The owners of the rights to the old multiplayer games resist the attempts of enthusiasts to revive them

The fact that there are a lot of modern games does not mean at all that fans of video or console games refuse old titles. Not at all, gaming nostalgia is getting stronger every year. After all, this is why game consoles, which copy the appearance and, in fact, the games of the first consoles, such as NES and SNES Mini, are becoming popular and expected.

Relatively recently, a group of retro game enthusiasts appeared who decided to restore the old online gaming servers so that gamers can play retro multiplayer games. Although it is difficult to expect that all this can attract millions of players, the developers of the titles in question are opposed to this initiative.

The discussion went so far that even the regulator intervened - the US Copyright Office. Actually, enthusiasts have few chances to win the rights holders - it is likely that nothing will simply work out, because the right holders are now on a horse, so to speak. By tracking the arguments of the parties in this dispute, one can understand how complicated the situation with rights in the world of games is. Actually, it is strange that copyright holders complain about enthusiasts. After all, their work, in fact - free advertising games, which brings a good effect. In most countries, legislation is generally not able to solve this problem, which is not surprising.

It all started in 2015, when the United States decided to give relief to those who wanted (for gaming or research purposes) to restore the network server of the old game, to which anyone could connect. Unfortunately, the validity of the permit was limited in time.

Who are these enthusiasts? In the United States there is a very large organization that deals with the issue of preserving old games for future generations. This organization is called the Museum of Art and Digital Entertainment (MADE), and it can be considered a real museum. According to the organization, restoring servers and testing them at work is an excellent advertisement for old games that few people play. If the game development company decides to disable the game server, then the problem can be solved later by launching the custom server, which is what the MADE representatives do (and not only they).

We are talking about games with multiplayer, for which there are no working servers, and therefore there is no possibility to play. Such games after turning off servers turn into “digital dust” and do not represent any value. But digital copies of many of them are stored in museums, archives, libraries, etc. However, as an artifact of the past, they become useless. Future generations simply will not be able to understand what that or other masterpiece of the game world was.

Of course, for most games there are a lot of text reviews on the network, or (if lucky) there is a video gameplay. In some cases, the passage of the old game was shot on an analog camera, laying out the digitized video much later - when the Internet became popular. According to MADE, only the text or video is not enough to get full information about the game. For this you need to play to get an objective view of all this. After all, a game is, above all, a product of its era, with all its cultural, political, spiritual, and other symbols. Games are a whole cultural layer that can be of exceptional value for future generations.



In order to be able to play any of the titles, it is not enough just to connect the server hardware to the network. We also need specialized server software for a particular game. And here there are difficulties: in order to create updated software, adapting it with modern realities, it is necessary to study the source code or the already compiled server software of the old game. It is clear that since all old games are protected by patents and licenses, an attempt to raise the server carries with it the risk of violating anti-piracy laws. Here we are talking about a direct violation of the spirit and letter of the Copyright Act in the digital age ( DMCA ). In other words, such actions are always associated with the violation of the law, for which the artist will not be stroked on the head in any country.

But even if this problem did not exist, another will arise. The fact is that most of the code of the server part of the game is usually not laid out in the public domain. What if I want to bring the game back to life? It is necessary either to get the source code in any way, or to write the server part from scratch, guided by our own knowledge and guesses and the principle of functioning of this or that game.

But the gaming companies association, which calls itself the Entertainment Software Association (ESA), has a fair amount of skepticism about this idea. According to the ESA (not to be confused with the European Space Agency), the “game archaeologists” have so far not provided substantial evidence of their point of view.

Moreover, according to the same organization, “digital archaeologists” can go much further than just saving games. We are talking about the "danger" that historians of the game world can decide to open access to the restored servers for all comers. And then the developers will already be very unhappy, because their intellectual property is used without any profit for the developer. According to the ESA, hardly anyone wants to spend hundreds of working hours in order to restore the performance of the game, to which no one can access.


Screenshot of the once popular game Habitat company LucasArts

“The proposal to restore the server part of the online game has a background - and this desire to give everyone access to this game. Naturally, if someone who plans to restore the game does this, he may want to show the work of his hands to other users, ”the statement says.

Well, if a fully working online game with a server part will work in some kind of game museum, then it is clear that the organizers of this museum will also have a desire to show the game, which has already become history, to the whole world. In principle, the logic in these words is, because not so long ago the restoration of the server part of the MMO Habitat still led to the fact that the game became accessible to all. True, this work was carried out with the permission and full approval of the copyright holder.

According to "digital archaeologists", the anti-piracy law should have exceptions. For example, to allow digging into the old code with the ability to use some of its pieces to restore server games to work should be allowed to enthusiasts. MADE has assistants in different countries who, not particularly interested in the financial side of the project, help for free. This help includes the study of old code and the creation of emulators, written already on modern software. Moreover, these emulators can run old games without any problems.

But the ESA and other similar organizations are very concerned about the issue that has already been mentioned above. Namely - the ability to gain access to old games by ordinary users from around the world, and not just the "keepers" of the museum. According to representatives of the ESA, all this does not have and cannot have a legislative basis. Right holders believe that if this proposal is accepted, then those companies and their assistants who are engaged in "digital archeology" will want to involve gamers in the cause. Well, this will be a direct violation of the law for a large number of reasons mentioned above. Those games that have not yet been restored by the efforts of the copyright owners, according to the ESA, and should not be restored by anyone. For some reason, representatives of this organization believe that due to the actions of enthusiasts, companies are suffering losses, at least in the form of lost profits.

In MADE, it is quite logical to object that if the game does not have a market, then there is no need to talk about lost profits - the game is played by those single gamers who care about it. Worst of all, the creators of the original game do not always have any legal weight in disputes of this type. After all, the rights to the game may belong not to its creator, but to the company that bought the title many years ago. Interestingly, some of the creators of the old games have nothing against the fact that their development was restored and saw the light again. An example is Star Wars Battlefrornt 2 and yet a positive decision from Blizzard regarding the restoration of the original version of World of Warcraft.

But why copyright holders are trying to resist the initiative of enthusiasts in fact? At least because many gaming companies continue to earn on the nostalgia of gamers of the old school. That is why consoles such as NES MINI and SNES MINI are now popular. By the way, the review of both was published on Geektimes.

ESA justifies its position by the fact that, for example, in the cinema there are also a huge number of films that few people watch. Nevertheless, “no one has an idea to take and start distributing copies of TV shows or films twenty years old, or to start showing them on any self-made channel,” as suggested by digital archaeologists.

In addition, the organization believes that if an old game is launched at the time of release of a novelty made by the same developer as the old-school title, this may affect the popularity of the new product, and consequently, the financial sales figures: “If access to the old multiplayer the game will be restored, many players will prefer the old title to the new one, and the latter will decrease sales. ” On the other hand, this somehow weakly correlates with the statement that most of the old games do not and cannot have their own market.

Nevertheless, it is strange to hear this in light of the fact that there are a huge number of game consoles in the world capable of working with old games, or emulators that allow you to play almost all old titles, even with network functions. But it seems that the copyright owners have their own point of view, which they intend to adhere to by all means.

Now it is difficult to say whose point of view will be victorious, but if we take into account the latest trends in the world of copyright, then we must think that “digital archaeologists” do not have much chance of success. Companies that own the copyright to the game are not at all eager (there are, however, exceptions to the rules, some of which were presented above) to restore the performance of their old games and get an army of fans, "risen from the ashes." All this threatens the world of new games and profits that have become truly space.

So far, the discussion has continued, and a new circle of public hearings will soon be held in the United States, as well as comments from all those interested in this topic are collected. In general, all is not lost, so it is worth waiting for the end of the whole process. Perhaps a miracle will happen, and old games with network functions will become available.