Stop Killing Games

Stop Killing Games (SKG) is a consumer movement with the goal of preserving video games after they are taken offline. It was started in 2024 by Ross Scott after the shutdown of Ubisoft's The Crew, a racing game that required a constant internet connection despite being mainly single-player. It uses various legal avenues to push for video game publishers being required to make games playable even after their discontinuation, challenging the industry trend of selling games as a revocable "license" or service.

Stop Killing Games quickly gathered popularity, being covered by various YouTubers and news outlets. It was praised by various celebrities, politicians and game developers for tackling a long-lasting problem in the video game industry, though some were sceptical, citing issues with licensed and proprietary content as well as increased development costs due to preservation efforts.

Stop Killing Games has launched multiple government petitions, of which the most prominent is a European Citizens' Initiative named Stop Destroying Videogames, which got about 1.3 million valid signatures. Additionally, a UK Parliament petition managed to amass enough votes for an official debate, though it was ultimately decided that no amendments to the law would be made.

The Crew was a 2014 racing game developed by Ubisoft Ivory Tower and Ubisoft Reflections, published by Ubisoft. Due to its always-on DRM, the game required a constant internet connection to play, including in single-player mode. By December 14, 2023, Ubisoft delisted the game and its expansions from digital platforms, suspended sales of microtransactions, and announced that the game's servers would be shut down on March 31, 2024, citing "upcoming server infrastructure and licensing constraints". The servers were shut down as planned on that date. When the shutdown was announced on December 14, 2023, Ubisoft offered refunds to people who "recently" purchased The Crew, though the time window for an eligible refund was not specified. In early April 2024, days after the shutdown, Ubisoft began revoking licenses from players who had bought The Crew.

Ross Scott is a YouTuber primarily known for his machinima series Freeman's Mind and the owner of channel Accursed Farms. He has been critical of online-only games being shut down, describing the practice as an "assault on both consumer rights and preservation of media" and comparing it to movie studios during the silent film era "burning their own films after they were done showing them to recover the silver content", while also pointing out that "most films of that era are gone forever." In 2019, Scott criticized games as a service, calling it "fraud."

The main goal of Stop Killing Games is to prevent video game publishers from unilaterally rendering purchased games unplayable, mainly by shutting down servers for online-only games. It does not demand for games to be supported and updated forever, rather suggesting for games to be left in a reasonably functional state after discontinuation, such as by introducing an offline mode or the ability to host private servers. Scott also clarified that it does not focus on delisted games that are still playable after discontinuation or any financial censorship issues. A central concern of Stop Killing Games involves online-only games and downloadable content being listed on storefronts prominently as a purchase, instead of as a rent or lease, despite the possibility of access being remotely denied to the purchaser (without an expiration date at the time of purchase) by the publisher for any or no reason; a practice widespread across the gaming industry and untested in courts.

Historically, video games have frequently been dismissed as children's toys and associated with geek culture from their inception until approximately the mid-2000s. Consequently, politicians have largely overlooked issues related to video game preservation and have marginalized video games as a legitimate art form. Stop Killing Games seeks to inform lawmakers about the artistic value of video games and their importance as a product, emphasizing the necessity of preservation efforts and addressing concerns regarding the apparent lack of user ownership and potential consumer law violations by publishers.

Stop Killing Games uses government initiatives and other legal avenues in order to pursue regulation in favor of game preservation. Countries with strong consumer protection laws, such as France and Germany, are prioritized within the movement's reach. Other countries are less available, such as Brazil, due to lack of The Crew's sales data, or the United States, which Scott wrote off as a fruitful legal or political arena for any initiative as a result of the precedent set by the court ruling ProCD, Inc. v. Zeidenberg.