As I get some time, I'd like to explore this issue as well, as it's very important to me too. The fact is that in many cases, people pay thousands of dollars over the course of years and sink thousands of hours into these games, yet we have less access and rights subsequent to a shutdown or other corporate maneuvers than for most sub-$20 bargain bin specials at your local GameStop.
I think this post brings up a larger point than you might have intended, considering that $20 bargain bins at a local GameStop are more and more likely to become a thing of the past, so the issue of a consumer's 'rights' (and let's be frank, these aren't merely 'gamers' rights, they're consumer's rights, I payed for CoH with my money and time, so I don't like being saddled with the bias that this is a 'children only concern' which seems pervasive when you label it only 'gamers' rights) in a digital landscape becomes more and more paramount to our ability to consume things in the way we want.
One counterargument I frequently see to the SaveCoH movement goes something like this: "You know that this game was going to shut down at some point, why are you acting all surprised and mad about it?" Or phrased another way, "Do you think you have the right to force a company like NCsoft to keep supporting a product that they no longer want to?"
This becomes increasingly, as I said before, the forefront of all gaming consumer's rights. It's easy for people who had no stake in CoH to not care about the who, when, how or why it was closed. They don't see the pattern that by siding with NCSoft they're basically opening themselves up to this abuse.
It won't be very long before stores like Blockbuster or GameStop are just gone. It won't be long before retailers like Wal-Mart will only carry hardware, if that. We are turning, through our inability, unwillingness or apathy towards shopping from living breathing human retailers, every game and genre into, effectively MMO models of business, that can be shut down at any moment.
This isn't a problem isolated to City of Heroes. This isn't even a problem isolated to 'gamers' as more and more of our products only work if hooked up to the internet. We're turning our
cars and
fridges into MMO by virtue of building and buying products that require remote authorization to even run (yes, there are many cars that can be remotely disabled). There will be a point where all customers will be at the mercy for strategic "realignments of corporate focus".
This will not remain a problem that only effects City of Heroes for every long. Is that to be our response to anything that we 'bought' that shuts down? If your car manufacturer wants you to purchase their new year model and decides it's not 'strategically profitable' any longer to keep the authentication server this year's model alive and 'realigns' their focus to next year's model, would we hear these same people saying "You know that this car was going to shut down at some point, why are you acting all surprised and mad about it?" or "Do you think you have the right to force a company like Toyoda to keep supporting a product that they no longer want to?". Should we? Where do we draw this line of 'tolerably' being screwed?
I find that many people draw that line merely at their personal investment and no farther. That somewhat angers me.
It's so easy to let this stuff slide here, and blame us, the players and consumers, for wanting the ability,
at bare minimal to buy our product for our personal private use. But I guarantee that if, say you, Tony V, started to distribute openly a 'Direct IP' or 'LAN' version of City of Heroes, you'd receive some pretty strongly worded letters to the opposite in at slowest a week.
The simple answer is yes and no. No, I don't necessarily think that NCsoft must keep City of Heroes servers running indefinitely. However, I do believe that companies should plan ahead for when a game is going to be sunset and make arrangements for it to either keep running after the sunset period or transfer it to someone who can do so. I'm imagining a scenario, for example, in which they basically give the game to Steam or gog.com or some service like that (perhaps multiple services, why not?), who can then charge a nominal fee to cover the cost of a VM somewhere run a single server instance so that people can keep playing. No new investments in development, basically no customer service ("My machine won't run the client!" "Noted.") except kicking the server once in a while if it crashes, etc. Just something to ensure that once someone has invested hundreds or thousands of dollars into a game, it won't just *poof!* be lost when they shut the servers off one day.
This has to be our at least bare minimal right as customers, or otherwise companies should stop forcing themselves into positions where they're relied on for the mere continued existence of their product. My PS2 games sure don't require their manufacturers to breathe to continue to run. Those manufacturers didn't force themselves into a position where that was the case. But everything I own on Steam, I'm pretty sure is going to vanish the moment Valve tires of Steam for any reason. Not only will I not be able to play most of the games on it anymore, especially multiplayer ones (most of them don't have a 'LAN' or 'Direct IP' component anymore), but I won't be able to install them anymore, because Steam as far as I know doesn't release ISOs I could burn to a DVD to preserve them beyond either their server cloud or my computer. So if the former goes up and the latter goes up, then the game's
gone. Single player or not.
That's why this goes way beyond City of Heroes, or even MMOs. If companies don't want to be relied on to continue the existence of things we bought, they should
at very least prepare to give the ability to make these games exist to us, the customer. That should be our
basic legal right, the acceptable floor for any provider of
any online service.
And they sure as heck shouldn't be announcing upgrades to a service they're about to pull the plug from tomorrow. How that isn't false advertisement, I have no idea.
My stock answer is that after enticing players to spend so much time and money on a game in a genre that's so conducive to that kind of investment, companies like NCsoft have a moral and ethical obligation to not leave players out in the cold like we have been. NCsoft has now done it five times. I wish I had spoken up earlier when they did it to other games, but I don't want to compound my silence then with apathy now. At some point, players have to make a stand and say, "This is not acceptable."
That's exactly why the people telling you to 'Shut up and get over it' are dooming themselves, too. They don't foresee this problem heading their way, and continue to buy things off of Steam and Origin and from Uplay. They still think that this hurricane will never reach them, so it's 'your' problem, and you're a baby for complaining about something they don't deal with.
But it's going to be their problem, so it frustrates me that they can't see that.
There's another thread around here that someone created regarding a Gamer's Bill of Rights. When I get time, I'll probably circle back and read it again and see if we can't get something moving on the idea. Nobody should have to go through this because some faceless corporation decides, "Yeah, we're done with that."
Like I said, this should be broader than just 'Gamer' rights. This is a problem that is going to and is already seeping into every product imaginable. There's a very real possibility that the very heater for the tap water in your house won't work in the winter because of an online service being shut off.
I know you've all heard this, but I must again fall back upon my "art" metaphor. If NCSoft bought the original of a classic work of American art, whether a Warhol, a Superman #1, whatever, charged admission to see it, then sold it off, they'd be in their rights. Destroying the work of art when they're done with it is not within their rights.
Or to use Misty's "condo" analogy, one does not have the right to casually bulldoze a listed building. (In the UK, a listed building is one of recognized historical or cultural significance.)
But who says that City of Heroes falls into such a category?
We say.
And if we don't have the right to say whether or not something like that does, effectively, who's saying that a 'listed' building has cultural or historical significance? It seems entirely arbitrary to point to a dilapidated building and be like "This has cultural significance because many hours of music and plays came from it", but then to look at a game and be like "Oh, that's just a waste of time.".
Oh, we knew what we were buying. We just had hoped that a profitable and beloved entertainment locale wherein we were still spending money would be kept open.
I am not justifying NCSoft's actions, here. I'm just saying that trying to paint the whole industry with a broad brush - to tarnish the game we purport to be wishing we could save with this tawdry metaphor - is a bad idea. NCSoft behaved poorly. Within their legal rights, but outside the bounds of common decency and sense. This left us - who did know what we were buying - shocked and dismayed that the business partner with whom we were working turned out to be an utter fool deliberately screwing up the calculations that enlightened self-interest says would have benefited us both.
I've found that when dealing with entities more concerned with profit than anything else, that the bounds of their common decency and sense is exactly where their legal obligations are, and no further.
If that makes me seem 'anti-capitalistic' or whatever, so be it. That's what happens in a system that uses the lowest common denominator in human motivation (greed) as its sole motivator. It's like powering a car with uranium; it might be effective but any system isn't tempered with protections and oversight but is built on something that dangerous, it's bound to explode over and over again.
Two people trying to go in as house mates to rent a domicile nicer than either could afford alone doesn't mean that either failed to know what they were buying when one of them suddenly decides he's NOT going to renew the lease and is instead going to live in a hotel despite it costing him more and being not really all that much nicer than the house. The other guy's left high and dry and scrambling to find someplace else to live since he can't get a new housemate for that place and still can't afford it alone. But he knew what he was buying; he just was counting on his house mate to act rationally.
Yeah, but what would we do other than introduce basic floors in contract law to prevent such things? Without building 'customer rights' or whatever.
It seems like people expecting us to just give up and be like "Oh well, I knew that the post 2004 future was all a scam, folly to me for living in it!" do nothing but make themselves perpetually screwed over for.. what? So that we can make NCSoft feel better about themselves?
I never understood this idea of siding with an entity clearly in the wrong because people are to unimaginative to envision a situation where they're not a disposable open wallet. NCSoft sure as heck didn't see themselves that way.
When people bash us for being upset that thousands of dollars of our own investment are just gone for, honestly no reason, they're basically saying "Grow up and accept that you're a disposable open wallet. Just lie back, close your eyes, and imagine something not terrible is happening, and try to enjoy the reaming".
Quite the opposite; the UN talks' purpose is to find newer and better ways to give international bureaucrats and autocrats the power to regulate the internet and its content and accessibility in nations they don't already control.
I don't find either are true or false, really. Google isn't some free speech and privacy champion. They love them the ability to squash free speech and to peer into your intimate life the minute they're in the reigns and making a buck off of it. This isn't Evil vs. Good. This is Terrible Idea Makers vs. Terrible Idea Makers and no matter who wins the internet loses.
