Games lobby: "Stop Destroying Videogames" makes games more expensive
If the demands of the EU Citizens' Initiative are met, games will become more expensive, say the lobbyists. Private servers are also not always an option.
When Ubisoft shut down the MMO racing game "The Crew" in 2024, "Stop Killing Games" got rolling.
(Image: Ubisoft)
After the citizens' initiative "Stop Destroying Videogames" received the required number of one million signatures in the EU and 100,000 in the UK on Thursday, the games industry lobby has spoken out. The association "Video Games Europe" (VGE) published a brief statement on Friday. Publishers such as EA, Epic, Microsoft, Ubisoft and national associations such as the German "game" have joined forces in this organization as a lobby.
If online services are "no longer economically viable" for a game, it must remain an option for the operators to switch off the services. Should they decide to do so, players would be informed in advance "in accordance with local consumer protection laws". The option of handing over the servers in question to the players is "not always a feasible alternative". VGE therefore does not reject them in general.
Publishers also see themselves as liable with "private servers"
However, the mechanisms for "protecting players' data, removing illegal content and combating unsafe community content" are no longer in place. Even more serious is the fact that the lobbyists believe that the "private servers" would "make the rights holders legally liable". VGE therefore believes that its members are responsible for what players do with a title even if it is no longer supported by the publishers.
Videos by heise
If the demands of the "Stop Killing Games" initiative were to be met, games would become "prohibitively expensive to produce", says VCG. However, the association only states this for purely online games. However, the initiative launched by YouTuber Ross Scott in response to the shutdown of the online racing game "The Crew" is not just about online-only games. Part of the demands is also that players not only acquire a license that can be revoked at any time. Many license agreements stipulate such conditions, which must be confirmed before playing.
Ross considers this to be illegal with other consumer protection laws. He and his fellow campaigners are demanding, among other things, that there must be an "end of life plan" before support for a game is discontinued. This means that a game that cannot only be played online should be put into a state that allows players to use the title permanently without the manufacturer's support. There are already corresponding approaches on a commercial level, such as the "Game Preservation Progam" from the provider GOG. However, this focuses on older games that are regarded as classics.
(nie)
