Crazy Arcade shut down, and 25 years of in-game purchases went with it

Ashes to ashes, data to null? Nexon shut down the classic online game Crazy Arcade last Thursday after nearly 25 years of service. Players lost access to characters and items they had spent years building, and the closure has renewed a debate over the concept of digital content ownership, or what consumers actually own when they pay for digital content.

Longtime fans are now archiving gameplay, holding online memorials and asking for private servers that would keep the game accessible. For sentimental fans, the shutdown is about preserving memories in digital form. But for players who spent real money, it raises broader questions of digital ownership and consumer rights that go beyond simple nostalgia.

Nexon launched the game in October 2001 and ended service at 9 a.m. Thursday.

One longtime Crazy Arcade player, aged 26, began recording gameplay and posting the videos to YouTube in June after Nexon announced that the service would close the same month. The player had spent more than 15 years with the game.

“I have so many memories from Crazy Arcade. Once I was even invited to the home of someone I met through the game,” the player said. “Given its history, two months’ notice before shutting the service down was far too short.”

Fans have left comments thanking the player for preserving a record of the game. Another user created an “online wake” for Crazy Arcade after the shutdown and invited other players to gather and share memories.

“Whether the company runs the game on a subscription model or tolerates privately operated servers, I hope it does something for its ‘loyal users,’” Crazy Arcade fan Lee Su-jin said.

Players of The Kingdom of the Winds: Yeon have made similar requests on the game’s official online forum. Nexon said Wednesday that the mobile game will end service on Feb. 12, 2027. Users have asked the company to leave behind a space they can continue to enter after the shutdown.

Players who spent cash on virtual items face a more immediate problem: Refund periods and eligibility can differ by company.

The Fair Trade Commission revised its standard terms for online and mobile games in February 2024 to call for operators to keep a dedicated refund channel for paid items open for at least 30 days after service ends. The standard terms are recommended model provisions rather than a binding statutory rule.

Nexon is accepting Crazy Arcade refund applications until Sept. 16. Purchases made with Nexon Cash — virtual currency bought with real currency —  between March 11 and June 11 are eligible regardless of whether the items were used, while some older purchases qualify only if the items remained unused or unclaimed.

Game publisher Webzen faced criticism in August 2024 when it announced the shutdown of MU Origin and initially said only in-game currency, bought with real cash, held as of the notice date would be eligible for refunds. The company later broadened the refund scope after players objected, so in-game items and purchases made with real cash in the last three months were eligible for the refund. 

“The game ran a paid-item promotion a few months earlier, so I stocked up on items,” another online game player, aged 30, said. “Then the shutdown was announced. There was nobody left to buy them, so I ended up giving the items away for free.”

Game companies say keeping an old online title alive is costly. Unlike a packaged game sold on a disc, an online game requires servers and continuing maintenance. Operators may see little reason to keep losing money on a title for a shrinking group of players.

“I understand why fans are disappointed, but from a game company’s perspective, it makes sense to focus on new titles rather than a game that is no longer profitable,” a game industry source said.

Nexon said it would continue with the Crazy Arcade brand. 

“Even though the game has ended, we will continue the Crazy Arcade intellectual property in other forms,” Nexon said.

Consumers are raising the same ownership question well beyond discontinued online games: Are they buying something they own, or merely access that can later be withdrawn?

Sony Interactive Entertainment, best known for its PlayStation game consoles, said July 1 that it will stop producing physical discs for all new PlayStation games from January 2028 and only sell new releases in digital formats. Nintendo already uses game-key cards for some Nintendo Switch 2 titles. The game-key cards do not contain the full game data and require users to download the game before playing.

Lee Skwarek of Canadian game retailer PNP Games, which launched the “Don’t Kill the Disc” petition, said the disappearance of physical media would further weaken consumer ownership and choice.

“They have been training us to no longer own the video games we buy and they feel this is the time to pull the trigger on eliminating consumer choice on their platform in its entirety,” Skwarek told the JoongAng Ilbo in a written interview.

Skwarek said game companies would prefer customers to pay recurring subscriptions rather than own games outright, but argued that players still want ownership whether they buy physical or digital copies.

Sony has already given consumers an example of how paid digital access can disappear. The company said 551 previously purchased StudioCanal films and television titles will be removed from users’ PlayStation video libraries on Sept. 1 because of licensing agreements.

Governments are also starting to address what digital storefronts can call a purchase. California enacted AB 2426 in 2024. The law restricts sellers from using words such as “buy” or “purchase” for digital goods in ways that imply unrestricted ownership unless they clearly tell customers they are receiving a license and disclose the applicable restrictions.

In Europe, the Stop Killing Games campaign has pushed for games sold or licensed to consumers to remain playable after official support ends. Its European Citizens’ Initiative, “Stop Destroying Videogames,” collected 1.29 million verified statements of support and was the subject of a European Parliament hearing on April 16.

“We’re in favor of companies discontinuing support or hosting for games they have sold any time they want, but we’re advocating they do so in a responsible way that doesn’t deprive the customer of the ability to play the game they paid for,” Ross Scott, founder of Stop Killing Games, told the JoongAng Ilbo in a written interview. “This necessitates having ‘end of life’ plans for online-only games.”

Scott said those plans could include releasing server software, patching games to support peer-to-peer hosting or adding an offline mode. Companies could then end hosting and support while giving customers a reasonable chance to continue playing, he said.

Scott said legal requirements would ultimately be necessary to protect those rights.

“Unless there is legal force, we cannot expect content producers to protect consumer rights,” he said.

The concern over digital ownership is not limited to games. In Korea, a Korea Consumer Agency survey released Aug. 7 found that 57 percent of webtoon users and 70 percent of web novel users considered it unfair to lose access to content they had bought for permanent viewing when a platform shuts down.

BY SUNG JI-WON [cho.yongjun1@joongang.co.kr]