Live Service Shutdowns Won't Be Further Scrutinized By UK Government

In recent years, there's been increased scrutiny around online video games abruptly shutting down, with WB's MultiVersus the latest casualty soon to be added to the list. This scrutiny recently led to a petition on the matter being put forward to the UK government - a petition that's now seen a somewhat disappointing response.

As posted online and spotted by Eurogamer, the UK gov has said that "there are no plans to amend UK consumer law on disabling video games". The statement went on to say that "those selling games must comply with existing requirements in consumer law" and that the government "will continue to monitor the issue".

This response was made public once the petition hit 10,000 signatures - it now sits at almost 13K at the time of writing. The initial petition reads as follows: "The government should update consumer law to prohibit publishers from disabling video games (and related game assets / features) they have already sold without recourse for customers to retain or repair them. We seek this as a statutory consumer right."

Of course, as showcased in the related article above, we've just seen another live service shutdown announced in recent days. MultiVersus will go offline in just a few months this May, following recent high-profile closures like Concord, KartRider: Drift, The Crew, Friday the 13th: The Game and Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League - although each game varies in its level of playability offline.

Some of these titles are also much older than others, and in that case, it definitely feels more justified for the servers to close. Still, if you've paid for content it would ideally remain playable in some form, and we're all for more action being taken to protect consumer purchases in gaming.

What do you make of this petition and its response? Talk to us about it down below.

[source petition.parliament.uk, via eurogamer.net]