European Union Petition Launches to Prevent Online Video Games from Being Destroyed

A European Union petition has launched with the aim of ensuring online video games remain in a playable state after publisher support ends.

Following multiple worldwide governmental petitions and action being driven at the Stop Killing Games website, the current European Union petition looks like it could be a major stepping stone for possible regulation in the future.

The high profile shutdown of Ubisoft's online-only racing game The Crew has been one of the prime reasons for starting the initiative, driven by YouTuber Accursed Farms.

With live service games being shutdown and inaccessible more frequently, the petition aims to find legal ways in which games going forward must allow for paying customers to still be able to play their games in some shape or form. Previously suggested examples include allowing for public servers or the implementation of an offline mode. It doesn't mean developers must continue to provide support and patches for games after the shutdown.

Outside of many live service games seemingly not needing to be online only, like the aforementioned The Crew, part of the issue with such games is that there is no way of knowing when their access will end after purchase. A game making it far clearer to the customer when its access will be terminated upon purchase may be a positive outcome, although the petition aims to achieve more than just that, and instead hopes that this will lead to publishers being prevented from destroying video games in the long run.

The European Union petition is only able to be signed by citizens of countries within the EU, but it is likely that any possible success could lead to worldwide change. The petition requires one million signatures and has one year to achieve this goal, with an end date of 31st July, 2025. Should the petition reach this threshold, it can then be discussed with the European Commission, with the hope of regulation following on from that.

After a week of the petition being online, it has already amassed almost 20% of its goal, approaching 200,000 signatures, so it is off to a strong start.

If you are a citizen of a European Union country, head over to the petition's page to register your support.

Stop Destroying Video Games European Union Petition: https://eci.ec.europa.eu/045/public/#/screen/home