system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
CMV: Developers of games that require their servers to play should be (morally) obligated to compensate players when they eventually shut down servers

These days there are quite a few games that require company-side servers to run, the most notable group of which being MMOs but recently there's also a growing trend of non-MMO games that have some form of always online DRM. Now eventually all of these games will be no longer profitable for the company and the servers will be shut down, preventing anyone from ever playing the game again.

The two examples that hit me the most were EA's BattleForge (a RTS game with trading card elements) and NCSoft's City of Heroes (a MMO about being a superhero/supervillain).

Whilst I think it's perfectly within the company's ethical and legal rights to shut down servers for something they want to discontinue, I do however feel that often nothing is being done for the fans that still played the game.

My view is that if a company decides to shut off the servers to one of their products they need to do everything they can (within reason) to allow people to play their product outside of their servers. What I mean by "within reason" is that, if required, they should upload the entire game's source code and all required server files aswell as allow everyone to download their own unique account data so they can continue playing with their characters. Or, if possible (so not an MMO), simply remove the always-online DRM.

What I consider not to be in reason (although if the company wants to, all the more props to them) is for the company to have to make the server files compatible with a normal PC, for them to create modding engines, etc.

The fans of the game can certainly find ways of making the game work for them, it's just that companies currently refuse to give them anything to work with.

I believe that there's no real reason not to give players a chance to continue playing your game. If you're done with your product there's no reason to not make your code publicly known, nothing is lost for you.
gpt
The biggest problem is the idea that a company "is done with their code" simply because they discontinue hosting their servers for a single game.

Chances are that it's full of proprietary code that they will repurpose (or probably already have repurposed) for another game.  It also may contain code licensed from third parties, who certainly wouldn't consent to violating the license in the way you describe.

Technology goes obsolete.  Particularly in a case like this, no consumer should have an expectation of an limitless utility for a game with online functionality.