This is in answer to the Stop Killing Games Initiative. He falsely claims that if SKG were successful every game would be forced to do all that stuff. While not realising that what he is describing is continued support for a game, not a dead game that continues to work without support.

It’s just a strawman, incorrectly inflating the costs by claiming continued support is the same as no support.

Interesting video. For people who can’t tell from the title alone, this is Chet Faliszek, who worked for Valve on titles like Left 4 Dead, talking about making the game Anacrusis playable after his company shuts down. The game was meant to be a spiritual successor to Left 4 Dead, but was dead on arrival with player counts at all time lows after leaving early access.

I knew game companies license stuff but had no idea just how much content in a game can be licensed. In-game voice chat, art assets, music, and matchmaking all done by third-parties under licensed agreements that were really difficult to work around.

If his company stops paying their subscriptions, then the in-game voice chat and matchmaking stops working. The art assets and music he licensed can only be used in very specific ways and prevent handing over raw files.

It seems like he was able to get passed most things by having Steam host everything as well as handle the matchmaking. His company can go out of business but players can still play through Steam (with some stuff removed like the in-game voice chat). Of course if Steam shuts down then the game truly does stop working.

The only way around these issue were if he never licensed anything and did absolutely everything in-house, which would be a huge burden. He just wants to make a game, not worry about load balancing matchmaking servers. That’s why he got another company to handle that part. Making development easier seems to also make end-of-life accessibility harder.