A petition to the European Union has been created calling for legislation stipulating that video game developers and publishers must leave games in "playable states" once they've been sold to the consumer. This would make it illegal for developers to make their live-service titles inaccessible after release.
"Specifically, the initiative seeks to prevent the remote disabling of video games by the publishers, before providing reasonable means to continue functioning of said video games without the involvement from the side of the publisher," the petition reads.
The petition isn't asking for indefinite support for every live-service title, likely an unreasonable request. Rather, they're asking regulators to force publishers and developers to provide communities with the means of accessing and playing a game they've paid for, even once 'official' support has ended.
This might involve giving communities the means to host private servers or a similar mechanism. The petition stresses that they don't expect publishers or developers to "provide resources" for the discontinued video game, just that they leave it "in a reasonably functional (playable) state."
There are several European Union laws invoked by petition. Article 17 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU states "No one may...
