Enforce that game developers provide a way for their releases to remain playable

6
signatures
rejected

Background

With ever-increasing reliance on the internet and externally-hosted servers, the government should ensure that consumers have access to the product they paid for. This could take the form of ensuring games have an offline mode, or the ability for users to host their own servers for example.

Additional details

There have been too many cases of online-only games shutting down with no way to access them in recent memory. Perhaps most notably, Sony shut down their large-budget game Concord just two weeks after launch, despite significant marketing efforts, but a largely unsuccessful launch. Ensuring that these games remain playable in some form will protect developers from wasting years on a project with no future and perhaps reduce redundancies in the industry too.

Source: UK Government & Parliament Petitions service. Petition ID: 703124.