The Deplorable Decline of Gaming | This Week in Business

This Week in Business is our weekly column that recaps the latest news and trends in the gaming industry, presented with a mix of facts, quotes, and opinion. In this edition, we discuss the UK government's response to a petition from Stop Killing Games, a grassroots campaign that aims to preserve games for future generations by requiring publishers to maintain a game's functionality even after support has ended. The petition, which has garnered over 23,000 signatures, seeks to make publishers accountable for the games they sell and to prevent them from rendering games unplayable due to server shutdowns or other means. We also draw parallels between the gaming industry's push for control and monetization and the trend of installing TV screens on grocery store coolers, which serves as a metaphor for the industry's shift towards prioritizing profits over consumer experience.