“Stop Destroying Videogames” initiative reaches required number of signatures

The EU citizens' initiative “Stop Destroying Videogames” has reached the required number of signatures ahead of schedule: on Thursday evening, the initiative passed the threshold of 1 million statements of support required for the European Commission to address the issue.

“Stop Destroying Videogames” is an initiative of the “Stop Killing Videogames” project, which was launched by YouTuber Ross Scott. The project is committed to stopping the shutdown of video games. “The initiative calls for publishers who sell or license video games (or related features and goods) to consumers in the European Union to be obliged to keep these video games in a functional (playable) state,” reads the EU website of the citizens' initiative.

Successful social media campaign

In June, the collection of votes was still progressing rather slowly, with half of the necessary votes missing. Thanks to a renewed social media campaign on Reddit, YouTube and the like, which also led to further coverage in the traditional media, the project was able to collect the necessary votes within a short space of time. A separate petition in the UK has now also reached the required number of signatures.

Nevertheless, those responsible are not satisfied: to ensure that the EU Commission really does have to deal with the citizens' initiative, they want to collect at least 1.4 million votes. This is to compensate for possible invalid votes that could be subsequently deleted, explains Stop Killing Games on its website. The collection of signatures is still open until the end of July.

Threshold already reached in member states

In addition to the total number of votes, the citizens' initiative must reach a certain threshold in at least seven EU member states, which is based on the total population. “Stop Destroying Videogames” already cleared this hurdle weeks ago, including in Germany. In Germany, 230,000 people have registered to support the initiative, the threshold is just under 68,000 signatures. All votes above this threshold still count towards the total number of signatures.

The initiative got rolling when French publisher Ubisoft shut down its MMO racing game “The Crew” on April 1, making it unplayable. YouTuber Ross Scott finds this action not only annoying, but also possibly illegal. With his “Stop Killing Games” initiative, he not only wants to raise awareness, but also initiate a legal review of the practice.

(dahe)