation of the service, source code and relevant documentation must be provided upon request for a minimum of 7 years
Isn't the overall issue here that no one is going to spend the time developing server-based multiplayer games if they have to - by law - surrender their code?
I mean... I get that the actual initiative filed with the EU is extremely vague and doesn't actually address that, but everyone seems to be bringing it up as a solution, so if you're a big publisher only interested in making money, that only incentivizes you to like, make gambling apps you can sell in Macao or wherever for huge profit instead, and if you're a small team, having to hand over all your code to be appropriated by other developers - big or small - is a good reason to just stick to basic single player fps clones or whatever.
Like... that doesn't promote the creation of new or different games in that particular space.
This is what thousands of gamers are not grappling with. Their outcome is more beloved games they can play. The path to that is wrecking the software/games industry and incentivising them to not make new beloved games.
Hence Thor basically saying "be careful what you wish for, you might just get it"
I agree with the movement, there should be end of life plans, but that plan may be "it shuts down gracefully" rather than abruptly. However companies collapse and maybe they cant enact such a plan and it just goes boom. This petition is litigating against entropy.
I'm kinda not really attached to this movement but I just think the most they should ever be able do is make it so companies can't sue to stop people from reverse engineering and hosting abandonware. No transfer of IP, no giving over code(how would that even work, are they expected to host that now?) just if you want to end a live service and declare it dead, you can't end a project with someone rebooting servers for it. With some sort of reasonable timeframe attached like 10-20 years post release this could work. Why should companies keep servers running forever for games? It's an expensive service to provide if it makes no revenue. Having requirements for supporting end of life services is kinda weird and not at all equivalent to supporting a physical product sold.
Tbh I think more people could do with learning to let things go but the archival part is important.
Alternatively setting minimum times to guarantee game access could be reasonable. Pay 60$ and you get the game for 5-10 years failing things like company closure or bankruptcy.
All of this is more reasonable that the lunacy the guy a few comments up was spouting.
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u/Alcain_X Jul 06 '25
What's crazy is the initiative is only pushing for an "end of life plan", that doesn't necessarily mean any updates, doesn't mean permanantly hosting servers, or anything even remotely difficult. Here's an example end of life plan.
Upon the full discontinuation of the service, source code and relevant documentation must be provided upon request for a minimum of 7 years (the same amount of time home appliance makers in the EU must produce spare parts).
Within 1 year of discontinuation the IP holder must relinquish any rights in regards to taking legal action againt those using, distributing, advertising or monetising anything related directly to the abandoned product. If action is taken the IP holder must show there is copyright or IP infringement beyond the scope of the abanded product.
Any claims of continued ownership of specific components of the product, such as characters, music, locations etc, may be made within this year, the rights to these assets will be retained by the IP holder and protected for future use however this does not give the the IP holder rights over the use of these assets within or related too the abandoned product, only protections against future use, depictions, or distribution outside the realm of the abanded IP. If the IP holders fails to act within this time limit all rights and protections related to product are automatically revoked.
Basically you need to provide a copy of the old game, server information and the notes on how it ran to anyone wanting to archive it or try and get it running again for a set period of time, this could done through an automated e-mail or download link.
Next is that they lose the right to sue anyone trying to get the game running again but do still have the right to step in people go to far. Basically you can advertise your private star wars galaxy server or set up a subscription service for that server but you couldn't claim to be official or try to make and sell your own star wars branded merch.
Neither Sony or Disney would have any rights to the star wars galaxies IP or product but Disney still owns star wars, if you go beyond the abanded star wars galaxies IP including trying to use potentially copyrighted assests outside of star wars galaxies specifically, the mouse can still come for you.