A little over a year ago we discussed YouTuber Ross Scott’s attempt to build political action around video game preservation. Scott started a campaign and site called Stop Killing Games when …
require devs to develop a form of their game’s source that would be publicly releasable
That’s not a requirement or even expectation. The petition just requests that the game be reasonably playable after support ends, and only for people who bought it. That’s it. That could mean:
release the server binaries so they can be self hosted
bake server logic into client and allow P2P play
for some games, merely remove the server requirement and allow single player
Or whatever other option the studio prefers. The only expectation is that the game is still playable in some meaningful fashion after support ends. How they achieve that is up to them.
For all of these options, they don’t need to:
release source code
give up any IP rights
allow anyone who hasn’t bought the game to play
The petition is intentionally vague on solutions to give publishers and studios as much choice in how they comply as possible.
That’s not a requirement or even expectation. The petition just requests that the game be reasonably playable after support ends, and only for people who bought it. That’s it. That could mean:
Or whatever other option the studio prefers. The only expectation is that the game is still playable in some meaningful fashion after support ends. How they achieve that is up to them.
For all of these options, they don’t need to:
The petition is intentionally vague on solutions to give publishers and studios as much choice in how they comply as possible.