from the more-more-more dept

Thankfully, the Stop Killing Games movement isn’t stopping this time. YouTuber Ross Scott kicked the movement off in 2024 to generate political action around the disappearance of games that people had bought purely because the company that sold them decided to no longer support them or run backend infrastructure needed play them. While the movement found very little purchase at first, it resurfaced earlier this summer when Scott and a fellow YouTuber got into it over why the campaign failed to launch. That back and forth between them went somewhat viral, which in turn led at least one high-ranking EU politician to express interest in the movement.

European gaming lobbying groups predictably lost their shit in response. And, so that there is no misunderstanding, here is the horrible premise upon which the Stop Killing Games movement is built.

The Stop Killing Games’ end goal is that governments will implement legislation to ensure the following:

• Games sold must be left in a functional state
• Games sold must require no further connection to the publisher or affiliated parties to function
• The above also applies to games that have sold microtransactions to customers
• The above cannot be superseded by end user license agreements

It’s a very simple request that boils down to this: you can’t make your games in such a way that you can take away what I’ve bought just because you want to. If you can’t get on board with those goals, well, you’re simply anti-consumer when it comes to the gaming industry.

The movement hasn’t died. In fact, it recently picked up two more allies in two UK MPs who are already publicly warning the industry that ripping away the games that customers have purchased might already be in violation of UK law.

Video game developers could be in breach of consumer protection law by effectively ‘switching off’ titles, rendering them unplayable for customers who have bought them, an MP has stated.

Mark Sewards, the Labour MP for Leeds South West and Morley, highlighted concerns that this practice is unfair, given that purchasers are not explicitly informed of this possibility at the point of sale. Mr Sewards, who is a member of a parliamentary group focused on consumer protection, also voiced fears that such a precedent could eventually extend to physical goods, as digital technology becomes increasingly integrated into household items.

In ways, it already has. If you buy something in one working state and then the maker of that thing remotely makes changes to your purchased item that makes it function differently, is it really the same thing you originally purchased? I would argue it is not and we see this sort of thing with IoT devices all the time.

Sewards was very clear, however, that this isn’t meant to demand the absurd from gaming companies.

“A publisher should not be able to deliberately disable every copy of a game that consumers have already purchased, leaving them with nothing.”

He added: “The publisher should have a duty to ensure that the game, purchased and owned by the consumer, remains playable in some way.”

So where does the potential violation of UK law come into play here? It’s simple: customers of these gaming companies are simply not being informed well enough as to what they’re buying and what might happen to their purchase in the future. How long will the game be supported? How long will it remain functional? Will gaming companies allow public open source groups run the infrastructure to power the game when the companies no longer want to? Will they go after groups like that for copyright infringement? Under what circumstances might their purchased game become unplayable based on corporate decision making?

If companies fail to inform the public as to answers to questions like that, it would potentially run afoul of consumer protection laws in the UK. And Sewards isn’t the only one getting on board.

His Labour colleague Warinder Juss (Wolverhampton West) said new regulations were needed.

“We do not accept our mobile phones being switched off whenever a company produces a new model and wants us to buy a new model,” Mr Juss said. “So why should we allow thousands of pounds worth of games being made unplayable because new games have been introduced?”

We’ve got a long road to travel and millions in lobbying dollars to breakthrough before any real progress is made. But these opening salvos into true consumer protection in a class of products that continues to gain popularity are important. Either you want people to own what they’ve bought or you want corporate interests to determine just how long you get to use the thing you permanently traded your hard-earned money for.

It really is that simple.

Filed Under: mark sewards, stop killing games, uk, video games, warinder juss