Itās important to remember that asking for a company to maintain a game forever is a ridiculous ask and few want that. I honestly feel that itās a strawman propagated by industry talking heads in support of their corporate headpatters.
What we really want, is exactly what Torc here has laid out. Ability to continue to play, even after the main company has decided to move on. There exists many possibilities to do this and the two I can think of will please both the capitalist leaning individuals AND those who lean more socialist and care more about the art being preserved.
The first option is to maintain rights to the property, but sell the rights to custodianship of the game to a third party. Give that third party a cut of further sales, so we could expect purchase prices to stay up a little but, but certain services stay available.
The second option is to just open up the game and allow for third party programs like Hamachi and Tunngle to pull the weight.
Both of these are ideal options, from my perspective. One creates a new market, new jobs, and new opportunities for growth and a new sector of the industry that need be filled. The other is tried and true.
However, no one in publishing wants to see this. They want their customers absolutely dependent on their matchmaking, their own servers, their own map pack updates, and their infrastructure simply because it keeps the audience captive.
Youāve all here seen their absolute worst nightmare and thatās Falcon 4. Iām honestly not the biggest fan of it. Iām firmly in the DCS camp. But, credit where it is due, Falcon 4 dropped in December of 1998. The people who played Falcon have kept it with them through marriages, divorces, promotions, graduations, even retirements. These people havenāt so much found their favorite game as theyāve found a game theyāve nested it in.
Thatās the challenge Microprose faces with Falcon 5, they need to try and convince Falcon 4 players to get out of that nest that they have had and maintained for, what will be, 30 years at that point.
This is why publishers HATE the idea of losing the ability to deepsix games after a few years, because they can essentially force their audience to move onto their next game and buy whatever pig-slop they offer up.
Publishers will look at Falcon 4 and feel disgust. They donāt want gamers to find something they are content with. Not just like, but content. They donāt want you to put down stakes. I hear it said often by a number of would-be gaming news talking heads that āSo and So publisher wants this series to become a Call of Duty.ā
Hardly, they want things to become more like a Madden or a FIFA. They want you constantly feeling the need to buy the next game, the next year, without question and for the development going into that game to be much more streamlined.
That is what they want to maintain, they want to be able to yoink away your ability to play when it comes time to try and put out the new iteration, regardless of its quality.
Sure, thereās concerns for games like War Thunder in this regard, as well, but hereās my question to that:
Why should I care? Why should I, a customer, care? That is not my wheelhouse. I already feel that games like War Thunder are exploitative as hell, so Iām going to be more cavalier about it, but frankly? If you canāt run a business in a manner that meets the absolute MINIMUM expectations of ethical behavior we have as customers? That business has no right to exist. And, given that Gaijin has made their game engine open source, I get the feeling they actually wouldnāt have any issues with adapting.
After all, if Jagex can keep Runescape running as a free to play game since 2001 and Everquest is still around since 1999? I think F2P developers like Gaijin are not only capable, but very able to adapt.
