One thing that's really sad to me is that older games end up being a lot more durable than newer ones (from say the last 15 years or so). For example, you can still play games like Master of Orion 2 or Total Annihilation in multiplayer, because they rely on players hosting servers, and some people still host servers 25+ years after release (and people have even written fan patches to make that possible today, if necessary).
But modern games that rely on matchmaking through the developer/publisher? Forget it, when they go down, there's no saving them, alas.
So really this is a pretty clear-cut case of functionality deteriorating because the maker of the game has way more power than before to change the game _after_ the customer bought it (the recent brouhaha where BMW or whoever offered a subscription to boost your car's top speed by unlocking a speed lock in software also comes to mind, not to mention "purchased" streaming-only movies disappearing forever once the streaming service dies, etc.).
But modern games that rely on matchmaking through the developer/publisher? Forget it, when they go down, there's no saving them, alas.
So really this is a pretty clear-cut case of functionality deteriorating because the maker of the game has way more power than before to change the game _after_ the customer bought it (the recent brouhaha where BMW or whoever offered a subscription to boost your car's top speed by unlocking a speed lock in software also comes to mind, not to mention "purchased" streaming-only movies disappearing forever once the streaming service dies, etc.).