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A European Citizens Initiative has been launched by the Stop Killing Games campaign, as one of multiple methods being pursued to challenge planned obsolescence in videogames. As summarized by the initiative itself:

This initiative calls to require publishers that sell or license videogames to consumers in the European Union (or related features and assets sold for videogames they operate) to leave said videogames in a functional (playable) state.

Specifically, the initiative seeks to prevent the remote disabling of videogames by the publishers, before providing reasonable means to continue functioning of said videogames without the involvement from the side of the publisher.

If the Citizens Initiative reaches the signature requirement, the European Comission is required to issue a formal reply and explain its decision on if it will or will not propose new EU legislation based on the initiative. The initiative runs for one year, by which time it must have surpassed one million valid signatures.

In order to be eligible for the petition, participants must be:

1. A citizen of a EU country
2. Of voting age

Those wishing to sign can find the Initiative on the ECI website, as well as further information and guides on StopKillingGames's website. The form only requires basic information, but if a mistake is made the signature is invalidated and that individual cannot try again.

The Stop Killing Games campaign was launched by Ross Scott based on the shutdown of Ubisoft's The Crew, a primarily single-player game that nonetheless required an online connection to Ubisoft's servers. Support for the game was dropped in March 2024, rendering it entirely unplayable to those who had purchased it possibly three months prior - despite indications that an offline mode already existed to some degree within the game's code.

If the campaign is successful, publishers could be required to have end-of-life plans for their games: such as a patch to remove connection requirements in cases similar to The Crew, or allowing players to host their own servers for multiplayer games that significantly rely on them. The campaign explicitly does not require anything while support continues.

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Scott has published numerous videos detailing the different stages and justifications for the campaign, one of which is shown above. Although there is a full year to reach the target, he emphasizes the need for others, especially multilingual and non-English EU citizens, to reach out to those with audiences within the EU.

Source

 

[Tofu_mommy]

It wouldn't, it would kill gaming or software production in an instant.

The bad software, totally, and I would not care. My stance on IP is that it should be abolished.

 

[Haki]

While I fundamentally agree with what this is setting out to achieve, I can't help but think that it is somewhat short-sighted.
If it is put into action it may steer developers future projects into avoiding online functionality entirely. And while I'm not against this, it could mean that the types of games that we are used to just don't get made anymore

That's the point there's no reason a single player game should be forced to connect to their servers to play single player and if they want to force us to connect to a server they should be forced to pay the costs to keep that server up forever or make that game usable offline.

 

[BeniBel]

The bad software, totally, and I would not care. My stance on IP is that it should be abolished.

That's a very scary opinion to have, to be honest. Luckily it will never happen. Why would anyone create anything anymore, if you can't own the right to your own creations? It gives me a vibe of communism, and we all know that never works out.

If you create something, you should have full control of it, simple as that.

 

[Tofu_mommy]

The idea of owning ideas is as backwards as it gets. IP laws exist to prevent innovation, and the idea of Copyleft is well established at this point. If you equate abolishing societal harms such as patents to communism, I see no point of even explaining it to you.

 

[BeniBel]

The idea of owning ideas is as backwards as it gets. IP laws exist to prevent innovation, and the idea of Copyleft is well established at this point. If you equate abolishing societal harms such as patents to communism, I see no point of even explaining it to you.

How can the notion of owning an idea be backwards? Those inventing creativity should have every right to protect it. With your logic, everyone should be allowed to write and publish books about Harry Potter, Games of Thrones or any Superhero. It wouldn't create innovation, it would kill everything that is a bit popular.

Innovation comes with creating your own and fresh ideas, it's the core concept of it.

The day that we would stop protecting creations, is the day creativity dies.

Noone should be entitled to what others have created, never.

 

[Tofu_mommy]

How can the notion of owning an idea be backwards? Those inventing creativity should have every right to protect it. With your logic, everyone should be allowed to write and publish books about Harry Potter, Games of Thrones or any Superhero. It wouldn't create innovation, it would kill everything that is a bit popular.

Innovation comes with creating your own and fresh ideas, it's the core concept of it.

The day that we would stop protecting creations, is the day creativity dies.

Noone should be entitled to what others have created, never.

You're assuming I assign value to art. 0 would be the highest amount I'd be willing to assign to it, and in fact I consider it to be a negative value. Oh, and I love the kinds of examples you picked showing your "taste".

 

[linuxares]

So many singleplayer game that gotten dead thanks to Securom for example. Thankfully its easy to crack. Imagine when Denuvo servers for games go down... if it aint cracked or patched.

 

[BeniBel]

You're assuming I assign value to art. 0 would be the highest amount I'd be willing to assign to it, and in fact I consider it to be a negative value. Oh, and I love the kinds of examples you picked showing your "taste".

I picked general examples that most age en geographical groups would known. I also do not get the remark of "taste".

I feel you're self conflicted. You imply that you care about innovation, as you state you feel IP laws prevent it. Yet you do not care anything about arts, and in that extend creativity.

We're not gonna see eye to eye, so it might be best to wrap this up before this topic gets ruined with more nonsense and passive aggressive remarks.

I'm just glad IP laws do exist, and they will keep existing as long as there are clear minded individuals protecting innovation.

 

[Tofu_mommy]

So many singleplayer game that gotten dead thanks to Securom for example. Thankfully its easy to crack. Imagine when Denuvo servers for games go down... if it aint cracked or patched.

There are reported cases of modern Intel CPUs tripping up their questionable tamper detection, and cases of games like Doom Eternal being rendered unplayable outside of windows due to introduction of game-wide kernel mode anti-cheat, which is enabled even for single player.

 

[linuxares]

There are reported cases of modern Intel CPUs tripping up their questionable tamper detection, and cases of games like Doom Eternal being rendered unplayable outside of windows due to introduction of game-wide kernel mode anti-cheat, which is enabled even for single player.

I wonder if that have to do with the 13th and 14th gen issues going on

 

[Tofu_mommy]

Nope, it was happening on alder lake, with different kinds of cores tripping up VM detection.

 

[MasterZebulin]

Find a way for US users to sign up and I'm in.

 

[NinStar]

Innovation comes with creating your own and fresh ideas, it's the core concept of it.

The day that we would stop protecting creations, is the day creativity dies.

Not really, you are assuming as if it is a binary thing. A lot of times IP prevents other people from building on top of something that already exists and could bring innovation.

I think you are underestimating how egregious IP is (at least at it's current state), it negative effects can range from something as simple as restricting other people from using arrows in video games to the entire pharmaceutical industry and their unethical practices to protect their patents.

 

[Tofu_mommy]

restricting other people from using arrows in video games

Need I remind that with US patent law, it took Intel to try to patent a string of digits (586) for the government to say no, but rounded rectangles, math formulas and look and feel are fair game?

 

[Retrovkit]

This is specifically directed at everyone against this initiative. Remember when Steam had no general return policy? Crazy I know. Australia and the EU are the main reasons you get to enjoy this policy by the way. You're welcome.
Anyway, were you against that policy back then? After all, it could be pretty bad for every dev releasing very short games. You can now play through 50% of a 4 hour game, decide you've had your fill and refund. Devs have to adapt to this new policy or risk financial trouble. I think it's fair to say most people considered the boost in consumer rights to outweigh any kind of burden this policy placed on devs.
So how about it? Were you in favor of the Steam refund policy, but are against stopkillinggames? Why/why not? I think the comparison is spot on because in both cases, a "burden" is placed on devs and consumer rights are strengthened.

Oh, and my own opinion (ignore this if you don't care): I think game devs need to give something in return for your one-time payment. It doesn't get more fundamental than that. When they kill the Online-only game, they keep your money but you don't get to keep the game. This is an imbalance and needs to be fixed. It should never have been legal to do this in the first place.
Further, "think about the burden you place on game devs" is entirely unconvincing. They "went out of their way" to make the game Online-only to begin with. They can be expected to go out of their way again to make it work offline or whatever works for the consumer.
Finally, an end-of-life plan is essential for Online-only games. It's not just this optional "nice to have" thing. It's a must. Anything else should not be considered acceptable. Killing the game forever should not qualify as a strategy, by the way.

 

[TankedThomas]

I despise the EU but every now and then, they do something half-decent. The problem is that they usually have some kind of overreach or Orwellian fine-text. I Hope that's not the case here, but politicians and lawyers usually can't help themselves.
Still, something needs to be done, and whilst I'd prefer it was the customers who made the choice, too many are too busy whaling on micro-transactions and playing trash games all the time.

I love physical games, but digital is certainly far more convenient... until they disappear. If we could have some sort of guarantee (other than the seven seas) that we actually own them, maybe I'd buy a lot less physical games.

Also, this might possibly maybe give us some offline MMOs. I'd love if Final Fantasy XI got a proper solo mode. I don't want to pay for a subscription for an ancient, clunky MMO, but I'd still like to play it. I stay away from MMOs these days because you can sink years into them and then have the rug pulled out from under you if the company decides to do so later on. We should be able to back up every save for every game, Nintendo.

I wonder if that have to do with the 13th and 14th gen issues going on

Nope, it's to do with the E-cores (which is why it affects Alder Lake too). I don't remember the specifics, but it basically throws some programs for a loop. I think it was something to do with the Windows task scheduler, but it's been a while since I looked into it so don't quote me on that.

 

[Vetusomaru]

With EU not giving a shit about Europeans' lives and human rights, what makes you think they will give a shit about video games?

Also the video games industry is already fucked now thanks to ESG-pandering, so I don't give a shit about modern games being lost.

 

[Tarmfot]

How can the notion of owning an idea be backwards? Those inventing creativity should have every right to protect it. With your logic, everyone should be allowed to write and publish books about Harry Potter, Games of Thrones or any Superhero. It wouldn't create innovation, it would kill everything that is a bit popular.

Innovation comes with creating your own and fresh ideas, it's the core concept of it.

The day that we would stop protecting creations, is the day creativity dies.

Noone should be entitled to what others have created, never.

You know people hadn't copyright laws time ago.
How popular songs were created?

What is science?
Is sharing knowledge destroying innovation?

 

[deSSy2724]

Look at what they did with H.A.W.K 2..... after decade they released an official offline patch. I was surprised as they did it but this rule should be for all of the games, PERIOD.

 

[Jaxom]

While I fundamentally agree with what this is setting out to achieve, I can't help but think that it is somewhat short-sighted.
If it is put into action it may steer developers future projects into avoiding online functionality entirely. And while I'm not against this, it could mean that the types of games that we are used to just don't get made anymore.

Or just plan an update to switch online protocols to use Peer-to-Peer instead of dedicated servers once they decide to stop supporting the games.