Earlier quoted context omitted.
Only if the publisher has placed themselves into a position where labor is required to keep the game running... The obvious and clearest response is simply this: If you as a publisher are so convinced that your game is obsolete... make the remote server source available under a permissive license to your existing license holders. Better yet - plan for releasing a copy of it at development time. You don't even need to…
Giving away the source does not protect the game creator and actively harms them since they are giving up trade secrets. You are basically just saying "give up all rights to the ip you've sank a ton of money and time into"
This initiative is not asking for source code. It’s asking to leave games in a playable state by any means possible. Company can release closed source binary and that would perfectly suffice.