Ubisoft has commented on the Stop Killing Games movement which has been making the rounds recently. It used to be thought that if you had the physical copy of a video game, you could theoretically play it whenever you want, for however long you wanted. However, that’s not even true anymore. Some games make you download some or even all of the game from the internet and other games just cease to exist and become completely unplayable after a while. Sometimes this makes sense if it’s a PvP game where you need other players to play and people stop playing it, but other times, it feels like a whole game just evaporates right in front of your eyes.
Videos by ComicBook.com
The Stop Killing Games movement is a petition that was launched in the EU to try and introduce a law that would obligate game publishers to figure out an end of life plan for online games. For instance, Ubisoft’s racing game The Crew was rendered unplayable after they shut off the servers despite the fact the bulk of the game is playable by yourself. However, it had an always online functionality that prevents players from ever playing it again. This theoretical law would ask developers to figure out a way to make sure the games remain playable in some capacity after the servers are shut down. This wouldn’t apply to games like Concord, a PvP shooter where the core of the game is playing with others. It’s more for games that could be played offline.
Minecraft creator Notch has offered support for the Stop Killing Games cause, even arguing that “pirating” a game can’t be pirating if players don’t have any form of actual ownership over them. It’s been a hot button issue for gamers and now Ubisoft, one of the companies at the center of this whole thing especially following the news of a new Ghost Recon game, has been confronted about it, according to a meeting attended by Game File. CEO Yves Guillemot spoke about the Stop Killing Games petition and noted that they try to warn players that their games may eventually be discontinued.
“Regarding the petition, we operate in a market. And, whenever we release a game, we provide a lot of support for that game. We also provide a lot of services to make sure that the game is accessible and remains playable 24/7. So, we provide information regarding the game and how long the game can be played. And players and buyers are forewarned that eventually the game may be discontinued.”
Guillemot even spoke about The Crew specifically, noting that they offered the sequel for $1 as a way of somewhat making up for the controversy and would make the game playable offline in the future.
“So this is an issue that we’ve been dealing with,” he said. “But this kind of issue is not specific to Ubisoft. All video game publishers are faced with that issue. You provide a service, but nothing is written in stone and at some point the service may be discontinued. Nothing is eternal. And we are doing our best to make sure that things go well for all players and buyers, because obviously support for all games cannot last forever. But that’s an issue that we’re working on. That’s something that the industry at large is working on, to minimize impact on players. But clearly that’s something you need to factor in.
“The lifespan of a piece of software, whenever there’s a service component, eventually services may be discontinued, because eventually the software may become obsolete over time. A lot of tools become obsolete 10 or 15 years down the line. They’re no longer available. And that is why we release a new version. And so we have version two and then version three. But clearly this is a far-reaching issue, and we are working on it.”
The petition has technically met the number of signatures that it needs, but the cause has asked for more support in order to off-set any potential signatures that wouldn’t be valid (such as non-EU residents or people signing multiple times). As of right now, we’ll just have to wait and see how it all unfolds.
