[takeabyte]

Consumer protection = Mandating publishers to tell which parts of the game are affected by service EOL and which aren't. The Crew was marketed as an MMO but it wouldn't have hurt if they made it explicitly clear that the whole game is unplayable after the servers are shut down.

Consumer dictatorship = Mandating publishers to handle their EOL procedure in a certain way.

There are untold amount of different ways to build a game. From individuals to gigantic teams. Some development studios don't have a lot of networking expertise but still add multiplayer to their games by using third-party tools that do a lot of the heavy lifting for them. Even kids are making networked games in Roblox. Some servers include simulation of the game world and having to release that to the open would make it easier to reverse-engineer the inner workings. A lot of old clients become a security liability over time as exploits are found. What about regularly updated games, that might have 200 different versions of itself over time? When is a game "dead"?

And even when server binaries are provided, it doesn't mean server operators necessarily play nice. Notch allowed third-party Minecraft servers to be monetized under certain, somewhat vague terms. Server operators went against the rules anyway and Mojang started to get angry calls from parents demanding reimbursement because their kids had gone on a shopping spree on a private server. Mojang clarifies the monetization rules and starts enforcing them. Server operators cry foul and start a smearing campaign on how Notch is killing Minecraft modding. Notch has had enough and sells Mojang to Microsoft.

I think from cultural preservation perspective this is an overreach. Or do we start demanding every "content creator" has to now figure out how to back up their streams in lossless format at original resolution on tape storage on their dime for the sake of cultural preservation? We would likely get a lot less "content creator content" on the internet after such a requirement. Just like we'd get less multiplayer games if something like this were to pass.