[db48x]

> Stripping out all the [critical] proprietary components would leave the game in a non-functional state.

Correct. This is why I said that there would be multiple responses depending on the type of component. Many proprietary components are not critical and could easily be stripped out without harming the End–of–life version of the game, like matchmaking. But obviously that still leaves the critical ones. For those the game developer would obviously have to avoid any license agreement that would be unduly burdensome once the game was in the EOL state. Either there are already components without these onerous license terms, the existing components will be relicensed, new ones will be written and made available under less onerous licensing terms, or developers will just write their own. The market will provide.

> So the solution is to just stop developing multiplayer games?

No, not to stop developing multiplayer games but to stop putting networked components into single–player games. Remember that this all started with The Crew, which was purely a single–player game that was killed precisely because it nevertheless wouldn’t run if no server was available. If you don’t choose to make that design decision in the first place then this law has no effect on you at all. Your game is automatically safe from being killed when you stop selling it. You won’t have to do anything extra at all for players to keep playing it as long as they want to.