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

 

[ZeroT21]

When you push out games digitally and the buyer expect support for the product to last forever. The idea of it is novel, but not realistic, even if they added extended lifespan support for a physical product. The games industry operates not just on margins but also has to consider the product failing to hit product sales numbers to cover the cost of development

 

[Sir Tortoise]

When you push out games digitally and the buyer expect support for the product to last forever. The idea of it is novel, but not realistic, even if they added extended lifespan support for a physical product. The games industry operates not just on margins but also has to consider the product failing to hit product sales numbers to cover the cost of development

Physical games are not immune to this, The Crew was sold physically. Plus none of this is about requiring the publisher to give eternal support, they can run it however they want. Just can't break it on their way out after selling it.

 

[K3Nv4]

Any person on the internet who claims there is a "simple" solution to a large problem is either lying or selling you something.

There is no one size fits all solution to EoL plans for games. That's why the initiative does not cover games that already exist. However, we are asking that games that have not been made yet are built in such a way where it is simple to keep them alive after the company ends support. That could look like building server code that is decoupled from third party libraries, removing DRM checks at EoL, converting multiplayer games to single player campaigns, etc. Ultimately, it's not our job to enforce HOW a company provides EoL support, only that they do.

Any person who doesnt see the simple issue over complicate out of drama.

 

[SecureBoot]

Any person who doesnt see the simple issue over complicate out of drama.

I'm sorry, but you must not be a dev if you think eternal support is a simple issue. Lots of server side code is built using third party, proprietary libraries that are not legally able to be distributed. You can't just release the server binaries. You would have to reimplements those libraries from the ground up or find a vendor that allows redistribution

 

[K3Nv4]

I'm sorry, but you must not be a dev if you think eternal support is a simple issue. Lots of server side code is built using third party, proprietary libraries that are not legally able to be distributed. You can't just release the server binaries. You would have to reimplements those libraries from the ground up or find a vendor that allows redistribution

If it was law and the game was making no profit anyway you could.

 

[SecureBoot]

If it was law and the game was making no profit anyway you could.

No, the law would protect the vendor that says you can't redistribute their stuff. You, as the dev, would have to reimplements a custom solution. Laws don't trump other laws. "Your honor, I had to murder the guy because he had the money I needed to pay taxes" is an extreme example, but the point is you can't break one law to keep another

 

[K3Nv4]

No, the law would protect the vendor that says you can't redistribute their stuff. You, as the dev, would have to reimplements a custom solution. Laws don't trump other laws. "Your honor, I had to murder the guy because he had the money I needed to pay taxes" is an extreme example, but the point is you can't break one law to keep another

Kind of an extreme comparison over a games source code. If a law was writing it had to be open source if servers are no longer supported after consumer buys it then a judge could order to make it open source.

 

[Jayro]

I want the "Stop killing games" thing to succeed, but the drama swarming around the dude pushing it is just killing this thing...

 

[SecureBoot]

Kind of an extreme comparison over a games source code. If a law was writing it had to be open source if servers are no longer supported after consumer buys it then a judge could order to make it open source.

A judge wouldn't determine that. The solution is too narrow and does not fit every game. Even if a game is built without any proprietary third party libraries, there still may be trade secrets a company would like to keep secret in their code. There also may be privacy concerns depending on what exactly the server binaries need to handle. It doesn't make any sense to pigeonhole all games into one solution. Any judge worth his salt would know that. The people behind the initiative also know that and that's why they're not asking for a blanket "all server binaries must be made open source".

 

[K3Nv4]

A judge wouldn't determine that. The solution is too narrow and does not fit every game. Even if a game is built without any proprietary third party libraries, there still may be trade secrets a company would like to keep secret in their code. There also may be privacy concerns depending on what exactly the server binaries need to handle. It doesn't make any sense to pigeonhole all games into one solution. Any judge worth his salt would know that. The people behind the initiative also know that and that's why they're not asking for a blanket "all server binaries must be made open source".

You'd be highly surprised just how quick any law could change.

 

[SecureBoot]

You'd be highly surprised just how quick any law could change.

Legislative? Quick? Don't make me laugh. Established industries aren't turned on their head for the good of the people

 

[K3Nv4]

Legislative? Quick? Don't make me laugh. Established industries aren't turned on their head for the good of the people

You do realize all of this is hypothetical of course but can't always think things can't happen either.

 

[SecureBoot]

You do realize all of this is hypothetical of course but can't always think things can't happen either.

I suppose you're right. Things CAN happen. It is technically possible. I stand by the belief that that is very unlikely and would ultimately be harmful to the gaming industry if all devs were forced to open source server binaries. Only time will tell though

 

[K3Nv4]

I suppose you're right. Things CAN happen. It is technically possible. I stand by the belief that that is very unlikely and would ultimately be harmful to the gaming industry if all devs were forced to open source server binaries. Only time will tell though

By force I only mean if they plan to kill off the game and completely shut it down so in my thoughts releasing the actual code would help preserve game play especially since it's $80 per title now and we only get say five years of use. That's a rip off to the consumer.

 

[SecureBoot]

By force I only mean if they plan to kill off the game and completely shut it down so in my thoughts releasing the actual code would help preserve game play especially since it's $80 per title now and we only get say five years of use. That's a rip off to the consumer.

I do not disagree that that is *a* solution to the problem. I am just saying it is not the *only* solution. I'm all for releasing server binaries. It just isn't always feasible

 

[LunaRose420]

I wish people would start making a note of saying that only citizens of EU countries can/should sign this so that us dumb Americans aren't signing it.

Also, a lot of people in this thread seem to think that adding an offline mode/letting people host their own servers/adding a P2P mode is some kind of major issue when games have already been doing this forever.

 

[DeadSkullzJr]

By force I only mean if they plan to kill off the game and completely shut it down so in my thoughts releasing the actual code would help preserve game play especially since it's $80 per title now and we only get say five years of use. That's a rip off to the consumer.

Your logic seems to be rather extreme if I am being honest. I grew up with games that didn't have online multiplayer, and when they eventually did, they had a singleplayer counterpart to them. We live in an age where some games have an alternative unofficial service path for multiplayer now. But the important part here is, even if those unofficial methods didn't exist, you still have singleplayer, and we didn't need source code to do this.

Expecting companies to fork over source code just because you spent $80 on a game (despite the fact you should be going against that logic, not buying into it) and don't want it to die, makes zero sense for quite a couple reasons:

1. Trade secrets with how a company designs their games is massively important. The objective is to one up the competition, whilst offering a new and inventive experience for the player. It doesn't make sense to give open source code for a game, only to make it easy for the competition to look at it (yes they literally do this if given the chance), and replicate the same concepts on a dime, with their own twist on things. It would become a situation of capitalizing on the success of a mechanic rather than the quality of the game, and we would end up with a lot of game clones over saturating the field. This doesn't account for other companies nobody talks about doing things they legally shouldn't be doing with the code either.

2. If the games were forced to be open source, this would actually cause massive issues if the company wanted to make a remaster, or rerelease of the original game for a different platform(s). They wouldn't sell well if at all because ports already exist for absolutely free, all due to the source code. You basically take the company's ability to profit off their work and IP away from them in this sense, which is wrong. It's their property, they should be entitled to make money off of it. We can discuss reasonability of that, but that's a different story altogether.

Here is something you didn't think about, this will seem like a stretch, but it's absolutely possible. Let's say a company decided to release a game under the same IP, using the same engine, etc. (so let's say it's a sequel for example), this opens the door for the possibility of someone making an unofficial cloned version of the company's new game for absolutely free using the existing source code for the first game. No, the code obviously won't match what the developers have for that exact title, and no functionally it may not even perform as good, but when it comes to consumers, they don't care for the little details like that. Most consumers would jump on that clone version just because it's free, which would completely ruin what the company was doing in the first place with their IP and games.

3. We can talk about the obvious copyright issues this has, but at this point, you just need to educate yourself.


Quite honestly, if the games have an offline single player counterpart to them, I think that's basically the bare minimum that's needed, and still a win. By that point, you aren't losing a game at all, you get to play it still, and it doesn't even have to be open source. If you want multiplayer, reverse engineering efforts are on the table. I probably missed multiple points about why going open source can be an issue, but the two above are the ones that come to mind for me the most. Looking at the Nintendo DS library alone as an example, should emphasize how we still win even when the online plug was pulled, we can still play many of them today as we speak. These newer games aren't different from that logic, just engineer an end of life roadmap to basically give an offline experience, we don't need source code for that.

 

[K3Nv4]

Your logic seems to be rather extreme if I am being honest. I grew up with games that didn't have online multiplayer, and when they eventually did, they had a singleplayer counterpart to them. We live in an age where some games have an alternative unofficial service path for multiplayer now. But the important part here is, even if those unofficial methods didn't exist, you still have singleplayer, and we didn't need source code to do this.

Expecting companies to fork over source code just because you spent $80 on a game (despite the fact you should be going against that logic, not buying into it) and don't want it to die, makes zero sense for quite a couple reasons:

1. Trade secrets with how a company designs their games is massively important. The objective is to one up the competition, whilst offering a new and inventive experience for the player. It doesn't make sense to give open source code for a game, only to make it easy for the competition to look at it (yes they literally do this if given the chance), and replicate the same concepts on a dime, with their own twist on things. It would become a situation of capitalizing on the success of a mechanic rather than the quality of the game, and we would end up with a lot of game clones over saturating the field. This doesn't account for other companies nobody talks about doing things they legally shouldn't be doing with the code either.

2. If the games were forced to be open source, this would actually cause massive issues if the company wanted to make a remaster, or rerelease of the original game for a different platform(s). They wouldn't sell well if at all because ports already exist for absolutely free, all due to the source code. You basically take the company's ability to profit off their work and IP away from them in this sense, which is wrong. It's their property, they should be entitled to make money off of it. We can discuss reasonability of that, but that's a different story altogether.

Here is something you didn't think about, this will seem like a stretch, but it's absolutely possible. Let's say a company decided to release a game under the same IP, using the same engine, etc. (so let's say it's a sequel for example), this opens the door for the possibility of someone making an unofficial cloned version of the company's new game for absolutely free using the existing source code for the first game. No, the code obviously won't match what the developers have for that exact title, and no functionally it may not even perform as good, but when it comes to consumers, they don't care for the little details like that. Most consumers would jump on that clone version just because it's free, which would completely ruin what the company was doing in the first place with their IP and games.

3. We can talk about the obvious copyright issues this has, but at this point, you just need to educate yourself.


Quite honestly, if the games have an offline single player counterpart to them, I think that's basically the bare minimum that's needed, and still a win. By that point, you aren't losing a game at all, you get to play it still, and it doesn't even have to be open source. If you want multiplayer, reverse engineering efforts are on the table. I probably missed multiple points about why going open source can be an issue, but the two above are the ones that come to mind for me the most. Looking at the Nintendo DS library alone as an example, should emphasize how we still win even when the online plug was pulled, we can still play many of them today as we speak. These newer games aren't different from that logic, just engineer an end of life roadmap to basically give an offline experience, we don't need source code for that.

The games already dead from gameplay I don't get the whoplah everyone is trying to make against my opinion. Lol

 

[GothicIII]

This ist the First time I heard from this Initiative.
I am from EU and I am sorry to crush your dreams but most reprentatives don't even know what a video game is. Which lobby supports this initiative?

I really hope it will get better (for video game preservation), but the laws are complicated and the property rights are almost exclusive within the publisher who would never give them away.

 

[KingVamp]

Might be growing pains, but I think this is a better situation than letting games needlessly die.