The largest campaign ever to stop publishers from destroying games?

I was looking for more options in the poll:
Maybe, if action is decided and acted upon (i.e. vote w your wallet AND let the publisher in question know why you're doing it). MEssage their support, email them, ,.. .

How about poll option three: I hope so, but am not optimistic.

Consumers from the US probably shouldn't even bother, but everyone else should definitely watch the video and if there's something you can do to support Ross and this quest of his, please do it. Especially if you're in France, the rest of the EU, and Australia. All we gotta do is catch a break with just one countries legal system and that could get the ball rolling on this.

"the largest campaign ever"

"one youtuber"

no chance this will ever happen - does this person take them to court for not doing so? lol

I believe it's not that easy to make offline patch for this one (they don't wanna waste money on programmers, which is odd, since they could sell offline version for lower price, same as other games), because they actually did it for HOMM 6 recently. Yes, it bugged as hell but works offline.

Even if it happens in one country, it doesn't mean it will affect companies. So they make a game to work after they shut down servers, and as the vid guy said "might as well do it globally". So a company has two choices: make the game keep working globally, or only in one or a few countries. They will choose mostly the 2nd option, because it wil lead to more game sales. It's like the light bulb 10,000 hours limit. Make the light bulb eventually fail and you'll keep selling more light bulbs.

Also, it has been happening because companies stop supporting games for new systems, same reason. Why spend money in making something work when they can get more sales? Some games have the luck of having a loyal community behind which make remakes or mods (without original copyrighted assets) so you can play old games. There's Dosbox and emulators.

But now think of this. Steam is a platform with a client that requires something higher than Windows 7 (not talking about Linux/MacOS, just Windows). Yet they keep selling games that only work with Windows 7 or lower. That's incompatible! Are you selling me a game that will not work out of the box? That I'll need to research, find and apply fixes? Not all users can do that. I remember refunding a game that included some DLCs but the game tried to download them from a server which doesn't exist anymore. Companies don't need to support a game forever, as things are now. But Steam stance with this is subject is borderline fraud. However, we agreed to Steam terms of service, which including making a portion of your library unplayable without a lot of work. However, they keep selling those games, and that irks me a lot.

I hope this will work. If it works in France it might extend to the whole EU as a directive (admittedly with many faults and holes, but EU has decent record on consumer protection). If more big countries follow (Japan and China, for example) then companies will take the first option from above. But for just a couple of countries? "Ok, we'll not sell the game in France and Vatican City."

Sadly, the game industry doesn't care about the consumer, only about money. And the saddest thing is that consumers aren't "voting with their wallets" on this. So I doubt this will change anything, but at least I opened my call there to show the insatisfaction with their business model. And I don't buy online-only games (sorry BattleBit Remastered).

Tried signing the UK petition, but it's now waiting to be "approved".

It's a great concept but braindead casuals who spend most of their time on their phones and kids whose parents buy them whatever they want throw more money at the gaming industry than "real" gamers. Look at what they call Final Fantasy now, that's unrecognizable from the first 9 games. Money talks as they say and developers are going to go where the money is and that's casual gaming and mutliplayer fps garbage. And they will cut every corner and rush things out the door as unfinished as possible with purchasable dlc that makes the game complete and playable if you are lucky. There's still some decent content coming out though.

I'm voting "No" because the option "I hope so" is not available.

Because I really hope so.

I own The Crew. I contacted ubisoft asking them kindly to fix the game. If you own that game or any of the games that they shat down, please, contact their support, ask them politely to fix the game. Don't mention servers, or shutdowns, just for a "fix" of the game that you own. Doesn't matter if it was a giveaway or you bought it. EU law is on your side. Use it. Don't let these corporate soulless fiends win this one.

I thought this was going to be about Adult Swim Games / Warner Bros.

I don't think it will change much because big companies only hear one thing: their shareholders selling shares and only care about one thing, money.
Once upon a time, negative press and campaigning might have had an impact on the first one but unfortunately nowadays shareholders only care about that if they think it might affect the profits, which it won't unless everyone stops buying games from companies like Ubisoft but let's be honest, it will never happen.

It is, however a good idea to try and raise concerns about how decisions like these might be against current consumer protection laws in Europe. I think the French justice system has bigger fish to fry but you never know.

Still, I give them props for trying and for being steadfast. Views don't mean much in the big scheme of things, and neither do retweets or likes but they are starting a conversation that need to happen so it's a step forward.

Thanks for making me aware of this campaign. I abhor DRM, just as much as software license revocation. They are both interlinked. Paying for a product that can be taken away from us, is more stealing than piracy. Yet it doesn't seem to be scrutinised enough.
Unfortunately the only way I see companies changing their policies, is a law made in EU to prohibit consumer games not functioning offline, along with losing the right to contest copyright on any community servers.

Players should get a quick education before starting their journeys not to ask their parents, or buy DRM games. Unless the game is a multiplayer game, which in that case it requires online to function (but still allowing the community to take over). Somebody should develop a quick start guide and spread it for the next generation.

Please stop giving money to unscrupulous companies. You don't have to play the latest game to have some fun. There are plenty of excellent offline games in the sea.

NATO vibe. No Action Talk Only.
The average customers don't care. See the yearly sports game (FIFA, Madden, NBA, FM)
I'm just waiting for the crash again.

If you like a got a lot. Acquire/Pirate a DRM free copy so you can play it forever.
Just be careful of virus. (use Sandbox like "Sandboxie-Plus" or a virtual machine to be safe)

It's the only way to be sure.

Next game to shut down will be THE DIVISION? its also on -85% right now.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365590

"AAA" game studios will never give you what you want because you do not matter, they are beholden to their shareholders and for the most part what the shareholders say goes. Unfortunately shareholders are the ones that are demanding things that bring in the most revenue like predatory microtransactions and loot boxes that the majority of players hate, but whales love. And when it's a company like EA or Ubisoft even making bad games doesn't matter because there are legions of fanboys who will buy anything they put out regardless of whether it's actually good or not.

Basically you can vote with your wallet all you want but unless an overwhelming majority of gamers follow suit it won't have any impact, and if it's a game with microtransactions/loot boxes you'll also have to convince the whales to stop spending but good luck with that. And relying on politicians to do something about it is a fool's errand because politicians are often shareholders and have a vested interest in keeping the status quo going.

If you want any say in the matter your only hope is stick with smaller studios or indie devs that actually listen to their playerbase and make what changes they can based on feedback.

Next time vote with your wallet, 2012 is calling you back. Developers and AAA studios did this because you as a customer enabled it to begin with, they're the symptom.

but here we are people buying games on masse day 1, so it's a never ending cycle where nothing will get fixed.