Over a few weeks, there has been a lot of discussion over the consumer movement known as “Stop Killing Games”. Ross Scott, the founder of the initiative, has already gone through many hurdles with this movement, and there are plenty more to overcome in the future. However, the main problem this movement faces is misinformation, as many people have been misled about the intentions of this movement and don’t really know what it is about. What is it all about?
To answer that question, we must look at the game industry and its practices with consumer ownership. Many big publishers, like Ubisoft, include certain demands in their games’ licensing agreements that state that the company can revoke your ability to play at any moment. In other words, the consumer doesn’t own the games they buy, and the publishers can pull the plug on them when they deem it not profitable anymore. It is a slimy tactic that holds questionable weight in our system of law.
Therefore, the “Stop Killing Games” initiative plans to change that by petitioning for new laws to protect consumer rights and ensure that games can continue to be played long after the developers are done. This goal has been largely misunderstood by certain people, which is why the initiative has been dealing with roadblocks. For example, rumors spread that the movement wants developers to constantly maintain and update the game indefinitely, which is untrue. The movement simply wants developers to insert a way for games to be playable after the official servers are shut down.
So far, the European petition for these changes has gotten over a million signatures, which is a great sign for the initiative. Hopefully, awareness of this initiative will spread, and laws will be put in place to protect games from fading away.
