Well, this is one of the reasons I've long argued that in this increasingly online and digital age that consumers need legal protection of their online assets and time investment, especially as the cash shop model becomes more popular and people invest in virtual property that could be lost due to things like this.
I find it especially troubling that a number of the MMOs like SWG and CoH apparently were making a profit, but the actualy desician was made based on the degree to which they were making a profit, the actual loss of revenues never having been a factor.
Now before someone goes off about companies needing to make money and so on, I do understand that, but again there are issues involved when they sell property online. Whether legally covered by things like an EULA or whatever right now, they shouldn't be, if one sell virtual goods a company should not be able to say "well we're closing this product down for business reasons" while continueing to operate.
As I've said before. I think lawmakers should require digitally based companies to reinforce their products with actual, tangible, assets. Basically, to open an MMO, especially one with a cash shop system, the company should be required to establish a trust sufficient to ensure the perpetual maitnence and operation of game servers, that way if the company goes out of business or whatever, the continued survival of the game and virtual property is assured. A trust fund is basically a huge pile of money that accruse interest, allowing only that interest to be withdrawn, ensuring constant financing. This is how the wealthy in many cases provide for their irresponsible children, to try and ensure they will always have some revenue, the same can be done to reinforce properties and business interests. It's not without it's flaws, but the point is that similar things should be done to ensure things like happened with CoH and CoH simply do not occur, and ensure the eteranl prescence of your propery from companies like STEAM. Not to mention it also means your going to have some very stable jobs provided for by the trust.
I'm kind of forecasting an apocolypse of sorts, Funcom's games are performing below expectations, and the company seems to want to re-invent itself, SoE and NCSoft have shown an incredible willingness to chop games, and pretty much every MMO out there with rare exception has been selling virtual property rather than running on a straight subscription model. I expect a lot of games to be closing simply due to not making enough of a profit to satisfy the greedy gluttons running the show. I'm sort of hoping that lawmakers will step in before this happens, but I doubt it will occur, chances are if I'm right and we see a lot of MMOs fall like dominos over a fairly short period of time that might inspire action though, but until that happens and we see the rage, it probably won't occur. What's more such protections will probably be put into effect at a time when few will be interested in developing such games.
