“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!
Thank you! Just signed it.
Live, or citizen? I kept hearing citizen not resident
Sorry my bad the petition does state citizen, title edited!
Signed it months ago.
The ECI is actually gaining numbers again! neat!
Edit: mandatory link to the initiative (this is the kind of initiative that matters and will lead to action if the threshold is reached!) https://eci.ec.europa.eu/045/public/#/screen/home
From when I last checked a few days ago, it went from approx 450k to over 550k! Impressive!
Let’s keep the momentum going, so far this week, we’ve seen videos from:
- penguinz0 with 17M followers
- jeffgeerling’s second channel with 116k subscribers
penguinz0 has certainly caused a large influx, and I’m hoping Jeff will also have an impact.
Any more?
Lots, on channels run by generally awful people that I wouldn’t want to link to. The kind of people who just want to get people angry about video games. The kind of people who direct hate mobs at Sweet Baby Inc (without even understanding what it is that company does) and complain about games being “woke”.
I meant to say, any more videos supporting the movement which may have caused an influx in support. Sure, there are indeed videos by some semi prolific developers with a following attempting at crashing the initiative, but as you mentioned, we are trying to get the initiative to pass, not tank it :)
They are awful people, but they’ve made videos in support of the initiative and likely drove their followers there. If you search for Stop Killing Games on YouTube and look at the recent videos, there’s a who’s who of “oh no, not him”.
It seems to be due to rage bait YouTubers running with the beef/drama between Ross and Pirate Software, because of course it is. That’s the only thing that gets anything on social media to spread, it seems. In this case though, I’ll take it.
