The Stop Killing Games campaign was debated in UK parliament on Monday, with a spokesperson for the government reiterating its stance that it has no intention to amend existing consumer laws.
Stop Killing Games is a consumer campaign that challenges lawmakers to introduce legislation that would stop publishers from being able to “destroy” video games they have sold to consumers.
Specifically, it calls for laws that stop games that rely on online servers from being shut down without viable offline alternatives for those who’ve invested money, citing recent examples such as The Crew, Concord, and MultiVersus.
Mark Sewards, MP for Leeds South West and Morley, argued that consumers were asking for a “fairly simple” guarantee from game makers: that they won’t suddenly be left with nothing after purchasing a game.
“I am not demanding that publishers keep servers running forever,” he said. “Campaigners are not asking for indefinite technical support. We are not asking companies to keep pouring resources into a game that they have finished with. What we are asking is fairly simple: that publishers should not be able to deliberately disable every copy of a game that consumers have already purchased, leaving them with nothing.”
Sewards argued that the end of support seen in many modern video games wasn’t the same as an electronics company ending support for an old printer, because it “still prints documents”.
“What we are seeing with games is different,” he said. “It is as if someone bought that printer, and then one day the manufacturer sent out a signal that deliberately stopped it from working at all, claiming it had reached the end of support. That is not support ending; it is obsolescence, which has an entirely different meaning.”
Much respect for this MP and to the people of Leeds for electing him. I genuinely feel that he understands the problem, and has conveyed it in a very palatable manner for debate.
Peacock claimed that because modern video games were complex to develop and maintain, implementing plans for games after support had ended could be “extremely challenging” for companies and risk creating “harmful unintended consequences” for players.
Handing online servers over to consumers could carry commercial or legal risks, she said, in addition to safety concerns due to the removal of official company moderation.
Her first counterpoint is garbage, if FitGirl repacks have taught us anything it’s that it’s very doable to archive a playable snapshot of a game.
Her second one ventures into the territory of the Online Safety Act, which is already a shitshow of disingenuous debate.
As your read the extraordinarily ignorant comments by representatives of the UK government, just remember that the same extraordinary ignorance underpins everything the government does.
Say it with me crew!
If buying is not owning…
And now the government said it themself :)
