The «Stop Killing Games» petition, created by YouTuber Ross Scott in April 2024, has gained a new surge in popularity with 30 days to go and has already garnered 820,000 signatures from European gamers who want to challenge the legality of video game publishers’ actions.
The «Stop Killing Games» petition, created by YouTuber Ross Scott in April 2024, has gained a new surge in popularity with 30 days to go and has already garnered 820,000 signatures from European gamers who want to challenge the legality of video game publishers’ actions.
«A growing number of video games are being sold as de facto commodities, with no expiration date, but with the intention of making them unplayable once the publisher’s support ends. This practice is a form of planned obsolescence and not only harms consumers but also makes it virtually impossible to keep the games. Furthermore, the legality of this practice is largely untested in many countries,» the Stop Killing Games website states.
It states that this is a movement of consumers who want to keep access to their purchased games. The campaign is currently focused on a European Citizens' Initiative, which requires 1 million signatures to be adopted. The petition has now collected 823,314 signatures from players in the EU and is growing rapidly. The deadline for collecting signatures is July 31, 2025.
The petitioners believe that if they manage to collect the necessary number of signatures, there is a «very high probability» that the EU will adopt a new law that will protect consumers' rights to keep the video games they have purchased and significantly advance efforts to preserve them in general.
The site also has a separate petition for the UK and a petition for French owners of The Crew, whose support has been discontinued by Ubisoft.
«Unfortunately, these options do not allow citizens of other countries to participate directly, but all other opportunities we found have either been exhausted or are already being implemented. It is worth noting that if this issue is successfully resolved in one of the large countries, then due to the laws of the market, consumers around the world will most likely benefit from the changes,» note the participants of the Stop Killing Games initiative.
Recall that Ubisoft wants to settle a lawsuit filed by players dissatisfied with the termination of access to the first part of The Crew, which they purchased. The company claims that it did not promise unlimited access to the game, even for its owners.
Instead, online video game store GOG, owned by The Witcher and Cyberpunk 2077 developers CD Projekt, announced theGOG Preservation Program. The service will dedicate additional resources to ensuring that a selection of older games, like the original Diablo or the first Resident Evil, work well on a variety of current and future devices.
