this post was submitted on 22 May 2025
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The thing is when you created your account you agreed to the fact that it isn't your game. What you agreed to was a game that they own and control and you can participate in. You might not like the results when they close the game but you chose to start playing that game to begin with.
Yeah, but a contract that you cannot negotiate before signing isn't really a contract is it? It is a gate keeper. A gun to the head. An "agree to this or else". In the modern world, one can do essentially nothing without signing a EULA. Want to get a job without signing one? Good luck. Want to play a game? Not many of them. Want to shop online, look at art, communicate with friends and family. Many of the most integral parts of maintaining our mental health are being put behind abusive "contracts" that strip us of any rights we think we have. Community, leisure, socialization, entertainment, all of the primary avenues in the modern world have predominantly become privatized and every one of those comes at a pretty steep nonmonetary cost.
You are acting like an EULA is going to ruin your life. Restaurants have EULAs too, like requiring shirt and shoes. Its not some crazy concept that if you want to enter someone else's establishment (online game) they might have expectations on how you behave.
You can choose to accept their terms or not play the game.
You are not entitled to have everything on your terms.
You can also choose to call them out on having anti-consumer practices. You are entitled to criticize shitty business practices.
I wouldn’t call this a shitty business practice. You agreed to a game they own and control. You went into the game knowing this. If they are losing money on the game why should they lose more just to “preserve” the game after shutting down?
They don't have to. They can release the code and let people run their own servers once they're no longer interested in doing so. This costs them nothing.
Your last sentence is incredibly incorrect. Does exaggeration usually win you arguments where you are from?
You're damn right I don't like it, I especially don't like how it destroys art history, which is why I'm part of this campaign to make that practice illegal.
Its sort of like complaining your favorite pub got shut down though, isn't it?
People aren't used to this as a concept, especially when there are so many terms and conditions screens (that have been shown in multiple jurisdictions courts to not be legally binding) they click through on a daily basis as well as many other "as a service" models that are reliable enough that people don't realise what the pitfalls are (people playing for Netflix are fairly certain it won't close next week, for instance), even the more technically minded expect sunset clauses - which would be a pretty good legal baseline to improve the situation.
Or people are used to this concept and accept it normal instead of unethical behavior that should be illegal.
That's basically like saying g all mmo's should illegal. Or that it is illegal to go out of business and close up shop without giving away all your code.
That's pretty much exactly what I'm saying. If you offer software that requires outside servers to run, you should be legally obligated to release the code used to run the servers if you discontinue supporting that software. That doesn't make mmo's any different, just a minor change to how they handle end of life.
If you don't like how a company handles their end of life then don't buy from them. Trying to make it illegal is unnecessary as companies are already facing negative consequences for making poor EOL choices. I don't like forcing developers to create in a specific way, I'd rather they have freedom to choose.
Yes, you did agree to these terms. It’s usually in the first few paragraphs. Try looking them up sometimes and look for words like “limited” and “conditional”