The boss of digital PC storefront GOG has weighed in on the dialog round Anthem’s demise, saying that there could also be a future by which fewer video games might be developed and revealed if regulators demand that creators maintain them alive ceaselessly.
Chatting with Eurogamer on January 15 after Anthem was laid to relaxation, GOG’s managing director, Maciej Gołębiewski, stated it is good that the dialogue round sport preservation is occurring as soon as once more, however that the dialog will get a little bit tough when speaking about video games that have been designed as online-only experiences.
“There’s a broader dialogue available throughout the business of what does an end-of-life cycle seem like in games–what is a good end-of-life cycle for a sport?” he stated. “Ought to it simply be buried and killed and nobody can entry it any extra, and individuals who spent 5 or seven years engaged on it can not actually take a look at their creation any extra as a result of the service turned off? There’s a very attention-grabbing and really sophisticated dialogue that Cease Killing Video games most likely kick-started out of frustration.”
Referencing the lobbying group Cease Killing Video games, which was fashioned in April 2024 in response to The Crew’s delisting, Gołębiewski stated regulation seems like a good suggestion within the quick time period, however any statutes round sport preservation–particularly concerning live-service video games, which have gotten the norm these days–could probably have antagonistic results in the long run.
“We wish to make video games reside ceaselessly,” he stated. “On the similar time, if we put too many obstacles on sport creators and what the end-of-life cycle appears to be like like, we’d get fewer video games, as a result of individuals shall be frightened of, ‘Okay, now I must put up the funds to create it, advertise, after which repairs it for 10 years, 20 years, as a result of the regulator stated so.’ Which may in flip trigger there to be fewer cool video games for avid gamers. I haven’t got the right reply but, nevertheless it’s good that the dialogue is going down.”
As of January 12, developer BioWare’s pretty-cool-but-ill-fated Iron Man-esque action-RPG is now not playable. With Anthem being an online-only multiplayer sport, you may’t boot up and fly round on this planet of Coda now that writer EA has pulled the server’s plug. It is a bummer of a scenario, and a blatant reminder that no sport lasts ceaselessly, one thing GameSpot examined in a July 2025 function when Ubisoft took the web racer The Crew completely off the observe in March 2024.
Gołębiewski’s feedback come as Amazon introduced its 2021 MMORPG New World: Aeternum will get Thanos snapped from all platforms on January 31, 2027. And if I can get private for a second, this additional heightens my fears that Full Circle’s 2025 skating sim Skate might get pulled offline ceaselessly in some future as nicely. Skate continues to be doing comparatively well–with a consistent player count of approximately 3,500, in keeping with participant tracker SteamDB–but you may’t assist however surprise simply how lengthy till Digital Arts decides to hold the skateboard up.
In the long run, as Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot stated in a July 2025 shareholders assembly about The Crew: “You present a service, however nothing is written in stone, and sooner or later, the service could also be discontinued. Nothing is everlasting. Assist for all video games can not final ceaselessly.”