A petition is calling for the EU’s video game license publishers to preserve video games when support ends.
More than 200,000 European citizens want to pass a law so the EU’s video game license publishers will be forced to preserve their favourite games.
For some video games, a player needs to connect through the internet to the publisher directly to play the game off their servers. The petition, called Stop Killing Games, says that when publishers decide to sever the connection to their servers, they “proceed to destroy all working copies of the game”.
“This practice is effectively robbing customers of their purchases and makes restoration impossible,” the petition reads. “It represents a radical assault on consumer rights and even the concept of ownership itself”. Aleksej Vjalicin, a spokesperson for the Stop Killing Games initiative, said they are mounting the campaign after French gaming company Ubisoft, shut down support for “The Crew,” a 2014 online-only racing game with a player base of roughly 12 million.
What the petitioners are asking for
The petition asks for companies to leave the game in a playable state before they turn off their servers, meaning they have an “end-of-life plan” in place so the game can continue to run.
The rules would apply to video games that “sell game assists or features” through microtransactions. Vjalicin said his group sees this idea of killing games as a “consumer rights issue” that needs to be resolved. “This service (the game) doesn’t have an expiration date that you would know of, so you can get robbed so to speak at any time if they decide to shut it down. We don’t see that as being a fair practice”. “This service (the game) doesn’t have an expiration date that you would know of, so you can get robbed so to speak at any time if they decide to shut it down,” he said. “We don’t see that as being a fair practice”.
While Vjalicin believes this is a global issue, they decided to start in the European Union because Ubisoft has a base in France and the consumer protection rights in the country “are a bit stronger,” than in other areas.
YouTuber Ross Scott, who is working with the Stop Killing Games campaign, said in a video that any potential legislation coming from the petition is potentially an “easy win” for politicians. “If a game is only sold in China or Japan, yeah this wouldn’t affect those - but most games are sold globally, and the EU is part of that,” Scott said.
“Once it's a requirement that companies have to let you keep the games they sold to you in a major market like that, I think it spreads, whether it's law elsewhere or not”.
Can EU Citizens' Initiatives be successful?
The petition is being presented as a European Citizens' Initiative (ECI), a mechanism where citizens can suggest new legislation.
The European Commission will have to consider proposing new legislation if the petition hits over one million signatures from at least seven member countries before July 31, 2025.
The Stop Games initiative had signatories from 27 member states in its first week but is so far below the mandatory thresholds set by the European Commission for those countries. For example, the petition has 9,507 signatures from Finland despite the threshold being 9,870. The EU state furthest from its threshold, Cyprus, has 263 of 4,230 needed signatures. There have been six successful ECIs since its launch in 2012, including petitions on the right to access water and a proposed ban on cage farming.
UK says continued access to games needed
In its response to a similar UK petition, which received over 27,000 signatures, the government saidUK game sellers must “provide clear information and allow continued access to games if sold on the understanding that they will be played indefinitely”.
There is no requirement in the UK for companies to support older versions of their systems, but the government notes that if businesses are not upfront about how long a game could last or if unsupported software is being sold, that it needs to be made clear. “If the digital content does not meet these quality rights, the consumer has the right to a repair or replacement of the digital content,” the reply continued.