TL;DR: If you care about your consumer rights there are petitions to sign. If you’re an EU citizen, sign the European initiative; if you’re an UK citizen, sign the UK petition; and in any case, spread the word.
The dystopian interpretation of the ‘you’ll own nothing and be happy’ phrase feels increasingly prescient.1 As corporations hide behind lengthy Terms of Service and End User License Agreements,2 the concept of ownership becomes alarmingly ambiguous. This erosion of consumer rights has given rise to the Stop Killing Games (SKG) movement.
Consider this, in 2015 I’ve stumbled upon the Classic Tetris World Championship. Even though I’d never played NES Tetris, I started following the event with interest. I keenly remember watching the historic 2018 final which was a prelude to the next generation of players picking up the game.
In contrast, world of racing games offer an example of fleeting ownership. While generations continue to enjoy NES Tetris, with a 13-year-old famously ‘beating’ the game 34 years after its release,3 Ubisoft’s 2014 game The Crew didn’t even last a decade. In 2024, Ubisoft didn’t just shut down the servers; it began revoking players’ licenses, seemingly doing everything in its power to ensure the game couldn’t be preserved or revived by the community.
Customer rights
Even if you don’t care about video games, SKG is an important cause worth the few minutes needed to sign. The way I see it, this isn’t just about games, since the practices in the gaming industry are setting a dangerous precedent for other products.
Imagine if a developer could enter your house and take away a disk with professional software that your livelihood depends on. Or if a publisher could rip away a copy of your favourite novel from your shelf (cf. Amazon’s licensing debacle). Or if a hardware manufacturer could remotely brick your device without giving a reason. It’s quite easy to imagine, considering that things like that already happen. Just recently, Nintendo got into hot water for its ability to brick users’ Switch 2 consoles.
If this model of revoking access to purchased products finds no opposition in the world of video games, it’ll inevitably spread to other forms of digital content and even physical products with digital components. The SKG initiative is not just about games; it’s a stand against a future where our ownership is conditional. If we don’t act now, we may wake up in a Black Mirror episode.
The initiative
The goal of SKG is a world where once a customer buys a game, they own its copy and can continue playing it even if the publisher loses interest in it. The movement initiated two petitions:
If you are EU or UK citizen (regardless of where you live), I urge you to sign the respective petition. These aren’t symbolic Internet petitions; they are part of a legislative process. With their goals reached they force formal responses from the European Commission and debates in the UK Parliament.
They had a dramatic rise in the number of petitioners recently. On the 2nd, the UK petition reached its goal of one hundred thousand signatures; a day later, the EU initiative reached its goal of one million signatures. However, there are still reasons to sign.
Ensuring validity
A buffer of signatures is needed to account for any that may be deemed invalid during official verification process.
Sending a message
Politicians and especially game publishers are watching. The greater the number of signatures, the clearer it will be that people are serious about the issue. Contrary to popular belief, vocal customers can affect change. Even if neither EU nor UK governments enact any new laws, game publishers may still think twice before implementing anti-customer features.
Broader support
For the EU initiative, reaching individual signature thresholds in all 27 member states would signify a pan-European unity on the issue. For that to happen we need more signatures from Malta, Cyprus and Luxembourg in particular.
Number of signatures under the EU initiative over time. The campaign collected 330 thousand signatures in the first month but then signatures slowed down and on 24th of June reached 466 thousand signatures only to skyrocket and reached one million nine days later. Source: keep-track.xyz.
1 It’s worth noting that the phrase is somewhat misunderstood. There was never an agenda to make it a reality but rather observation that things seem to move towards a reality where everything is a service. With a view of how such future might look, it brought discussion of ownership to the forefront. ↩
2 Michael Karanicolas. 2021. Too Long; Didn't Read: Finding Meaning in Platforms’ Terms of Service Agreements. University of Toledo Law Review, Vol. 52, No. 1, 2021. doi:10.2139/ssrn.3887753 ↩
3 Historically, level 29 of NES Tetris was considered the kill screen because people could not keep up with game’s speed at that level. However, as younger generation of players got involved, new playing techniques were developed and beating level 29 became the norm. Eventually, Blue Scuti reaching level 157 and crashing the game therefore ‘beating’ Tetris. See aGameScout’s video for more detailed description. ↩
