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

 

[DeadSkullzJr]

Nah you lost me. Just because you do something doesn't mean you can reasonably expect everyone to. There's only so many hours in a day and people don't know what they don't know. Joe average just wants to play the not new game with his friends.


That may be the case but at least the content is available. One potential EoL plan is releasing server binaries which would maintain both the spirit and content of the game

So let me get this straight, you condone people not researching before purchasing first? "Only so many hours in a day." It literally takes a few minutes of research... It shouldn't take anyone hours to research. If you can dump time watching videos, or talking on the internet, I'm pretty sure you can take a few minutes of that time to do bare minimum research. Work life, I understand, but you aren't working 24 hours straight every day. Stuff to do at home? Fine, but you aren't doing stuff at home every second of your life, you have breaks, you sit down, you are on your phone a lot of those times you have a break anyways. You likely have people to talk to as well who can tell you if something is online or not by doing the research themselves for you. There's too many pot holes with this "I'm busy" argument that while I understand, I also feel like it's abused so hard to justify doing clearly bad habit things.

 

[MikaDubbz]

That may be the case but at least the content is available. One potential EoL plan is releasing server binaries which would maintain both the spirit and content of the game

People would still complain though, and ultimately nothing will really have changed except the game still technically being able to load up to a barren pointless wasteland. Hell, I think people would ultimately be more upset by what they can boot into. I think I'd rather every game of the type to simply have a disclaimer in the games description (either back of packaging or in the online listing's description) that the user should be aware that at any point the servers could shut down and at which point the experience you were looking for will no longer be available.

 

[SecureBoot]

So let me get this straight, you condone people not researching before purchasing first? "Only so many hours in a day." It literally takes a few minutes of research... It shouldn't take anyone hours to research. If you can dump time watching videos, or talking on the internet, I'm pretty sure you can take a few minutes of that time to do bare minimum research. Work life, I understand, but you aren't working 24 hours straight every day. Stuff to do at home? Fine, but you aren't doing stuff at home every second of your life, you have breaks, you sit down, you are on your phone a lot of those times you have a break anyways. You likely have people to talk to as well who can tell you if something is online or not by doing the research themselves for you. There's too many pot holes with this "I'm busy" argument that while I understand, I also feel like it's abused so hard to justify doing clearly bad habit things.

I don't condone it. I just say you can't reasonably expect people to know what they don't know. Your average customer isn't even going to have a thought in their mind that they may not have access to what they purchase one day because that doesn't happen with any other medium.

I work in cybersecurity. The whole mantra there is you have to protect people from themselves. You can't expect fallible people to get it right every time. I find that people who do expect that typically just have a superiority complex.

Post automatically merged: Jul 9, 2025

People would still complain though, and ultimately nothing will really have changed except the game still technically being able to load up to a barren pointless wasteland. Hell, I think people would ultimately be more upset by what they can boot into. I think I'd rather every game of the type to simply have a disclaimer in the games description (either back of packaging or in the online listing's description) that the user should be aware that at any point the servers could shut down and at which point the experience you were looking for will no longer be available.

Agree to disagree. We already see success with games that were able to have their server code reverse engineered and reimplemented. Take Club Penguin for instance. There are still hundreds of people who enjoy that game thanks to community efforts, but not every game is lucky enough to have been reverse engineered. If people care about the game, they'll be happy with a community maintained version more than not being able to play at all. If people don't care about the game, at least the option is there for someone down the road to open the game and reminisce. Having options is better than not having options

 

[Sir Tortoise]

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

The initiative isn't asking for eternal support, so that's good. As for having to reimplement stuff, it also doesn't apply retroactively, and there's no reason why games going forward can't build their games to have a distributable server software like many other games have. Just because some games have those agreements now, when they're allowed, doesn't mean it's the only way it can be done.

 

[SecureBoot]

The initiative isn't asking for eternal support, so that's good. As for having to reimplement stuff, it also doesn't apply retroactively, and there's no reason why games going forward can't build their games to have a distributable server software like many other games have. Just because some games have those agreements now, when they're allowed, doesn't mean it's the only way it can be done.

Poor wording on my part. By eternal support I just meant the game is available to play eternally. Not official support by the devs.

I am aware that the request doesn't apply retroactively, but devs, especially at big corporations, are going to want to stick with what they know so I don't think locked down server structure will disappear overnight.

 

[DeadSkullzJr]

I don't condone it. I just say you can't reasonably expect people to know what they don't know. Your average customer isn't even going to have a thought in their mind that they may not have access to what they purchase one day because that doesn't happen with any other medium.

I work in cybersecurity. The whole mantra there is you have to protect people from themselves. You can't expect fallible people to get it right every time. I find that people who do expect that typically just have a superiority complex.

Cool job (seriously, I'd like to know more at some point), but we are talking about making decisions over a video game purchase, not falling for malware, dealing with data breach situations, etc.. It doesn't make sense that suddenly we can't seem to think for ourselves when it comes to standard purchasing habits. I'm not here talking about it to be superior, I'm talking about it because I know what people are capable of, that being the basic things they can do in their own lives. This stuff should be common sense at this point, so it isn't even about superiority, it's about doing what's blatantly obvious to do, so you aren't shooting yourself in the foot in the long run.

 

[KingVamp]

The funny thing is, this would make going all digital more appealing. Not something I want to do, but still.

 

[Ondrashek06]

Also, to the people that think this is equivalent to requiring developers to release source code for their games: that's only one of the options.

Other options of an end-of-life plan include:
- releasing server binaries so people can pay to host their own servers
- delivering a final patch that enables peer-to-peer or LAN play
- in the cases of games like The Crew with barely any online functionality, simply removing the always-online requirement
- pulling a ACPC: Complete and releasing a standalone offline game which includes most of the content in the online game

 

[Dan-the-Rebirth]

I get it that online servers must be turned off. But add a offline patch at the end of the games planed lifespan if people payed good money forcit

 

[SecureBoot]

Cool job (seriously, I'd like to know more at some point), but we are talking about making decisions over a video game purchase, not falling for malware, dealing with data breach situations, etc.. It doesn't make sense that suddenly we can't seem to think for ourselves when it comes to standard purchasing habits. I'm not here talking about it to be superior, I'm talking about it because I know what people are capable of, that being the basic things they can do in their own lives. This stuff should be common sense at this point, so it isn't even about superiority, it's about doing what's blatantly obvious to do, so you aren't shooting yourself in the foot in the long run.

Fair enough, I think I still fundamentally disagree because even if you look up a dozen reviews for a game, how many will really say "this game might get destroyed one day". I definitely see where you're coming from though. I just can't fault anyone for not knowing, or for getting sucked up in hype.

I really only bring up my vocation to explain why I hold the perspective I do.

 

[Exnor]

And Ubicrap now changed the EULA to state that you, the consumer, do not own the game you paid full price for it...

I hope they go bankrupt.

Post automatically merged: Jul 9, 2025

Heres a nice explanation about what Ubisoft wants to do:

Source: VideoGame Esoterica

Post automatically merged: Jul 9, 2025

Heres a nice explanation about what Ubisoft wants to do:

Source: VideoGame Esoterica

 

[KingVamp]

It is like their goal is to die faster...

 

[Exnor]

It is like their goal is to die faster...

I hope so.

 

[Skv0ra]

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.

But like I said - what if the publisher doesn't own the rights to their server tech/engine and their game requires that technology? They can't and thus won't release that to the small consumer.

And if that's done to mitigate accounting for all variations of the user hardware, then even if they release the game's code - it'll either run like shit or not at all on plethora of user systems and that would be an enormous backlash that would require the same thing people already do - crack, mod, patch games themselves similar to old no-cd patches.

If we're talking FULL online-only games, then looking at the past - UO was reverse-engineered by the community because there was a huge demand for it. SWG code was leaked. Community lucked out and good old games found their ways to stay working.

So, again, what are we talking about here? If a game is sold as MMO, then you're renting that movie ticket to see that movie, once (aka lifespan of the game). People still go and see movies in theaters, once per ticket. Similarly if you rent a movie.

Post automatically merged: Jul 9, 2025

Remember when you could host dedicated servers to online games so even when companies stopped supporting the game you could eventually still play with? Pepperidge farm remembers

Like what? When games ran largely p2p and thus reasonably limited max player numbers, sure, and we had things like Gamespy to have an alt server list to the official, sever list. Literally everything else was either reverse-engineered or leaked or still never done, but that's largely for MMOs vs single player titles.

Post automatically merged: Jul 9, 2025

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

It's like hardware of any kind - when a new model comes out, pool of spare parts for the old one will run out and then once they break, that's it. People can either learn how to mfg those parts themselves, like in automotive world, or have to move on, but no one holds that original mfg responsible after decades of initial release.

Post automatically merged: Jul 9, 2025

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

Like I first wrote......those server binaries likely feed trillion-dollar industries and gaming industry as a whole getting half a pinky toe into that architecture is absolutely insignificant.

 

[ZeroT21]

And Ubicrap now changed the EULA to state that you, the consumer, do not own the game you paid full price for it...

I hope they go bankrupt.

Post automatically merged: Jul 9, 2025

Heres a nice explanation about what Ubisoft wants to do:

Source: VideoGame Esoterica

Post automatically merged: Jul 9, 2025

Heres a nice explanation about what Ubisoft wants to do:

Source: VideoGame Esoterica

Yeah, it all comes down to who owns the actual game, the consumer or the publisher and what can be done with it

 

[BlusterBong]

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.

That hasn't stopped companies has trying, just look at how Bethesda is still selling the original Doom games even though thier source code was offically open sourced by Id (the 1993 original Doom, Doom II, and Doom 3 specifically) and the same goes for Quake, and yet Bethesda is still reselling these games as if the many source ports that came ever since the code was released never even happened at all or how Nintendo is still wanting you to pay (or rent in the case of NSO) for many of thier N64 games even when they've been reverse-engineered and ported by the people who know how.

It's clearly not hurting sales given those decomps didn't require any security keys or something like it, and the Doom games' source code is completely open source and the people using the ports made by them is comparitively small compared to the consumers who are buying them officially.

 

[DeadSkullzJr]

That hasn't stopped companies has trying, just look at how Bethesda is still selling the original Doom games even though thier source code was offically open sourced by Id (the 1993 original Doom, Doom II, and Doom 3 specifically) and the same goes for Quake, and yet Bethesda is still reselling these games as if the many source ports that came ever since the code was released never even happened at all or how Nintendo is still wanting you to pay (or rent in the case of NSO) for many of thier N64 games even when they've been reverse-engineered and ported by the people who know how.

It's clearly not hurting sales given those decomps didn't require any security keys or something like it, and the Doom games' source code is completely open source and the people using the ports made by them is comparitively small compared to the consumers who are buying them officially.

There's other factors to this though, Doom and Quake are by far extremely popular titles even today. Their existence is pretty strong rooted, most people purchasing the game rereleases and such do so out of collector or novelty reasons majority of the time. This doesn't work out for every other game out there, even with a small dedicated fanbase behind certain franchises, the larger pool of consumers will look for a means of playing stuff for free. Why pay for something they don't care that much about, when they can play it free? That's pretty much the mentality, or the traditional "because I can" mentality. When Super Mario 3D All-Stars came out, despite the artificial quantity nature of that game, you want to know what I saw people saying? "Just download the games and emulate them, the Super Mario 64 ports are better in every way. It's free." Blah blah blah, you name it, people have said it. Granted I don't know how the sales did for that example (especially given scalpers exist unfortunately). The game made sales sure, but it probably didn't make as much if these resources weren't around and or abused in some cases. The situation between AM2R and Nintnedo's remake would have worked out, even if Nintendo didn't DMCA AM2R and if the game was to be made officially open source, since the games were drastically different from each other. Despite both being a remake of Metroid II, they act as their own identities. When there's attention and awareness to certain things, 9/10 it always leads to the debates on what's "logical" or "morally right" just because it's available in a fashion that's either free, or easier to access. Especially when it comes to products you pay for. So many people are already of the mentality that the companies don't have the right to profit off an older game, or complain because someone downloaded the game. Even when companies make the games available again in some fashion, what do people do? Emulate or run a port for free. I don't believe the companies hurt from the lack of sales necessarily, but they certainly aren't going to make as much as they probably anticipated, when people can just trade up for a free version. Don't take this the wrong way either, I just think there is a lot of delicacy to the subject matter that unfortunately, has a lot of ignored details in between, it's not as black and white as most people like to make things be. On the surface things may look fine, but that isn't always the truth internally or behind the scenes.

 

[deSSy2724]

There was one good example with Tom Clancy's HAWX 2 where Ubisoft made a good thing, by providing an unexpected official offline patch after years (the game was always online originally).

Post automatically merged: Jul 9, 2025

There was one good example with Tom Clancy's HAWX 2 where Ubisoft made a good thing, by providing an unexpected official offline patch after years (the game was always online originally).

 

[CMDreamer]

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.

Not so simple.

Private servers are not always the solution, as this might lead to the hacking of players' computers, among other things.

 

[kingaz]

Oh good, yet another online petition that will Totally Do Something™. Just ignore the fact that it's just a list of broad demands from people without domain knowledge, and the people behind it somehow expect the "experts" to do all the hard work to make this workable policy, notwithstanding the industry lobbyists already armed with concrete objections and counter-proposals of basically doing nothing.

Let's be real, this is mainly just terminally online people dog-piling on the latest Internet-drama villain of the week and major game publishers. And sure, they're all very unlikable. But there is no shot any actual policy changes come out of this outside of maybe requiring a warning label front and center on boxes and store pages that "your online-only game will not work until the end of time, sorry suckers" instead of it being buried in the EULA. And that's the optimistic scenario.