> surely that code is ancient at that point.
We have seen plenty of games shut down after only a year or so to know that is not the case.
But also as I said in my response, reusing code is a thing. Maybe it relies on another internal tool that is used in some of their other games. They are not going to release that part, which would make the first part they released unusable.
Just because they are ending support doesnt mean that the some of the serverside code is not being used elsewhere or is not a shared service with another game.
> I posit the opposite question to you: why is it normal and acceptable for Blizzard to say "WoW is done and no one can play anymore" and an entire vibrant community and player-base just doesn't get to play their favorite game anymore,
I mean, I highly doubt if it was a "vibrant community" it would be shutting down at this point.
> because Blizzard decided it wasn't profitable enough? Yeah sure Blizzard made it, fine enough,
Regardless of any of our other opinions on this work, that is exactly it. They own it, they run the servers, they update it, it is their creation and with the example of an MMO it has always been clear that it relies on an online connection to work since that is the very basis of the game.
> but that's not the sum total of all work involved. Probably millions of hours at this point of streams, guides, explainers, millions of wiki pages, guides, all kinds of shit that tons of people have invested thousands of hours into. What right does Blizzard have to simply take all of that and turn it off? What about people who make their own living in turn with WoW?
You could say that about anything. Even if Blizzard did nothing, the popularity of WoW going down would still impact all of those people.
What about people that covered a tv show for several seasons just for it to be canceled (or just ending)? Maybe they made a living covering that show, are they somehow owed something because they no longer have new episodes that come out? No of course not.
Are people that made a living on Instagram or whatever owed something if those platforms shut down?
No, they boxed themselves in instead of diversifying. That should be a normal practice and recognize the risk to your livlyhood of relying on a single platform, game, tv show, or whatever other niche.
Also should be worth mentioning that all of that content that was made, won't be disappearing. There obviously won't be new content, but it would still be there and likely for a while there will be people looking it up for nostalga.