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Comment by charcircuit

8 days ago

Stop killing games is not about forcing developers to perpetually sell games. They can still stop selling games. They just can't leave it in an unplayable state.

If developers want to get the rights to distribute a song for 5 years with their game, they can still do that.

No I’m talking about the distribution of games. With physical media that’s all fine because once the license expires they stop making new copies. People that own a copy are fine. With digital distribution once you’ve EOL’d a product you still need to make it available right? Otherwise how do people that have paid for it get it? But that means you can’t distribute elements you no longer have the license to.

  • With online distribution games can be made unavailable for purchase. You are not distributing it anymore. Only people that previously purchased can still download the game.

    There are multiple such cases in stores such as Steam or GoG. I own games that are not available for purchase anymore.

    Those games were not killed. I can still download and play them.

    • Offering the game for download but not sale is still distributing it and you’d still need licenses for all the content you’re distributing. In the cases you mention the games still hold the licenses which is common but not universal.

      11 replies →

  • Games already handled this today on Steam, Apple Store, Play Store, etc by taking down the store page preventing new copies from being sold. Users can still redownload it. That's how things work today, and is how they would still work if SKG gets what they want. This isn't a new problem and is already the industry standard for how expiring IP works for the digital distribution for games.