All that OP said was that every game should have a plan for offline operation after the eventual server closure. The fact that private servers exists for a pletora of games is already proof enough that any “online-only” game *can* have an offline mode. The fact that random users do it on their free-time without any profit involved also shows that preservation of those games is possible without a penny from the original companies,but the point is they not only don’t plan ahead, they also go after said fan projects as if it really harm anyone.

In the ideal future, all games would have a planned offline mode in mind since the start, only released when the server ends. But if this is something impossible for a particular studio, then at least leave alones the fans who are making the impossible happen. They aren’t using your IP in a bad way, they are showing how valuable said IP is, to the point of making this herculean task.

This isn’t Mr. Monopoly EA/Ubislop man coming out and saying players don’t know what they want. These are the people with perhaps the most incentive to keep their art alive *as much consistent with their vision as possible* saying why it’s difficult for them to do and what compromises have to be made. So to have laypeople coming in and insisting they know better without any basis for it is laughable.

So to be clear, in your mind, it is better for gamers if they never get the games they and millions of others like, and enjoy their time with it for the period in which it is available, than if the game is available for them to enjoy and interpret before it is closed down?

Game “preservation” (ironically since you seem content to kill live service games categorically) is indeed not a new drive. The industry itself, all things equal, is filled to the brim with people who want it. But the same people also want to create new experiences and put their stories out there, and dedicated servers solve a wide array of security, economy, performance and stability problems. So having laypeople insist repeatedly that they’ll just find the magic button if they think about it really hard earlier to make it all work isn’t helpful, and is the exact same kind of childish nihilism that made SKG lose in the EU. Nothing will get done if this is the sentiment that reigns supreme over this movement.

Don’t blame the developers, blame the PUBLISHER. Developers don’t make that choice.

These types of things are forced in by investors and the publisher itself in AAA studios.

But yes, the simple solution is just don’t force in singleplayer experiences.

And no – it’s not super complicated. I work as an indie, and in the past – I created a type of Interfaced FileSystem which worked both online and offline ( it behaved like a REST API, and simply emulated requests offline when writing and reading locally – requiring “default” values during read), and it worked.

Anyone who claims that “making a single player game offline only is not possible” is not only lying – but also pretend games 20-30 years ago didn’t exist.

So don’t make the online-only game in the first place. Simple as that. Every game like this should have to account for the eventual server shutdown as part of its planning, development, and budgeting. Sure, sure, easy for me to say, but all of these games completely disappearing and all of our save data being taken away or deleted is a huge problem that multiple groups are aiming to tackle now. Stop Killing Games didn’t spring up from a fringe belief.

Also saying things are difficult without having such options built from the start is basically making excuses. It’s the whole reason why Stop Killing Games is helping enacting laws in the first place in the EU and US.