The Stop Killing Games Initiative

 

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

The UK petition https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/702074

For awhile now I've noticed an alarming trend in the marketplace. Big content platforms in music, videogames, film and television, ebooks etc. Are increasingly embracing a model that eliminates ownership of products and replaces them with a model where customers pay a corporation for access for a limited time. The terms of that access are determined soleley by the company.

That's a terrible practice that ia actively detremental to society. If it becomes the norm or worse the standard we'll find ourselves living in a world where culture, entertainment and educational materials can be withheld and removed at the discretion of a small number of anonymous companies. That's a lot of power over the mass of society.

What can the solution be? Well, the dismantling of the capitalist system and its tenedency to centralise capital and power.

That's only way to root out this and many other social ailments, but that will take time, is there anything we can do on the short term?

Well, yes there is, I know of two such measures currently working there way through.

A group of activists in the EU and UK have setup a campaign to promote consumer protection reforms in those territories.

The campaigns are under the banner of Stop Killing Games (SKG). The campaign is currently using two petitions one in the UK via the UK Gov platform, and the second an EU wide citizens Initiative. 

Their website and wikipedia page have more detail about their aims and history. To summarise.

"Stop Killing Games" is a consumer movement started to challenge the legality of publishers destroying video games they have sold to customers. An increasing number of video games are sold effectively as goods - with no stated expiration date - but designed to be completely unplayable as soon as support from the publisher ends. This practice is a form of planned obsolescence and is not only detrimental to customers, but makes preservation effectively impossible. Furthermore, the legality of this practice is largely untested in many countries.

Over the past year, we have succesfully escalated complaints on this problem to consumer agencies in France, Germany, and Australia, and have brought forth petitions for new law on this problem to various countries. A list of the actions taken to date can be viewed here. As of 2025, most consumer action on this matter has concluded and we are awaiting decisions on it from several governments. However, there are a few remaining avenues left where people can participate if they are eligible:

I'm a sceptic of petitions as a vehicle for wide reaching change, but I also beleive in right of use, re-use repair etc, of things and oppose Intellectual Property and property in general. Besides, what SKG are asking for is not a big change. I know this because I already play several dead games that were saved by their fans, including MMO's like Star Wars Galaxies. If these initiatives suceed 100% it will mean that games companies develop an end of life plan and stop taking action to prevent consumers from keeping abandonware alive.

And in addition these aren't the typical Change.org petitions either. Both of these came out of open government initiatives and are designed to give citizens a small say on policy. If a UK Gov or EU Citizen's Initiative pass there thresholds they are gauranteed a response and public debate. And these petitioms are being promoted by a groupnof volunteers who are active in producing information and lobbying and consulting with politicians and regulating bodies.

So, the chances of these succeeding at least partially is high provided they can make it across the thresholds by the deadline. So, I'm happy to support these intiatives so long as it doesn't distract from my main goals.

 Oh, and speaking of deadlines, both are up this month, July 2025. The UK petition ends on the 14th of July, while the EU one lasts a bit longer ending on the 31st of July. 

Good news, at time of writing both have passed their signature thresholds. Though more signatures is still advised as in addition to making a bigger impact and statement via increased support there is a danger that some signatures will be discounted due to errors and such. 

Another cause for concern I've seen in the EU is people not wanting to give their information up, as the requirements for signature validation differ amongst the member states with some of them being quite high. I completely understand the concern, but the issue is that this is backwards, the EU already has that information in its system and so does the national government. They already have that information in their records.