News European Citizens Initiative launched against the destruction of videogames, requires one million signatures

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A European Citizens Initiative has been launched by the Stop Killing Games campaign, as one of multiple methods being pursued to challenge planned obsolescence in videogames. As summarized by the initiative itself:

This initiative calls to require publishers that sell or license videogames to consumers in the European Union (or related features and assets sold for videogames they operate) to leave said videogames in a functional (playable) state.

Specifically, the initiative seeks to prevent the remote disabling of videogames by the publishers, before providing reasonable means to continue functioning of said videogames without the involvement from the side of the publisher.

If the Citizens Initiative reaches the signature requirement, the European Comission is required to issue a formal reply and explain its decision on if it will or will not propose new EU legislation based on the initiative. The initiative runs for one year, by which time it must have surpassed one million valid signatures.

In order to be eligible for the petition, participants must be:

1. A citizen of a EU country
2. Of voting age

Those wishing to sign can find the Initiative on the ECI website, as well as further information and guides on StopKillingGames's website. The form only requires basic information, but if a mistake is made the signature is invalidated and that individual cannot try again.

The Stop Killing Games campaign was launched by Ross Scott based on the shutdown of Ubisoft's The Crew, a primarily single-player game that nonetheless required an online connection to Ubisoft's servers. Support for the game was dropped in March 2024, rendering it entirely unplayable to those who had purchased it possibly three months prior - despite indications that an offline mode already existed to some degree within the game's code.

If the campaign is successful, publishers could be required to have end-of-life plans for their games: such as a patch to remove connection requirements in cases similar to The Crew, or allowing players to host their own servers for multiplayer games that significantly rely on them. The campaign explicitly does not require anything while support continues.

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Scott has published numerous videos detailing the different stages and justifications for the campaign, one of which is shown above. Although there is a full year to reach the target, he emphasizes the need for others, especially multilingual and non-English EU citizens, to reach out to those with audiences within the EU.

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