Ross Scott, operator of the YouTube channel Accursed Farms, has launched an online campaign (the Campaign) advocating against the video game industry practice of game publishers ending technical support for video games, which renders the games unplayable. According to Mr. Scott, the Campaign is in response to video game publisher Ubisoft’s decision to decommission The Crew, an online-only video game initially released in 2014.
What Is the Campaign About?
The video game industry has gradually shifted away from selling physical copies of video games to a digital business model in which games are purchased online and playable through online servers operated by the video game’s publisher. The move to publisher-supported servers has enhanced the consumer experience in many ways—publishers can seamlessly update existing games and provide accessibility through multiple devices (e.g., console, PC, smartphones, etc.), and smaller publishers can release new games without spending resources on physical distribution. However, a video game that is run on a publisher-supported server becomes unplayable if the server is no longer maintained.
In March 2024, Ubisoft announced that it would shut down its servers for The Crew, citing server infrastructure and licensing constraints as reasons for decommissioning the video game. The Crew was originally released in 2014 and had a reported player base of 12 million, though it is unknown how many of these players were active at the time of Ubisoft’s announcement.
In a video posted to his Accursed Farms YouTube channel, Mr. Scott argues that the intentional decommissioning of a video game by a publisher is analogous to a seller of physical property destroying such property following its purchase by a consumer. Mr. Scott also applies this concept to purchases of in-game virtual items (e.g., new characters, accessories, etc.) following the initial purchase of the game itself, as such items are rendered unusable once a game is decommissioned.
Although a sale of a video game generally constitutes a revocable license from a game publisher to a consumer, a legal gray area may exist in countries where national consumer protection laws take precedence over license agreements. That being said, existing consumer protection laws were enacted with physical products in mind and do not necessarily contemplate a seller’s destruction of digital products following the point of purchase.
The Campaign initiated its efforts in France, where Ubisoft is located and where consumer protection laws are relatively robust. Since then, the Campaign has expanded to other countries, petitioning governments in an effort to create legislation prohibiting video game publishers from rendering games inoperable. The Campaign seeks laws requiring publishers to make the modifications necessary for a game to be run on third-party servers without continuing support from the game’s publisher.1
Why Is the Campaign Important?
If the Campaign or similar initiatives lead to the creation of new laws, video game publishers may be subject to increased scrutiny and heightened risks of litigation when they decommission video games. This development illustrates the importance of game publishers retaining legal counsel who can provide timely advice on navigating consumer protection laws and other relevant legal doctrines in contract law, such as the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing.
This issue could also have implications beyond the gaming industry, as the prevalence of digital products in industries such as education and medicine may raise similar questions around consumer protection with respects to preserving the operability of such products far into the future.
[1] Before publisher-sponsored servers became the industry standard, many online multiplayer games were hosted on private consumer servers, which connected directly with each other to enable gameplay.
