The Stop Killing Games petition has garnered a response from the EU lobby group Video Games Europe, who has argued that forcing developers to perpetually support online titles would ultimately make them too expensive to create.
The consumer activism movement Stop Killing Games looks to lawmakers to implement a legislation that stops publishers from ‘destroying’ the games they have sold to consumers. An example of this is preventing online titles such as The Crew, Concord and others being shut down without offering an offline solution for players.
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.
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Lobbying group Video Games Europe has now issued their own response to the petition, which has gained over 1.2 million signatures.
We appreciate the passion of our community; however, the decision to discontinue online services is multi-faceted, never taken lightly and 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.
The group went on to note that “private servers are not always a viable alternative option for players,” and observed that some games have been built”from the ground up to be online-only,” thus making games “prohibitively expensive to create” if the proposals in place.
While we’re on the subject of Stop Killing Games, Anthem is another example of an online-only title that does not have any option for offline play. EA announced last week that the game will be taken offline in January 2026, thus making Anthem unplayable.
MultiVersus, the cartoon-style brawler from Player First Games, had its online servers shuttered earlier this year following the conclusion of Season 5, although unlike Anthem and Concord, this game is still playable offline (although it has been delisted from storefronts).
[Source – Video Games Europe Statement via VGC]