And everyone who cried out a warning at the first step was ignored.

And the stupidest part of this is the ‘omg my IP’ angle from a publisher.

You’ve destroyed this game because it’s not economically viable for you, and therefore the IP of how the server-side operates has no value; these are no longer secrets worth protecting.

If someone else is willing to host it at their cost then the only thing that can do is bolster the franchise. When a niche game has a devoted following that’s willing to build infrastructure to keep playing together, then you know it was a management fuck-up and not a game one that killed it.