1.3M Signatures Weren't Enough for Stop Killing Games

"The EU Commission has come out with their answer and unfortunately, it's about what I expected." That was Ross Scott, the Accursed Farms creator who founded the Stop Killing Games movement, reacting to a decision that effectively tells 1.3 million people their signatures earned them a conversation, not a law.

On June 16, the European Commission published its response to the Stop Destroying Videogames European Citizens' Initiative." The Commission cited existing intellectual property rights, publisher costs, confidential business information, and even cybersecurity risks as reasons a legal mandate would not be "proportionate." Instead, it pledged to begin talks with the games industry and consumer groups by the end of 2026, aiming to produce a voluntary code of conduct around managing games at their end of life.

A voluntary code of conduct. For an industry that killed The Crew without refunds, shut down Anthem after selling it at full price, and buried Concord within weeks of launch. I struggle to see how a non-binding agreement gets publishers to do anything they aren't already incentivised to do. The Commission's official response does acknowledge that EU consumer law already requires publishers to disclose contract duration and termination conditions before a player signs up. But as Scott pointed out during his livestreamed press conference, nobody actually does this. No EULA tells you when the servers will go dark. If existing law already covered the problem, the problem wouldn't exist.

What happens next

The initiative cleared every procedural hurdle the EU threw at it. It gathered over 1,294,188 verified statements of support, well past the one million threshold required for the Commission to formally examine it. It was presented in February, debated in Parliament in April, and discussed in plenary in May. Parliament appeared broadly supportive. None of that mattered when the Commission, which holds the exclusive power to propose new EU legislation, decided the current framework was sufficient.

But the campaign has a backup plan, and it's one Scott says he anticipated needing. Stop Killing Games is now pushing for the European Parliament to amend its goals directly into the Digital Fairness Act, legislation currently in development that targets addictive design, manipulative interfaces, and other digital consumer issues. Parliament can't propose new laws on its own, but it can amend proposals that are already on the table. According to Scott, the movement has majority support among MEPs, which would make that amendment viable.

There's also movement outside Europe. As reported by Reuters, French consumer group UFC-Que Choisir is actively suing Ubisoft over The Crew's shutdown, alleging the publisher misled consumers about the permanence of their purchase. Ubisoft's defence is that players bought limited access, not ownership. In the US, a Protect Our Games Act backed by Stop Killing Games recently passed a State Assembly vote in California, though the politician behind it has acknowledged enforcement will be difficult.

The frustrating reality here is that the democratic machinery worked exactly as designed and still produced nothing binding. Over a million people signed. Parliament listened. The Commission shrugged. Scott told supporters not to be discouraged, and I think he's right that the Digital Fairness Act route is the smarter play now. But the gap between what 1.3 million citizens asked for and what they got back, a promise to chat with the industry, is a pretty stark illustration of how slowly consumer protection moves when intellectual property law is on the other side of the table. The next real test is whether Parliament can get Stop Killing Games language into the Digital Fairness Act before publishers lobby it out.