Stop Killing Games Founder Says European Publisher Group Is Lobbying Against The Consumer Movement

According to its website, Stop Killing Games is a consumer movement “started to challenge the legality of publishers destroying video games they have sold to customers.” Calling current practices “a form of planned obsolescence,” it considers the unplayable state of games after publishers end support to be detrimental to consumers and preservation efforts. It’s a topic that’s hard to ignore given the high-profile nature of certain shutdowns, not to mention that a headline announcing one feels never too far away. The website details how it’s already escalated its complaints to consumer agencies across the world, as well as started a successful petition that the UK government responded to unfavorably.

Stop Killing Games calls the European Citizens’ Initiative, a tool that allows European citizens to call on the European Commission to introduce new law, the “most powerful option at our disposal.”  The campaign’s initiative, titled “Stop Destroying Videogames”, was first registered in June 2024, and started collecting signatures on July 31, 2024. 

On the same day, Scott released a video titled “Europeans can save gaming!” where he shares why he’s confident that the law could get enacted with enough support. He doesn’t call the creation of new law a guarantee, but says certain factors—including the proposal being an easy win for politicians, its alignment with other consumer policies, and current ambiguous legality on today’s game shuttering practices—give him confidence. He also acknowledges the numerous things the initiative won’t do like asking publishers to give up intellectual or monetary rights, require endless support or hosting servers, and more. In his own emphatic words, “publishers can continue doing whatever they want, as long as you get to keep your game.” 

In that video, he expresses more worry about meeting the 1 million signature requirement for an initiative to be reviewed, and even says the initiative will likely need around 1.2 – 1.3 million signatures in anticipation of some being invalidated. This is in addition to signature thresholds that need to be met per country. As of writing this, the Stop Destroying Videogames initiative has obtained over 1.2 million signatures before its deadline of July 31, 2025. While this is good news for the campaign, PC Gamer reported on how a potential spoofing campaign could cause issues, leading Scott to worry about the initiative until the deadline. Scott ended his video today urging eligible EU residents to continue signing. 

For more on the Stop Killing Games campaign’s goals and actions, visit its website.