Stop Killing Games

What is Stop Killing Games?

Stop Killing Games is “a consumer movement started to challenge the legality of publishers destroying video games they have sold to customers.”¹They argue that players have a right to play their online video games, even when the developer wants to pull the plug on the games. It should be made clear here that this movement is focused solely on online video games.

The issue that they see with the gaming industry as of now is that developers can pull the plug on the servers for an online video game whenever, rendering the game unplayable if it relies on the servers to run. They want developers to leave the game in a playable state after support ends for the game. We’ll explore what that looks like in a later section.

Background

The Crew

The Crew is an online-only racing game made by Ubisoft². The game was released in 2014 and had mixed reviews. It got a 6/10 from IGN³, a 8/10 from Eurogamer⁴, and a 4.5/10 from Polygon⁵. The always online aspect of the game had led to issues while playing when the server would have issues, essentially making the game unplayable.

On December 14th, 2023, Ubisoft announced that they would be delisting all editions of the game and all virtual currency packs from game stores ⁶. This would make it so the game could not be purchased anymore. They also announced that they would keep the game playable until March 31st, 2024, at which point they would shut off the servers for the game. Since this game relies on a server connection to work, this would make the game unplayable, no matter what.

The reason I mention The Crew here is that this was the game that led to the creation of the petition. Ubisoft is headquartered in France, and Ross Scott saw an opportunity to make a move, as I’ll explain in the next section.

Petition Launches

On April 2, 2024, YouTuber Ross Scott (aka. Accursed Farms) posted a video titled “The largest campaign ever to stop publishers destroying games”. In this video, he laid out the early plans for the Stop Killing Games movement, announced the launch of the petitions and website (stopkillinggames.com), and gave an insight into the views shared by the movement. ⁷

Since then, the following actions have been taken ⁸:

• Launched a European Citizens’ Initiative
• Worked with Member of European Parliament Niklas Nienaß and the support of MEP Patrick Breyer to submit questions to the European Commission on the legality of publishers destroying video games they have already sold.
• Submitted complaints on “The Crew” to the European Consumer Centres Network
• Submitted a government petition in 2024 to the UK Parliament on the practice of publishers destroying video games already sold
• Submitted complaints to the DGCCRF on “The Crew”.
• Submitted complaints to French legal mediators on “The Crew”.
• Contacted the UFC-Que Choisir about consumer complaints on “The Crew”.
• Submitted complaints to the ACCC on “The Crew”.
• Submitted a government petition to the Australian Parliament to end the practice of publishers destroying video games already sold
• Submitted a petition to Canadian Parliament on the destruction of games
• Submitted complaints to the FTC on the game “The Crew”.
• Tried to initiate a lawsuit against Ubisoft on “The Crew” in Brazil.

  Current State

  When I first started to write this blog post on June 6th, the European Citizens’ Initiative was sitting at a little under halfway to its goal, with only a little bit of time left to reach its 1 million goal, and the UK petition was in a similar boat. However, thanks to the extreme rallying of the community, both petitions have now smashed their goals, the European Citizens’ Initiative at a staggering 1,337,332 signatures.

My Thoughts

Alright, it wouldn’t be a good blog post if I didn’t feel the need to interject my own opinions onto the topic, right?

I think this petition is an amazing start for the fight for more digital consumer rights. I am appalled by the fact that companies can revoke access to games on a whim, as we have seen before. AAA studios can add offline modes to their games, as we have seen with titles like Battlefront II ⁹, Call of Duty WWII ¹⁰, and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild¹¹.

This petition is an amazing starting point for the broader discussion on consumer rights in our newfound digital age. While I don’t think this will be the solution to all of our problems, it opens the door to a broader discussion, which can hopefully lead to effective legislation to protect people’s property online.

Sign the Petition!

If you are an EU citizen, you can sign the petition until the 31st of July, 2025. The link is below:

https://eci.ec.europa.eu/045/public/#/screen/home

References

1. https://www.stopkillinggames.com/ ↩︎

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Crew_(video_game)# ↩︎

3. https://www.ign.com/articles/2014/12/02/the-crew-review ↩︎

4. https://www.eurogamer.net/the-crew-review` ↩︎

5. https://www.polygon.com/2014/12/10/7363397/the-crew-review-xbox-one-ps4-PC ↩︎

6. https://archive.ph/20240120062339/https://www.ubisoft.com/en-gb/game/the-crew/the-crew-2/news-updates/mOR3tviszkxfeQCUKxhOV/an-update-on-the-crew ↩︎

7. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w70Xc9CStoE ↩︎

8. https://www.stopkillinggames.com/pastactions ↩︎

9. https://www.gameslearningsociety.org/wiki/can-i-play-battlefront-2-offline/ ↩︎

10. https://softhandtech.com/can-you-play-cod-ww2-offline/` ↩︎

11. https://me.ign.com/en/the-legend-of-zelda-hd-158649/130101/review/the-legend-of-zelda-breath-of-the-wild-review ↩︎