A grassroots movement is urging governments in Europe, the United States and the United Kingdom to introduce legal protections that would prevent video game publishers from permanently shutting down online-only titles, arguing that consumers are losing access to products they have paid for.
The problem is stark and worsening. In the first six months of 2026 alone, BioWare shut off the servers for its sci-fi shooter Anthem after nearly seven years, making the game unplayable. Electronic Arts discontinued The Sims Mobile in January, with no refunds offered for unused in-game currency. Highguard, released by Wildlight Entertainment in January, saw its servers go dark in March – just months after launch – after failing to build a sustainable player base. Activision Blizzard took Call of Duty: Warzone Mobile offline in April, having already removed the game from app stores a year earlier; players’ unused CoD Points were not refunded. Dozens more titles have been added to the growing graveyard of games that can no longer be played.
When a publisher decides to stop supporting online play, players have little recourse. Some communities attempt to keep dead games running on private servers, though the legality of such efforts is uncertain. Generally, when a game goes offline, it is gone for good. But a coordinated campaign, Stop Killing Games, is trying to change that.
How the movement began
Stop Killing Games was founded in April 2024 by YouTuber Ross Scott after Ubisoft announced it was shutting down the servers for its online-only racing game The Crew. Scott has described the practice as an “assault on both consumer rights and preservation of media,” comparing it to the destruction of old films. Two gamers subsequently filed a lawsuit accusing Ubisoft of fraud over the The Crew shutdown, arguing that players had bought what they believed was a permanent product. Ubisoft is contesting the claim by arguing that players purchased a licence, not ownership. A French consumer advocacy group, UFC-Que Choisir, has also filed a lawsuit against Ubisoft over the same discontinuation, a case backed by Stop Killing Games.
At its simplest, the movement wants governments to mandate “end-of-life plans” that keep games playable after official support ends. Jonah Goldman, the group’s director of US operations, offers a concrete example: if you play Call of Duty, you can already play multiplayer matches both online and through your own home network. If Activision were to shut down its servers, Stop Killing Games argues the company should allow players to buy and operate their own private online servers.
Legal and legislative action: Europe
Stop Killing Games has pursued multiple legal and legislative avenues. In the European Union, the group launched a European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) titled “Stop Destroying Videogames,” which gathered nearly 1.3 million valid signatures and triggered a public hearing in the European Parliament. The European Commission responded this week by stating that it “cannot propose a legal obligation to keep video games playable after they stop being provided commercially” because of existing copyright and intellectual property laws. However, it said it would work with publishers to create a “code of conduct on managing video games’ ‘end of life.’”
Moritz Katzner, the group’s general director for European affairs and US advisory, told the Guardian before the decision that the movement had expected the Commission to simply do nothing. Instead, Stop Killing Games will now lobby for its proposals to be included in the forthcoming Digital Fairness Act, a legislative package expected to target manipulative online practices. The act is scheduled for proposal in the fourth quarter of 2026. “The Digital Fairness Act, which is a law package coming in front of the European parliament this summer, is perfect for us,” Katzner said. “We have committed promises, public commitment, that they’re going to put [our proposals] in there.”
Pressure on the EU has been mounting. Ubisoft chief executive Yves Guillemot met European Commissioners and the trade organisation Video Games Europe on 3 June to discuss digital policy. On 9 June, 45 members of the European Parliament sent a letter urging Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, executive vice-president Henna Virkkunen, and consumer protection commissioner Michael McGrath to commit to legislative action.
United Kingdom: parliamentary debate
In the UK, a petition to Stop Killing Games garnered enough signatures to force an official parliamentary debate on the issue. After hearing arguments, the government decided against amending existing law but pledged to monitor the situation through the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA).
United States: California’s Protect Our Games Act
Across the Atlantic, Stop Killing Games helped drive the most concrete legislative progress so far. The Protect Our Games Act (AB 1921), championed by California assembly member Chris Ward, passed the state assembly with a vote of 43–16 in June and now heads to the California state senate for a second vote. If enacted, the bill would require publishers to provide advance notice before taking a server-dependent game offline and to offer a way for players to keep accessing the game – for example, through offline modes or community-operated servers – or provide a full refund. The law would apply only to purchased games released after 1 January 2027; free-to-play and subscription-based titles are excluded.
“A constituent in my district brought this issue to my attention, highlighting a concerning gap in consumer protection for live service games,” Ward said in an emailed statement. “As technologies and markets evolve, our laws must keep pace, in this case to ensure that Californians can make use of the games they pay for.”
Goldman described the bill’s rapid progress as “slightly unexpected, but very exciting” and said he is optimistic about its chances in the state senate. Whether it passes or fails, he expects other states to follow. “There’s a lot of opportunity here for a lot of different states, especially those who have members who are focused on and care about consumer rights and consumer protections.” The bill’s potential reach could be amplified by what Ward calls a “California effect” – where legislation passed in the state’s large market influences national practices. A precedent already exists: a previous California bill about transparency of digital licensing is the reason every player purchasing a game on Steam now sees a disclosure below the payment button stating that they are buying a licence, not ownership.
Industry opposition
The movement’s advances have drawn sharp opposition from the video games industry’s biggest trade organisations. The Entertainment Software Association (ESA), which represents US publishers, issued a press release in June in which its president and chief executive, Stanley Pierre-Louis, argued that a legal requirement to keep games playable indefinitely would put publishers in an “impossible situation.” He wrote: “Behind every online game is an enormous, invisible infrastructure … When a game’s popularity fades, that infrastructure continues to run, for a fraction of the audience, at nearly the same cost.” Pierre-Louis warned that the proposal would “drain resources and energy from creating what comes next,” and that companies would make fewer games if they became “permanent obligation[s].”
In Europe, the trade body Video Games Europe has expressed similar concerns, arguing that the movement’s demands could make game preservation “prohibitively expensive to create.”
Katzner dismisses the industry’s resistance as a “pure business decision.” He said: “They’re concerned that … people still playing their existing games aren’t going to buy a new one. That’s the simple thought chain here. But if you buy a new car, your old provider doesn’t come and destroy the old one.”
