Publishers who sell games that later become unavailable and unplayable will not be caught.

There was a petition calling for the laws to be changed to prevent developers and publishers from creating games that are then taken offline. It was just over a year ago that the government responded to the Stop Killing Games campaign: the aim then was to ensure that games sold digitally did not become completely unavailable (such as the first part of The Crew) once a player had bought them. At the time, the government said that the country’s laws did not require game developers to support legacy software, but the petition was closed early due to the election.

Another petition was created, this time asking the government to update the Consumer Protection Law to prohibit publishers from blocking video games that have already been sold without giving customers the right to keep or repair them. According to the petition, most video games sold are indefinitely functional, but some have design elements that render the product inoperable at a time controlled by the publisher. This is considered a form of digital obsolescence, according to the petition. The petition, created by Lewis Evans, has been running for six months and has more than 13,000 signatures. The government will respond to anything that gets more than 10,000 signatures. The long response letter mostly repeats the previous government’s position. While it acknowledges the concerns raised by gamers about the functionality of the products they buy, it also states that there are no plans to change consumer protection legislation on digital obsolescence.

The government says that toy sellers must comply with existing consumer protection laws, which include the Consumer Rights Act 2015 (CRA) and the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 (CPR). The CRA requires a trader’s product or service to be of sufficient quality, fit for purpose and as described by the trader (this includes digital products). The CPR requires consumer information to be clear and accurate and prohibits misleading information that would cause the average consumer to make a different choice. According to the government, nowhere in this legislation is there a standard requirement for software publishers to support older versions of their products, and companies may make decisions based on the high running costs of maintaining older servers for games with a declining user base.

Is the complete withdrawal of support for a game a withdrawal of support for an older version of the product? Is a developer violating the law if he discontinues a game when the consumer thought the game would run forever? According to the government, there may be cases where a game should remain available in some form. If consumers are led to believe that a game will remain playable indefinitely on certain systems despite the end of physical support, the general rules may require that the game remain technically playable (for example, available offline) in those circumstances. There is one example of this: Warner’s MultiVersus.

The UK government will not change existing consumer protection laws because it believes that sufficient protection already exists. It says that if a consumer feels that they have been misled into believing that a live game will last longer than it does, they can take the matter up with the relevant authorities, in this case Trading Standards or the Competition and Markets Authority. It also suggests that such cases should be reported to the Citizens Advice helpline, which can assist with such complaints.

So the situation is not all rosy.

Source: PCGamer