The government will not protect your access to live service games

February 6, 2025 | Game

An attempt to protect players from the sudden discoveries of publishers – or “sunset” – live service games failed this week after the government said that there was “no plan to modify British consumer law on disabling video games”.

A petition that had adopted the threshold of 10,000 signatures for a parliamentary discussion was placed before the government, but the Department of Culture, the Media and Sport said that even if it recognizes the concerns of the players, it would not modify the existing laws surrounding the digital obsolescence of so early.

The players’ call was to ban publishers from “irrevocably the video games they have already sold”, arguing that the games designed so that they cannot be played at some point in the choice of the company in planned obsolescence.

It came from the back of complaints concerning titles like the Ubisoft open world racing game The crewwhich was made unplayable when its servers were released in April 2024. A similar spell potentially awaits games as important as Gran Turismo 7which offers a very limited offline gameplay.

The players rightly believe that a game they paid up to £ 60 – or potentially soon up to £ 80 – to operate in perpetuity. This was always the case with the 2000s and before games, because the absence of online services meant that the disc had to work outside the box, and always do it in the future.

But the advent of generalized broadband connections meant that for the 2010s, the developers joined online services so closely at the games than without internet connection, they would offer much fewer features – or none.

And this is not limited to online game modes. Gran Turismo 7 And the recent interactive IO Hitman The titles are both examples of excellent solo games overwhelmed by a requirement still online. When their servers are finally put out of service, players will have access to a very limited experience.

Although the maintenance of living online services forever is clearly unrealistic from the financial point of view, developers should plan in advance to avoid screwing their users when closed. I think my position is common sense:

• Solo games should never require online connectivity
• As far as possible, multiplayer games should make the content available offline – for example, allow players to take solo cooperative missions
• Before “SunSing”, developers must publish code to allow players to run their own private servers and continue to play if they wish

What if developers and publishers are not just playing? Well, of course, your best use as a responsible player is to stop buying their products.