Summary
Publishers have been criticized in the past for removing purchased games from players' digital libraries. In most cases, these removals were for online games deemed “unplayable” since their servers shut down. But there’s a good reason players are up in arms after losing these games.
Defunct Games Can Live on Through Fan Efforts
After an online game’s servers close, the game is unplayable through normal means. While some games feature single-player campaigns or solo training modes, defunct games with a strict focus on online multiplayer don’t let you go any further than the main menu. It may seem like these games are worthless without official support, but some fans find ways to keep playing.
you may still enjoy the online multiplayer of many defunct games through private servers. These private servers are the only reason many shuttered games are still alive, many of which have thriving playerbases. Some unofficial servers will build upon the original game by restoring cut content and adding fan-made content updates. Online games preserved by unofficial servers include a wide variety ofMMOs, multiplayer shooters, mobile games, and social platforms like Sony’sPlayStation Homeand Disney’sClub Penguin.
While private servers exist for plenty of popular online games, creating an unofficial server for a defunct game is a complicated process that can take several months or even years to complete. Furthermore, some games can’t be restored through traditional methods. In most cases, defunct servers are restored by fans who access the original game’s server client or server code and modify it to run the game outside its original servers.
Alternatively, some online games are rebuilt from the ground up using data and assets recovered from the official release, though these projects can take years to reach a playable state.
Thanks to these fan servers, defunct online games can stay active at no additional cost to the original developers. However, players need to be able to retain ownership over these games to create these servers. While it makes sense for online-only games to be delisted from stores after their shutdown, publishers shouldn’t revoke defunct games from players' libraries.
Without the ability to own defunct games, reviving their online experiences will be significantly harder. Unfortunately, with digital-only releases becoming increasingly common formodern multiplayer games, many titles will be practically unsalvageable when their servers go offline.
Online Games Are Worth Preserving
There’s another reason why it’s important to keep these games active. Online games are notoriously difficult to preserve due to their limited lifespan, which is ultimately determined by whether the game is profitable. Massive successes likeWorld of Warcraft,Final Fantasy XIV, andTeam Fortress 2will likely remain online for decades to come, but the future is uncertain for most smaller titles. When these games shut down, there’s no other option to play them other than by using private servers.
Despite this, publishers have started revoking game licenses, ensuring thatfuture preservation efforts would be impossible. For games likeThe Crew, which kept its servers online for nearly 10 years until its shutdown in early 2024, players had plenty of time to archive assets and server code.
This not only enabled the creation of mods that allow players to enjoyThe Crewoffline but has also led to an ongoing effort to revive its online multiplayer. But games that met an early demise likeConcordlikely won’t ever make a return, at least not without their publishers reviving the game in some official capacity.
BothConcordandThe Crewat least receivedphysical releases, meaning hackers could potentially recover whatever data is stored on their discs. The same can’t be said for thousands of other online games that wereonly available digitallybefore their closure. Revoking these games from consumers doesn’t serve much purpose other than combating any future attempts at preserving these games. However, that may be the point of this practice.
Although private servers are essential for preserving online games, their legality has been a controversial topic. There’s nothing wrong with playing on a fan-made server, but creating one requires modifying and replicating parts of a game’s server code, which could be considered a violation of copyright law. On the other hand, gaming historians have argued that the additional work that goes into restoring online experiences qualifies these preservation efforts as being protected under “fair use” laws.
As reported byArs Technica, this copyright debate has been at the center of numerous conflicts between the Entertainment Software Association (ESA)—an organization that represents numerous major video game publishers—and gaming preservation groups like the Museum of Art and Digital Expansion (MADE).
In these legal battles, the ESA has expressed concerns about the possibility of these servers becoming publicly available rather than privately archived for strictly academic purposes. It also argued that these unofficial revivals would be competing with currently active online games or any future re-releases of the defunct titles, which may disincentivize players from supporting official releases.
The problem with this argument is that it ignores the reasons most online games are shuttered. Usually, a game’s servers are taken offline due to a low player count or a reliance on aging hardware. When these games are no longer profitable enough to justify the costs of maintenance, developers understandably pull the plug on their servers.
Publishers rarely return to their past failures, so official revivals of these abandoned games are unlikely to happen. Likewise, private servers are mainly created for the niche fanbases that still play these games, meaning they rarely attract new players (though there are exceptions).
Fan Revivals Inspire Franchise Resurrections
Perhaps the most overlooked aspect of unofficial revivals for online games is how it benefits both fans and publishers. Beyond resurrecting and preserving online games for players, these revival projects bring attention to lesser-known titles and indirectly help companies gauge the interest inreviving older games.
In some cases, unofficial revival projects have inspired publishers to bring their games back from the dead.Giganticwas a free-to-play multiplayer shooter that launched in 2017, butwent offline after less than a year. Despite its short lifespan, the game continued to attract new players after its closure through private servers.Gigantic’s renewed popularity eventually led to its official revival in 2024 with a paid version titledGigantic: Rampage Edition.
Similarly, the 2004 superhero-themed MMOCity of Heroes—which initially shut down in 2012—was revived through unofficial servers in 2019, with the most notable being a server titledHomecoming: City of Heroes. Although the original developers never returned toCity of Heroes, the game made an unconventional comeback in 2024, when the team behindHomecomingwas granted an official license to hostCity of Heroesfrom its publisher, NCSoft.
This practice doesn’t just apply to online games. Fan support is just as important for abandoned single-player series and can show developers that there’s a demand for the return of long-dormant franchises. TheSilent Hillfranchise had been on a steady decline for years until the release ofP.T.in 2014. The “playable teaser” hinted at a promising future for the series with a then-upcoming sequel titledSilent Hills. However, internal troubles at Konami led to the game’s cancelation andP.T.being delisted from the PlayStation store. After this controversy, the series went silent for many years.
Despite Konami’s attempts to scrub all traces ofP.T.from digital stores, fans kept the game alive through digital archives andunofficial remakes. Petitions to bring backP.T.and theSilent Hillseries as a whole persisted over the years. These efforts eventually paid off and led to an influx of newSilent Hillentries, such asSilent Hill: The Short Message, the upcomingSilent Hill F, andthe critically-acclaimed remake ofSilent Hill 2.
Gaming Revivals Are Good for Everyone
Online games and many single-player franchises will inevitably be abandoned, but there’s no reason to stop players from keeping these games alive. Fan-made revivals exist for small yet loyal fan bases that don’t want to say goodbye to their favorite online games. When these unofficial projects gain attention, both players and publishers benefit from the renewed interest and the opportunity to bring back old experiences through an official release.
For now, the arguments surroundingthe legality of game preservationwill continue to be a hurdle for private servers. But if publishers start to recognize the benefits of allowing these projects to thrive, they’ll hopefully become more open to the idea of letting fans keep their games alive.
