Are Minecraft community servers illegal? The ESA brands them piracy, pushing back against the Stop Killing Games movement

Each day I spend writing about the gaming industry, I find myself thinking, “Surely nothing can surprise me anymore.” Yet almost every day, I’m proven wrong. Between soaring prices across the industry and now the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) making me scratch my head during a recent hearing on the Stop Killing Games movement.

For those unfamiliar, Stop Killing Games is a community-led movement that argues publishers shouldn’t be able to sell games that later become completely unplayable once their servers are shut down. One recent example is Concord, which became inaccessible after Sony discontinued its online service. Instead, publishers should provide a way for players to continue to access the game, whether via community servers or other means.