After for than a year since its inception back in March 2024, the European initiative titled "Stop Killing Games" has not only met the desired goal of 1 million signatures, but it has even surpassed it and its still growing.

The "Stop Killing Games" initiative aims to challenge gaming companies legally to provide an end-of-life plan for videogames where the game effectively becomes unplayable once the publisher stops supporting said game. This might include live-service games, but is not exclusive to them, as we have seen many games throughout the years met their end just because the publisher has decided to shut down the servers for said games, with the famous case of games like "The Crew" as a clear example of this.

Now with the initiative's goal met, it's very likely that the European Union will see this as a topic worth considering in terms of consumer rights, as this kind of practice where the publisher determines the end of the product, or rather, planned obsolescence as it is called, is seen as abusive by the vast majority of consumers.

As expected, as soon as the million European signatures goal was met, the European lobbying board for video games, Video Games Europe, released a statement regarding this news, claiming that the decision to discontinue online games is never taken lightly and that "it must be an option for companies when an online experience is no longer viable", and that the companies will "give fair notice" to players before their discontinuation, claiming that "private servers are not always viable."

The lobbying board consists of people representing many giants in the gaming industry, like Electronic Arts, Activision, Microsoft, Epic Games, Nintendo, Sony, Ubisoft, Square Enix, and more.

Aside from the released statement, Video Games Europe released a detailed Position Paper where they go into detail about why such an initiative would be detrimental to the gaming companies, explaining "why an obligation on video game companies to provide only a limited type of end-of-life plan is disproportionate".

It's still unknown what will come out of this, and/or when this initiative will be properly discussed in a proper legal manner by corresponding entities, but we'll make sure to follow the situation as it continues to evolve.

Stop Killing Games website
Video Games Europe statement
Video Games Europe Position paper

 

[K3Nv4]

If game studio plans to shut off server based games then they could simply pass a law they must make the code open source and leave it for the community to decide on how to host if they don't want to pay for server status anymore. Simple fix.

 

[DarknessPlay3r]

Good to see. If anything comes of this it will have (hopefully positive) effects for everyone outside of the EU/Europe.

 

[Osha]

Won't somebody think of the big corporations ?

God I hope this blows up on their asses and they have to provide tools and/or permanent ways to purchase their games.

 

[The Catboy]

It’s the usual suspects fighting against it too.
I wish it wasn’t just the EU, ngl

 

[BlusterBong]

Dude, you're like mega late to this, they got the million signatures before 4th of July and came from Ross Scott from Accursed Famrs (who made SKG in case you forgot) saying that the initiative was falling way behind and was likely to fail alongside a twitter campaign and many, many e-celelebs coming out of the woodwork to signal boost the initiative and clown on Jason """Thor"""" Hall (aka Pirate Software) because he refused to actually understand what SKG was actually for and constantly doubling down against it (to the point people actively went against it because of it)

And of course, since this is actually a large swath of nations in the form of the EU, this is going to work far more likely if it succeeds than the lame lolsuit going on in Brazil for very obvious reasons.

 

[Osha]

It’s the usual suspects fighting against it too.
I wish it wasn’t just the EU, ngl

If it moves like the legislations made about the iPhone charging ports needing to be standardized, there is a non-zero chance potential changes that'd happen would have a global impact because it'd be a nightmare for the corpos to maintain two different sets of rules without everyone just ignoring it all.

 

[RyanTheArchivist]

View attachment 515448​

After for than a year since its inception back in March 2024, the European initiative titled "Stop Killing Games" has not only met the desired goal of 1 million signatures, but it has even surpassed it and its still growing.

The "Stop Killing Games" initiative aims to challenge gaming companies legally to provide an end-of-life plan for videogames where the game effectively becomes unplayable once the publisher stops supporting said game. This might include live-service games, but is not exclusive to them, as we have seen many games throughout the years met their end just because the publisher has decided to shut down the servers for said games, with the famous case of games like "The Crew" as a clear example of this.

Now with the initiative's goal met, it's very likely that the European Union will see this as a topic worth considering in terms of consumer rights, as this kind of practice where the publisher determines the end of the product, or rather, planned obsolescence as it is called, is seen as abusive by the vast majority of consumers.

As expected, as soon as the million European signatures goal was met, the European lobbying board for video games, Video Games Europe, released a statement regarding this news, claiming that the decision to discontinue online games is never taken lightly and that "it must be an option for companies when an online experience is no longer viable", and that the companies will "give fair notice" to players before their discontinuation, claiming that "private servers are not always viable."

The lobbying board consists of people representing many giants in the gaming industry, like Electronic Arts, Activision, Microsoft, Epic Games, Nintendo, Sony, Ubisoft, Square Enix, and more.

Aside from the released statement, Video Games Europe released a detailed Position Paper where they go into detail about why such an initiative would be detrimental to the gaming companies, explaining "why an obligation on video game companies to provide only a limited type of end-of-life plan is disproportionate".

It's still unknown what will come out of this, and/or when this initiative will be properly discussed in a proper legal manner by corresponding entities, but we'll make sure to follow the situation as it continues to evolve.

Stop Killing Games website
Video Games Europe statement
Video Games Europe Position paper

Once again this initiative is NOT asking developers to keep game servers up forever. All this is asking is for developers to keep a game in a playable state after EoL. Whether that be singleplayer modes, Local multiplayer, or the ability for users to host their own games. It can be completely hands off from the developer once those methods are met

The companies against this have used extremely dumb logic against it here. They state things such as it not being feasable for games to offer this due to budget, it hurting sales of newer games(basically planned obsolescense), or just completely ignoring the request and thinking its us asking for games to stay online forever.

 

[QuestionEmulation]

Won't somebody think of the big corporations ?

God I hope this blows up on their asses and they have to provide tools and/or permanent ways to purchase their games.

https://www.videogameseurope.eu/about/our-board/

“We appreciate the passion of our community; however, the decision to discontinue online services is multi-faceted, never taken lightlyand 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.”

https://www.dsogaming.com/news/european-gaming-industry-lobby-responds-to-stop-killing-games/
https://www.videogameseurope.eu/wp-...ation-of-Support-to-Online-Games-04072025.pdf

 

[KleinesSinchen]

"Industry pushes back against it"
If you want to drain the swamp, don't ask the frogs.

 

[yoyoyo69]

If game studio plans to shut off server based games then they could simply pass a law they must make the code open source and leave it for the community to decide on how to host if they don't want to pay for server status anymore. Simple fix.

This is completely unacceptable. They won't tell say why publicly, but it's unacceptable

 

[DarknessPlay3r]

Once again this initiative is NOT asking developers to keep game servers up forever. All this is asking is for developers to keep a game in a playable state after EoL. Whether that be singleplayer modes, Local multiplayer, or the ability for users to host their own games. It can be completely hands off from the developer once those methods are met

The companies against this have used extremely dumb logic against it here. They state things such as it not being feasable for games to offer this due to budget, it hurting sales of newer games(basically planned obsolescense), or just completely ignoring the request and thinking its us asking for games to stay online forever.

For the consumer side yeah this logic is shit as it is anti consumer as fuck.

Looking at the groups opposing this, I can safely say their reasoning would be something like this:

Not being feasable due to budget. Spend as little as possible and get the most out of it, having to actually pay someone or a team to handle EOL would cost money, and require actually paying money. Not acceptable, CEOs need more bonuses! How can we take a bigger cut if the peasants keep taking what is rightfully ours!

It's hurting newer game sales. If they can play something they already paid for, how are we going to continue to take our money that is rightfully ours? We decide when and how you play our games and you will buy the next thing we over price and say thank you!

Asking for games to stay online forever. See, see! These peasants are so UN-reasonable! The 5 people in a year who will still be playing this should just move on and pre-order the next next game.

If game studio plans to shut off server based games then they could simply pass a law they must make the code open source and leave it for the community to decide on how to host if they don't want to pay for server status anymore. Simple fix.

Won't happen. That would require them providing closed (in-house) code ect. Requesting this would just hurt the cause, developers would instantly cite losses from having to do all the work and getting none of the benefits when other developers just use the "open source" code.

A much better solution for this specific scenario would be like valve and other developers used to do for PC and let users host their own dedicated servers. That way things like *match making* and such can go offline and then put the finding players issue onto the player base.

 

[Skv0ra]

So, server-based games, which are the main candidate here, use certain servers as game engine equivalent to make the assets interact with each other cohesively, right? And we're talking huge, industrial servers and clouds where that game and gaming industry as a whole make up maybe a bee's dick behind the real money and clinets who also rely on that "engine" for their computing needs. So like the normal game engines that are rented these days, these remote ones are too, and there's absolutely negative zero chance in hell that source code would be released to fekken anyone like a lowly end user.

And this server-based computing is mostly used to level the hardware compatibility issue and make those games run smooth across most user h/w sets vs having to accommodate for that headache, right?

So this movement is like saying, "hey big Nintender, when you're done with MKW, you have to surrender SW2 fw to the users so they can decrypt and host their own SW2 servers for it."

Am I getting this right so far? If I am, and this passes into something substantial in the future - either be ready for game reqs becoming very tight, games coming out early 2000s level of buggy, or absolutely nothing happening of it. And like in the other thread - if something is good and popular enough, it will get preserved in some way, but otherwise it's typically good riddance like with Crew and Anthem in all honesty.

 

[Sander1974]

This is a great first step, let's hope the lobby in the EU is positive for this to happen, anybody interesting in settling in Brussels to spread the word

 

[Lostbhoy]

This is a great first step, let's hope the lobby in the EU is positive for this to happen, anybody interesting in settling in Brussels to spread the word

I would but I hate their sprouts

 

[neotank19]

If game studio plans to shut off server based games then they could simply pass a law they must make the code open source and leave it for the community to decide on how to host if they don't want to pay for server status anymore. Simple fix.

This would prevent Nintendo from rereleasing their games on new consoles in perpetuity.

Post automatically merged: Jul 9, 2025

It all boils down to; do we really own our games. alas the industry for the last 20ish years has said um no you dont, you only lease them.

I disagree with this completely. This is partly why I still own every gaming system I have ever bought, so I can play my games when I like. And have not purchased digital games.

 

[K3Nv4]

For the consumer side yeah this logic is shit as it is anti consumer as fuck.

Looking at the groups opposing this, I can safely say their reasoning would be something like this:

Not being feasable due to budget. Spend as little as possible and get the most out of it, having to actually pay someone or a team to handle EOL would cost money, and require actually paying money. Not acceptable, CEOs need more bonuses! How can we take a bigger cut if the peasants keep taking what is rightfully ours!

It's hurting newer game sales. If they can play something they already paid for, how are we going to continue to take our money that is rightfully ours? We decide when and how you play our games and you will buy the next thing we over price and say thank you!

Asking for games to stay online forever. See, see! These peasants are so UN-reasonable! The 5 people in a year who will still be playing this should just move on and pre-order the next next game.


Won't happen. That would require them providing closed (in-house) code ect. Requesting this would just hurt the cause, developers would instantly cite losses from having to do all the work and getting none of the benefits when other developers just use the "open source" code.

A much better solution for this specific scenario would be like valve and other developers used to do for PC and let users host their own dedicated servers. That way things like *match making* and such can go offline and then put the finding players issue onto the player base.

If they make $0 profit they have no real reason to care tbh unless they plan a massive come back which generally it's just single players that get remastered.

 

[spinal_cord]

The easiest way to combat the issue is simply not buy games that are unplayable when the server goes offline. But that will never never ever happen, because people are selfish and want to play the games more than they want to own the things they buy.

 

[Lumstar]

It's only reasonable to expect companies to have an end-of-life roadmap for online games.
Though it remains to be seen how many of these titles have enough of a fanbase to endure, if the proverbial keys are handed over to the community.

 

[Foxi4]

I see Stop Killing Games as a digital extension of right to repair. If the original creators who sold a product choose not to support it anymore, it doesn’t logically follow that the product is obsolete. They should release the final version of server files at minimum so that consumers could continue to use the product. I don’t think the source is required if there are concerns about copyright at play, all that’s required is the bare minimum binaries that allow for the continued use of the product. People have hosted private servers for huge projects, MMO’s especially, for as long as I can remember. It’s perfectly feasible.