adminGame preservation is at the center of a growing debate about what should happen when online games reach the end of their commercial lives. GOG managing director Maciej Gołębiewski says requiring developers and publishers to keep every game online indefinitely could add significant costs—and might make companies less willing to fund new releases.
Image credit: GOG
Game preservation and the cost of keeping games online
In an interview with Eurogamer, Gołębiewski said the ongoing expense of maintaining a game could come on top of the substantial investment already needed to develop and market it. If companies also have to plan for years of server upkeep, that obligation could make it harder to secure funding for projects.
The concern is not that preservation lacks value. Rather, it is that a requirement to provide indefinite online access could have unintended consequences for the number of games that get made. Gołębiewski warned that studios might be more cautious if they had to budget for keeping each release running for 10 or 20 years.
Practical consideration: Online-only games depend on services and infrastructure that need continued support. When assessing preservation proposals, it helps to distinguish between maintaining a live service and providing another way to access a game after its servers close.
What should a game’s end-of-life plan include?
Gołębiewski described the question of a fair end-of-life cycle as a complicated industry-wide issue. When a service shuts down, players may lose access to a title, while the people who spent years creating it can no longer experience it in its original form.
The Stop Killing Games campaign has helped bring this issue into public discussion. It advocates for government action to discourage publishers and developers from taking games offline without a way for players to continue accessing them. The debate has gained attention as companies have shut down service-based titles, including Ubisoft’s The Crew.
There is no simple solution. Preservation can involve intellectual property and ownership questions, technical challenges, and whether ongoing support is commercially viable. Gołębiewski called it a complex problem and noted that preservation work also has to account for the costs involved.
- Ownership: Rights and permissions can affect what changes are possible when a service ends.
- Technology: Games may rely on online systems that require technical work to preserve or replace.
- Funding: Maintaining access takes resources, so any plan needs a practical way to cover its costs.
Recent shutdowns highlight the debate
The discussion followed EA’s decision to take its action RPG Anthem offline, almost seven years after its release. Its shutdown renewed questions about how long players should expect an online game to remain available and what alternatives, if any, should exist when support ends.
GOG, a PC game platform associated with game preservation, was recently acquired from CD Projekt by its original co-founder Michał Kiciński in a deal worth $25 million. The ownership change is separate from the wider policy debate, but it comes as the industry considers how to balance access to older games with the realities of running online services.
Finding a balance for game preservation
Game preservation involves more than keeping servers switched on: it also raises questions about access, rights, technical feasibility and who pays for long-term support. Gołębiewski’s warning is that rules requiring indefinite upkeep could make some projects harder to finance. A workable end-of-life approach will need to protect players’ ability to access games while accounting for the resources creators can realistically provide.
