Some games like FFXI or Phantasy Star Online require active servers to be playable, and usually they are shut down after a few years from the game release, making the game inaccessible for nostalgic or future players.
Why such a design choice? I know that keeping servers alive 5 years later is just a waste of money for them as even the consoles they run on is not on the market anymore, but what if they keep making remakes for future consoles, maybe as apps for the consoles stores like PSN or Wii Store ?
The remakes would connect to the same servers as the original game.
Or alternatively why not ask a small subscription fee to connect to the servers, like 1-2$/month or even less?
Just shutting down everything like that is not “kind” towards the customers/followers, i don’t know how to explain
Any resource they have is better spent on the flashy new game.
If they ever saw any chance of profit from that old IP from the early 90s, they’d dig it back from the grave, dust it off, and sell it again like it’s brand new.
Besides neg’s point about them being MMOs and needing to run on a server, I don’t think anyone creates a game requiring server interactivity with the intent that it be shut down at some point. I think most teams believe in their game enough that they see it potentially living longer than usual lifespans (as in WoW).
Games aren’t shut down while they’re being actively played. You’ll hear the very vocal minority complain about servers being shut down and not having access to that game anymore, but the truth is that the vast majority of players abandoned that game a long time ago.
There are some companies that do this. Blizzard has a history of releasing patches that remove DRM near the end of a games life cycle. It really is the most ethical solution to closing down servers.
MMOs are a different beast. There is not much point to playing an MMO with low player numbers or on your own. So when the game dies, the servers probably should too.
Because maintaining an MMO server is not inexpensive. For many modern MMOs what we would call a “server” is often a virtual server made up of a collection of hardware servers. Cost to maintain them is often in the thousands if not tens of thousands of dollars per month.
At the price point you are suggesting you’d need thousands of players which is completely unrealistic for a dying game.