Dev Kills Cloud Version Of Game On Switch, Offers Discount To Rebuy It For Switch 2

from the chutzpah dept

We’ve talked a great deal about the Stop Killing Games movement and those discussions have typically traveled along two paths of importance.

On the one hand, the movement is very important to those of us that care about the preservation of video games. A huge problem with allowing developers and publishers to simply shutdown backend servers needed to run games that were designed to require those same server is that those games simply disappear in their original form. If we accept that video games are both art and culture, and I don’t think either is particularly arguable at this point, allowing shared culture to disappear before it enters the public domain is an unacceptable violation of the bargain that is copyright to begin with. In those instances, developers and publishers got their monopoly, but negated the part where said monopoly is supposed to be limited in nature, with the art ending up in the public domain.

The second path of importance is that of the rights of the individual consumer. The public in large part believes it’s buying a game when it makes these purchases. And, yes, the truth buried in terms of service and other legal documents is that in many cases the public is only buying a limited license to play the game, one which the publisher can revoke in part or whole at any time by shutting down support for the product. But if you think that this fact somehow makes none of this a problem, you’re a corporate boot-licker and you should be ashamed of yourself. Sometimes these shutdowns happen very shortly after the game is released and promises of refunds to those that paid for them can be fleeting.

But, man, if you think it’s bad for a developer or publisher to not make good on refunds of a purchased game it shut down, wait until you get a load of Cold Iron Studios, which recently shutdown the cloud-only version of Aliens: Fireteam Elite on the Nintendo Switch.

Following its announcement in March, game developer Cold Iron Studios has shut down the servers for the cloud version of Aliens: Fireteam Elite on the Nintendo Switch. The game originally cost $30 (or $60 for an “Ultimate” version with additional content).

Cold Iron Studios hasn’t offered customers refunds.

TheGamer reported that affected players are entitled to a discount for the Nintendo Switch 2 version of the game, which is a 2021 co-op, third-person shooter based on the Alien film franchise. However, that would mean paying money for a game that you have already paid money for once.

There’s chutzpah, and then there’s fucking chutzpah. The developer ripped away the ability to play a game that people spent money on. Then, rather than offering refunds, they instead offered to sell the game again to those same customers on the new console for a slightly lesser price. That isn’t giving your customers the middle finger. It’s gather up an entire city’s worth of middle fingers and jamming them up your customers’ noses and then asking them to pay for it.

Now, nobody thinks that this version of the game was bought in massive numbers on the original Switch. But I don’t really see how that matters. If you sell something to someone, then take it away, you should return the money you got for it. If you’re hiding behind the “it’s just a license” mantra, then you’re telling the public not to trust you. And maybe simply to not trust digital purchases entirely. And, given some other recent news, that becomes a pretty big problem.

When companies erase digital copies from people’s libraries and make games harder to access, the recent uproar over the announcement that there won’t be physical discs made for PlayStation games as of January 2028 makes sense.

The folks at Stop Killing Games have this exactly right, because situations like this are not only untenable, but the lack of action is making these companies all the more brazen. The audacity of taking something away from a customer and trying to get them to pay for it again is breathtaking.

As is the unwillingness to act on the part of our government and consumer rights groups.

Filed Under: aliens: firestorm elite, ownership, stop killing games, video games

Companies: cold iron studios