Yeah there have been efforts since game servers without server software for consumers to run themselves were first commercialized, to prevent this outcome where profit motivation and shortsightedness will lock us out of so much. It's good this effort seems to be getting somewhere in the current system.

I can't stop thinking how remarkable it is that Doom spawned the speed running phenomenon, and people use specific version builds of those early entries, yet some of its most recent entries like DOOM (2016) are without playable version archives because of extremely preservation-hostile DRM schemes. Fuckers need to publish at a minimum all previous builds DRM-free for customers once a version is cracked, before DRM implementation in entertainment software can be banned entirely.

Oh, and I want source code + assets on file with a library of Congress or equivalent in different places for publication once it becomes abandonware.

Capitalism fucks over art and artists always.

The source of the rot is that they're proprietary software. As a counterexample, look at Doom. It's a FOSS game licensed under the GPL. This is the main reason why there's so many source ports and why WADs are still being created today that stretch the limits of what the engine can handle. While most games will become abandonware like all abandoned proprietary software, Doom will continue to live on.

One example of a ‘multiplayer’ game being kept alive is GTA San Andres. It never got official multiplayer support, not even its anniversary remaster. But players developed their own over the decades and it’s still active. A lot of lesser known/less popular inactive games have received fan revivals with varying degrees of support - Wizards 101, GoonTown, FreeRealms, Arctic Combat, to name a few.

If car manufacturers, and manufacturers of physical goods in general, are required to continue supporting their discontinued products, recalling defective shit, and repairing them, I don’t see why a software company shouldn’t be forced to do the same or release the source code and release itself from that responsibility.

Stop killing games

I'm sorry, but socialism is inherently anti-gamer and when there's no gamers at all it's communism. Marks wrote about it

I remember playing Halo CE on school computers on a USB in like 7th grade. We shared it with everyone , had lan parties, and modded the shit out of it.

All software should be that accessible

Stop killing games. Kill gamers.

more like Software used under Service Standards