Yesterday, the Stop Killing Games movement reached 1 million supporters. And in just a few hours, the European Gaming Industry Lobby responded to it. So, let’s take a look at what they had to say.
Video Games Europe is a group that speaks for the video game industry in Europe. It works on things like rules for games, keeping players safe, supporting game culture, and helping the industry grow. It started in 1998 and is based in Brussels. The group includes trade organizations from about 15 countries, as well as big gaming companies like EA, Ubisoft, Nintendo, Microsoft, Riot, and Activision Blizzard.
Here’s the full quote regarding future game preservation, coming directly from VGE.
“We appreciate the passion of our community; however, the decision to discontinue online services is multi-faceted, never taken lightlyand must be an option for companies when an online experience is no longer commercially viable. We understand that it can be disappointing for players but, when it does happen, the industry ensures that players are given fair notice of the prospective changes in compliance with local consumer protection laws.
Private servers are not always a viable alternative option for players as the protections we put in place to secure players’ data, remove illegal content, and combat unsafe community content would not exist and would leave rights holders liable. In addition, many titles are designed from the ground-up to be online-only; in effect, these proposals would curtail developer choice by making these video games prohibitively expensive to create.”
VGE shared a 5-page PDF. Make sure to check it out. In short, it mostly repeats things you may already know. It also explains why it’s hard to add an offline mode or keep an online game running after official support ends.
It’s important to know that Video Games Europe (VGE) is not part of the European Union, like the European Commission or Parliament. VGE works for video game companies, not for the government or for players. So, it’s no surprise they answered the way they did. Their board includes people from big companies like Warner Bros, EA, Activision, and Nintendo. That means they will always try to protect what’s best for their companies. Simply put, they mostly care about business, not players. After all, these are the same companies that led to the creation of the Stop Killing Games movement.
In short, this is a nothing-burger. This statement is neither a positive nor a negative thing. It also does not undermine the purpose of Stop Killing Games. So, it will be interesting to see how the European Union will respond to it.
For the time being, consumers can only vote with their wallets. If you don’t like these online practices, you should simply avoid buying online-only games. I know it sounds harsh but once you buy a game these days, you agree to its EULA. And the EULA of all online games cover the fact that one day they will no longer work. So, once you agree to the EULA, you lose any right to complain.
I know some people want to play some online-only games. But right now, there isn’t much you can do. The only real way to make a difference is with how you spend your money. You should start choosing where and how you spend it. Sounds ridiculous but that’s how things are in 2025.
Stay tuned for more!
John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
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Starting a revolution only to realize that nowdays, the world gov has placed such failsafes all over the world to maintain Order. Their type of Order ofc.
This is just a response from a lobbying group, it really has nothing to do with the actual petition or any official government response which we wouldn't get until at least the petition deadline.
Who is killing gaming =
NVIDIA
UE5
EA
Ubish##t
Sony
Microsoft
Activision
WB Games
….
+
All The A**holes who endorse them !!!!!!!!!!!!!
It appears you still enjoy a black and white CRT?
The rest of us have moved on.
Go play Fortnite and buy EA & Ubish##i t trash games for 120 $ dumbass !!!!!!!!!
Dumbass would be the re**rd crying on here over the pricing rather than getting a job.
Just so there's no confusion that's you Max.
I wouldnt just say UE5 but just UE as 3 and 4 were just as bad as 5,
AMD should be on the list too as they have also had plenty of amd sponsored games that didnt run that good on other hardware or had features missing that could have been added too
Intel for there P and E and now LP cores Hybrid gimmicks
All in all everyone has had there part in killing gaming these past 10 years or so now but we still sometimes get a game that runs well from any of the companies
unreal engine 3 run on everything.
well yeah it runs but it still had stuttering issues just like the engines of today, i remember games like the Batman series and Remember me, Deadpool, Bulletstorm which suffered from stutters, only difference now is Unreal engine 5 adds shader stutters into the mix, so it dates back quite abit from where people god fedup of stuttering games.
Don't agree with the entire list but big parts are true
So a bunch of shills are doing what they are paid to do.
Their arguments are BS. Having and end-of-life plan that gives the public a reasonable chance to keep the game functioning after support has ended is not difficult. All they have to do is not actively go out of their way to destroy the game.
Yup. Water is wet. Did anyone expect these "people" shilling for the gaming industry giants to actually say "yeah, sorry gamers, we'll go right ahead and spend all this extra cash on making sure your favorite games remain fully playable even after the official support for them is over". Of course they want to expend as little resources as possible to keep the status quo. Only an obligation to follow the law can force them to give at least a semblance of f*ck about game preservation.
Their petition title should be "Stop Killing Online Games". Offline Single player games will always be standing proud even after apocalypse.
Problem is that 90% of the single-players isn't really offline nowadays, most have activation, online components like jowbislop's titles with tons microtransactions that "demand" server connection. I hope this movement win's, its just silly to have a forced connection part in a single-player game that makes the expire the day they decide to steal the access to what the customers paid for.
GoG is great imo, hope more games get released there!
And on a sidenote – While i do not like piracy i however agree that if buying isn't owning then piracy isn't stealing
Problem is that 90% of the single-players isn't really offline nowadays, most have activation, online components like jowbislop's titles with tons microtransactions that "demand" server connection. I hope this movement win's, its just silly to have a forced connection part in a single-player game that makes the expire the day they decide to steal the access to what the customers paid for.
GoG is great imo, hope more games get released there!
And on a sidenote – While i do not like piracy i however agree that if buying isn't owning then piracy isn't stealing
That's why I stated offline single player games. Any kind of online requirement in a single player game is silly and idiotic. That's why GOG is winning and I love it. And tbh if it wasn't for the piracy, a lot of games would've lost by now after so many years
Just look at Driver: San Francisco, the original GTA San Andreas, GTA 3, Warcraft 3. Can't find Driver anywhere and the other got worse remasters that you need to pay a fortune for a worse product, making the originals no where to be found
You can always have a better choice if you actually want to play rather than giving companies money friend https://media4.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPTg5OGZmOWM5MTEzNDBpaWF5d2o1NTdveHFjeDNxcnNsbTJnOTM3aml4Z3N3NWNzZyZlcD12MV9naWZzX3NlYXJjaCZjdD1n/QtQF63jPA6eR2/giphy-downsized-small.mp4
"If you don’t like these online practices, you should simply avoid buying online-only games."
Well its not just the online only that is the issue, Denuvo needs internet to connect to a server or the game wont work but yet many devs dont say the game is online only, they say offine singleplayer etc which technically is a lie
Yeah one time they forgot to update their domain register and many games became unplayable, denuvo is in south africa, it is highly likely their offices get burned down one day.
"must be an option for companies "
no it shouldnt be, in the same way that eu demands non removable bottlecaps and screws in the battery slots for electronic devices and many other ridiculous regulations like legislating the length of candle wicks, there is no reason whatsoever for those companies to get out of it without any regulation, they should be stomped like everyone else and waste time and money complying with the idiotic eu regulations, why would i give a free pass to the one industry that doesnt actually sell me the ownership of the product while all the rest do? REGULATE THEM, FORCE THEM TO MAKE EVERY GAME PLAYABLE OFFLINE.
My personal feeling on this is that if a company wishes to withdraw an online service then they should be forced by law to release the code for that online service allowing the community to carry it forward.
Yep, and thats shows how immoral they are currently. Ethic , an unwritten law, should have been their guidance and priority to satisfy customer while they also making profit out of it. But nope, they playing around with legal word instead of ethic based on common sense. And as customer its now our time to bend that legal word and straight them with law
They only care about money and the industry has been growing at a stupidly fast rate so lobbies and government officials do whatever the hell they please without thinking of anything else but their pockets.
Money talks, but these companies recently getting a kick in the teeth with flop after flop might help this get throught.
Personally, I can't say I really empathize with "Stop Killing Games"' position, if only because their complaints are directed at the wrong problem. The AAA gaming industry's focus on multiplayer games IS the cause of most of the worst micro transactions and focus on "Games as a Service". More Fortnite clones and games focused on squeezing every last drop of money (even if the games themselves are free) is what led to this problem in the first place.
Single player games are ignored in favor of another "hero shooter" and end up getting more "Concords" and "MindsEye". Perhaps the complaints should be about how so much focus on online has resulted in some games being cancelled before they even hit the market or companies simply doubling down on MORE of that junk when it already proved to be a failure.
Pushing for this means less online only trash being made because they can't just pump and dump.
Nothing but absolute lies. It is not difficult to transition an online game to offline play as several games have done just that (MultiVersus and Friday the 13th come to mind). These corpos do not care about game preservation as they sue and send C&Ds left and right to prevent anyone from touching their precious IPs; even when they haven't worked on those IPs in decades. It's all about control. They want to control what and when gamers get to play games. That is also why they are all pushing for subscription services. Keep voting with your wallets.
TBH – They want the old games to be destroyed… as they threaten the sales of new sloppy ones. That's the reality, most gamer's have a huge backlog and that's hurting their sales now that many of the games are stale and boring or at iteration nr 500 of basically the same game – So naturally they hope everyone follow suit with stealing the access the customers paid for!
Imagine selling a car and then one day just take it back without reimbursement, that's what this is when it comes to single-player games that dont need any server component what so ever.
"these proposals would curtail developer choice by making these video games prohibitively expensive to create"
I was going to ignore their dreaded response but it is this bs right here that gets me going. Many games are already super expensive to create as some AAA games reach the hundred millions and even billion dollar threshold in GTA's case. So how much more money do the companies need to give the players what they want.
They're going to lobby hard.
I quit playing online multiplayer games 19 years ago …. I guess that makes me a trendsetter WAYYYYY ahead of the curve. I haven't bought a single EA game since 2003
Who the f*k gives a sh*t. Of bloody course the devs should have the right, to shut the f*kR down if they wants to!
I never play MMO POS trash..get a f*kN life, and play single player only R**ARDS!!
What a load of Boll2cks i remmber when codemasters took race driver grid off line on pc thay gave the rights to gameranger and tunngle the later is no more but game ranger is still going a third party online source to play your games online thy is how a company shoud support players.