What is Stop Killing Games? Controversy surrounding game preservation explored

The Stop Killing Games initiative has gained traction lately as the petition's deadline approaches. This campaign was started by YouTuber Ross Scott, popularly known as Accursed Farms, who is trying to protect players from losing access to games they purchase when publishers decide to suddenly shut down servers.

While the movement has received the support of hundreds of thousands of gamers over the past year, it has also faced some criticism from certain content creators and developers. On that note, we explore the Stop Killing Games controversy and why game preservation is important.

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Stop Killing Games controversy: Everything you need to know

Stop Killing Games is a consumer movement that started in April 2024 when Ubisoft announced it was shutting down The Crew, a popular racing title, with over 12 million copies sold.

The reason this was a big deal is that the game was "online-only," and thus, those who paid for it couldn't launch it post-April 2024. Although The Crew had a single-player mode, it became unplayable, which many gamers found to be unfair.

The main goal of the Stop Killing Games movement is to ensure that publishers do not simply remove access to games whenever they want. Instead, they should either provide offline access or at least allow fans to play their titles on private servers.

While the movement started due to The Crew, there are hundreds of other games that have met the same fate over the past decade, making this initiative more valid.

As of now, the official petition on the European Citizens Initiative website is about to expire by the end of July 2025, and there's no official response or action taken so far.

One of the most vocal critics of this movement is the YouTuber Pirate Software, who believes that keeping all games online forever would be extremely expensive, especially for small developers. He has also expressed concerns that the petition could lead to unintended consequences for live service games.

Pirate Software's statement has received support from numerous people, due to which, the number of signatures on the official petition remained stagnant for months. Eventually, people started forgetting about it.

A few days ago, Ross uploaded an hour-long video titled The end of Stop Killing Games to explain the situation and the initiative one last time. He also directly addressed all claims made by Pirate Software, resulting in the initiative once again receiving plenty of support.

Now, Pirate Software and his own game, Heartbound, are receiving backlash from the community.

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Why is game preservation important?

Video games are part of modern culture and should also be preserved for future generations. But doing so is more complicated than with movies, books, and music due to their dependency on online servers, digital rights systems, and account verifications. When a game publisher decides to shut down a game, it could simply disappear overnight.

Hundreds of classic titles from the 2000s and 2010s are no longer available to play legally. This is one of the major reasons we are seeing a rise in piracy and the use of emulators.

So far, the Stop Killing Games movement has struggled to hit its goal due to a lack of sufficient signatures and legal backing. Whether it will achieve success or not remains uncertain, but this controversy has sparked a conversation about consumer rights and ownership in the gaming industry.

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Edited by Dinesh Renthlei