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Thoughts on the Stop Killing Games movement?

quad damage
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zetheros quad damage
I figured this was somewhat relevant to us, as we make art for games. It's a European Citizens Initiative, currently at 652,366 signatures at a 65% requirement for the UK parliament to recognize it. If you are in favour of these terms & are a citizen of a country in the EU, the deadline for signatures is 31/07/25.

From the website, ""Stop Killing Games" is a consumer movement started to challenge the legality of publishers destroying video games they have sold to customers. An increasing number of video games are sold effectively as goods - with no stated expiration date - but designed to be completely unplayable as soon as support from the publisher ends. This practice is a form of planned obsolescence and is not only detrimental to customers, but makes preservation effectively impossible. Furthermore, the legality of this practice is largely untested in many countries."

From Citizens' Initiative  

Objectives

This initiative calls to require publishers that sell or license videogames to consumers in the European Union (or related features and assets sold for videogames they operate) to leave said videogames in a functional (playable) state.

Specifically, the initiative seeks to prevent the remote disabling of videogames by the publishers, before providing reasonable means to continue functioning of said videogames without the involvement from the side of the publisher.

The initiative does not seek to acquire ownership of said videogames, associated intellectual rights or monetization rights, neither does it expect the publisher to provide resources for the said videogame once they discontinue it while leaving it in a reasonably functional (playable) state.

Annex

Videogames have grown into an industry with billions of customers worth hundreds of billions of euros. During this time, a specific business practice in the industry has been slowly emerging that is not only an assault on basic consumer rights but is destroying the medium itself.

An increasing number of publishers are selling videogames that are required to connect through the internet to the game publisher, or "phone home" to function. While this is not a problem in itself, when support ends for these types of games, very often publishers simply sever the connection necessary for the game to function, proceed to destroy all working copies of the game, and implement extensive measures to prevent the customer from repairing the game in any way.

This practice is effectively robbing customers of their purchases and makes restoration impossible. Besides being an affront on consumer rights, videogames themselves are unique creative works. Like film, or music, one cannot be simply substituted with another. By destroying them, it represents a creative loss for everyone involved and erases history in ways not possible in other mediums.

Existing laws and consumer agencies are ill-prepared to protect customers against this practice. The ability for a company to destroy an item it has already sold to the customer long after the fact is not something that normally occurs in other industries. With license agreements required to simply run the game, many existing consumer protections are circumvented. This practice challenges the concept of ownership itself, where the customer is left with nothing after "buying" a game.   

We wish to invoke Article 17 §1 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union [EUR-Lex - 12012P/TXT - EN - EUR-Lex (europa.eu)] – “No one may be deprived of his or her possessions, except in the public interest and in the cases and under the conditions provided for by law, subject to fair compensation being paid in good time for their loss.” – This practice deprives European citizens of their property by making it so that they lose access to their product an indeterminate/arbitrary amount of time after the point of sale. We wish to see this remedied, at the core of this Initiative. 

We also invoke Title XV of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU)[EUR-Lex - 12012E/TXT - EN - EUR-Lex (europa.eu)] and the following TFEU Articles as our justification for and the Union’s imperative to respond to this initiative:

Article 169 – Per §1, the EU has an obligation “to promote the interests of consumers and to ensure a high level of consumer protection…to protecting the health, safety and economic interests of consumers”. We believe this practice infringes upon or requires correction to be commensurate with the EU’s obligation. The actions taken in response to this initiative must supersede any end user license agreements associated with videogames.  

Article 12 – “Consumer protection requirements shall be taken into account in defining and implementing other Union policies and activities.” Given that this practice extends across Member States and beyond the EU, the Union’s actions regarding this practice ought to keep consumer protection in mind. The actions taken in response to this initiative must supersede any end user license agreements associated with videogames.

Article 114, §3 – “The Commission, in its proposals envisaged in paragraph 1 concerning health, safety, environmental protection and consumer protection, will take as a base a high level of protection… Within their respective powers, the European Parliament and the Council will also seek to achieve this objective” This practice undermines the high level of consumer protection that the Commission, the European Parliament, and the Council takes as the basis of law in the Union, and their objectives of establishing and maintaining the functioning of an internal market as described in §1 of this Article, and Article 26 TFEU.


It is headed by Ross Scott over on yubble tubbles https://www.youtube.com/@Accursed_Farms

Replies

  • Eric Chadwick
    Nice. Makes me think of GOG, curious if they’re involved or at least consulting on this. 

  • MikeF
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    MikeF polycounter lvl 20
    I'm fully in support, this absolutely needs to be taken seriously or we stand to lose more than just the ability to play the games we own, but also the history of what a lot of us here do for a living. 
  • zetheros
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    zetheros quad damage
    yeah I wasn't sure what to think, was mostly in favour but thought it wasn't really necessary because players find a way to preserve games already. Seems pretty legit though, shame I can't sign it
  • stray
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    stray polygon
    zetheros said:
    players find a way to preserve games already
    Hm, but some games have more chances than others. What about those that are locked so firmly (usually behind some hardcore anti-pirating systems), they simply can't exist outside their platform (or even with unstable internet connection)?
    Like, there are many old copies of Diablo 1 and 2 in the world, but what if the publisher decides to completely shut down Diablo 3 and 4 one day?
  • zetheros
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    zetheros quad damage
    if Blizzard decides to shut down diablo 3 & 4 we'll just have to go back to the good old pre-internet days of staring at a blank wall and using our imaginations to play diablo
  • pior
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    pior grand marshal polycounter
    @stray
    "What about those that are locked so firmly (usually behind some hardcore anti-pirating systems), they simply can't exist outside their platform (or even with unstable internet connection)?"

    I believe the idea is that without requiring continued support, the studio/publisher would have to provide at the very least a way to run a custom server, or provide sufficient source code to do so. Similarly to Rising Thunder Community Edition, which was never even released but can still be played :

    https://gamermatters.com/cancelled-fighting-game-rising-thunder-rises-again-as-developers-makes-servers-open-source/

    https://github.com/RiotGames/rtce-server
  • zetheros
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    zetheros quad damage
    I'm late on this one, but the initiative has passed 100k signatures, the requirement to be recognized by the UK parliament, and is fast on it's track to one million signatures, at the moment 914,803.

  • myclay
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    myclay greentooth
    currently at 985,272. To get the petition onto official desk(s), getting over the threshold and further will help.
    Various Youtube channels are spreading the word about it.
  • iam717
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    iam717 polycounter

    Yeah the only online always mmo/game, i wanted to actually keep was WildStar, so much fun I'd still be playing it right now and possibly even making things for it for fun.  Felt so amazing when someone sent me a beta code to try it i never left it till the closing server time-frame, btw. so appreciate it.

    Can't sign it but rootn for the "achievement", i think they are really concerned what WE the people can do with this situation on a deeper level. 

    on topic: but "drama bout on the utubs", a damn plant in-waiting if you asked me.
    yeah, h8n the ferret f-ck3r that hi-jacked the situation.



    initiative has passed 100k signatures

    Great news.


  • zetheros
  • zetheros
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    zetheros quad damage
    Might still need signatures, safeguard to ensure against ineligible signatures 
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmkCQJrc9n4
  • myclay
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    myclay greentooth
    Thoughts and Statement from the following big companies:
    Nintendo, Epic Games, EA, Embracer, Microsoft, Sony, Take2, Ubisoft, Bandai Namco, Square Enix,Warner Bros. Games, Level Infinite as well as the UK,Belgium, German and French lobby groups.
    https://www.videogameseurope.eu/news/statement-on-stop-killing-games/
    We appreciate the passion of our community; however, the decision to discontinue online services is multi-faceted, never taken lightly and must be an option for companies when an online experience is no longer commercially viable. We understand that it can be disappointing for players but, when it does happen, the industry ensures that players are given fair notice of the prospective changes in compliance with local consumer protection laws.

    Private servers are not always a viable alternative option for players as the protections we put in place to secure players’ data, remove illegal content, and combat unsafe community content would not exist and would leave rights holders liable. In addition, many titles are designed from the ground-up to be online-only; in effect, these proposals would curtail developer choice by making these video games prohibitively expensive to create.

    We welcome the opportunity to discuss our position with policy makers and those who have led the European Citizens Initiative in the coming months.
    There is also a PDF, a Position Paper with further explanations.
    https://www.videogameseurope.eu/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/VGE-Position-Discontinuation-of-Support-to-Online-Games-04072025.pdf


  • poopipe
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    poopipe grand marshal polycounter
    If this is forced or applied too bluntly the 70dollar game that stops working after 5 years will turn into a 20 dollar a month subscription that stops working after 5 years. 

    I support the spirit of this fully.  I don't think you can effectively legislate it 


  • ZacD
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    ZacD ngon master
    I do wish there were easy/legal ways to "walk around" live service games that get killed. Even a 1.0 offline version that feels dead is vastly better than a game completely disappearing. I do get some games wont fully function without online aspects, and there's games like Fortnite with 32 seasons and Path of Exile with 30+ leagues. 
  • zetheros
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    zetheros quad damage
    epic games was falsely represented as an opponent of stop killing games https://youtu.be/fQN_ZA5WRpo?t=832
  • kanga
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    kanga hero character
    I gotta say this is really a dirty trick and I suspect greedy investors. The only only online game I have ever bought was Dragon's Dogma' and it had already been offline for about 2 years. No discussion about the difficulty of making it single player. Every game I own can be put offline and still function. Let the buyer beware, if a company is in the habit of doing this, boycott them. Nothing says I disagree better then bankruptcy.
  • zetheros
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    zetheros quad damage
    I used to play a lot of WoW and always thought it'd be cool af to download your character on a little pedestal, with all of the stats, highlights, biography, etc in a little notebook, or even 3d print your character once you're done playing a live service game. I'm definitely adding some kind of end of service / retirement program for the game I'm working on.

    These characters & experiences you have in-game are a part of you, and it'd be neat to have it on a shelf IRL.
  • zetheros
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    zetheros quad damage
    sounds pretty technical, but still a cakewalk compared to sculpting human anatomy
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXy9GlKgrlM
  • iam717
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    iam717 polycounter
    Kind of crazy how the worlds spinning out of control at the same time as this and exposure of certain situations, sheesh they got plans on top of plans, distractions on top of distractions.  

    Very interesting otherwise, they tried to adopt the confusion added video of buttthorn as an excuse to say games can't be "forever", no i think there is a bigger situation in that i would've been fine gaming on wild star for the rest of my days and this is the type of game they do not want since others will also eventually find their "sweet spot", and ditch all together purchasing anything in the future.  Then they can't keep their infinite money glitch going and propaganda machine going.

    It was pay to play but they had a very lovely and amazing option to pay with "in-game" currency for a new month and i put in the work to obtain the required platinum to pay for a new month every month till they pulled the plug.  Still sad that this should still be somehow made into a single player experience even if old, going to have to say i was robbed but then i did get a decently long "demo/trial" out of the deal.   It really sucks to NOT, enjoying that game still though, its a dirtbag move and the games just sits on a shelf half the time or on someone's drive like what was the name of that one game with the fantastic art posted here a few months ago, dragon something... (like what are they doing with it?)  I swear they made that for like their stupid children to have a game just for them or something? (not devs, invertors.)

  • poopipe
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    poopipe grand marshal polycounter
    zetheros said:
    sounds pretty technical, but still a cakewalk compared to sculpting human anatomy
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXy9GlKgrlM
    I was expecting to be enraged by that video (default state of being tbh)  but I wasn't entirely. 

    This isn't even all that unrealistic for new projects/engines - It is extremely unrealistic though, if you're someone who works on a legacy codebase containing thousands of instances  where some code doesn't appear to do anything but if you remove it the game crashes when you enter the konami code on a tuesday. 



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