This should be illegal, companies should be forced to open-source games (or at least provide the code to people who bought it) if they decide to discontinue it, so people can preserve it on their own.
I appreciate the sentiment around preservation, but there's an argument to be made that if you make something, you should get to decide if you want to destroy it. Banksy did something like this recently by destroying one of his pieces of art when it went up for auction.
@Kushan so you're saying they should be able to take your money and then destroy what you bought with out any sort of warning or compensation right? I strongly disagree with you if that's what you're saying.
No no, not at all - I agree with you, if you sell something to someone you shouldn't be able to just take it back arbitrarily.
However, OP is talking about forcing companies to open source something they created - and while I love open source and am a big supporter of it, I don't think that's necessarily right either.
I don't believe in that at all, human lives and the feelings associated with them are finite, the appreciation of art lasts as long as the canvas does which can be hundreds to thousands of years depending on what it is. The feelings they feel as the artist aren't significant on that time-frame and whatever respect I have for them is irrelevant in that context. I believe in preservation even against the will of creators because it benefits future generations, for the same reason historical knowledge does and their feelings today do not.
People have told me I'd feel different if it was my art but not really (I find that argument incredibly presumptuous and condescending which is why I'm acknowledging them here before anyone has the chance to make them as some kind of comeback), I recognize the value of art and the fact that just like these other artists I won't be around forever either.
I agree with your sentiment that a creator should have control over their work. However. I do feel that an art piece which can only exist in one form is different from commercial mass media. Mainly because you start getting in to an "original vs a copy" territory. While I believe an owner of something should have control over copyrights...once someone legally owns a "copy" of something that copy should be theirs since the owner made the mass media thing for the public to consume I believe the public should, at some point, have a say in the future trajectory of the product, after all it is still the public who "decide" if a product is good and will be remembered, and they even "decide" the value of the product as well.
Art is usually only made for a select few to own...it is "artisanal"...meanwhile video games are made for a much larger group...
The Banksy example is also bad because they didn't take anything away from anyone, just sold something that would change form after sale. And they knew that this stunt would only increase the art's value going in.
Moshi moshi, mr publisher? That book I released a year ago? Yeah, I want all copies destroyed. Yes, I mean ALL of them, including copies currently in possession of people who bought it legally.