Stop Killing Games Reaches European Parliament: Everything That Was Said at the Brussels Hearing

The Stop Killing Games campaign has officially landed in the halls of the European Parliament.

On April 16, a public hearing was held in Brussels centered on the European Citizens' Initiative (ECI) titled "Stop Destroying Video Games," and it turned out to be one of the more substantive discussions about digital consumer rights that the Parliament has seen in recent memory.

The session was co-hosted by three major parliamentary committees: the Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection (IMCO), the Committee on Legal Affairs (JURI), and the Committee on Petitions (PETI), along with the European Pirate Party.

The initiative arrived at this stage after collecting over 1.29 million verified signatures across EU member states, comfortably exceeding the one million threshold required to trigger official parliamentary scrutiny.

The ECI was formally submitted in Feb 2026, and the European Commission now has until July 27, 2026, to examine it and issue a formal response. The April 16 hearing was the first major public step toward building cross-party support among Members of the European Parliament before that deadline arrives.

Ross Scott, the man who originally launched the campaign in April 2024 following Ubisoft's shutdown of the online racing game The Crew, attended the hearing in person. Alongside him were fellow campaign organizers and legal experts who laid out the case for new regulation directly to parliamentarians. Here is a full breakdown of everything that was said.

The Campaign Organizers Make Their Case

Campaign organizer Daniel Ondruska opened the session by framing what the initiative is ultimately about.

"Our purpose stands in the title honestly. We are trying to prevent video games from being destroyed. We see video games not only as part of our culture, but also as products, and in both cases worthy of preservation. Unfortunately, the practices in the video games industry are hindering both of these and threatening video games as a medium. We are representing European customers and consumers who have not had a voice on this issue for a very long time, and therefore we are very thankful that you are hearing us out today."

Ross Scott then took the floor to provide a detailed breakdown of what the campaign actually means when it says a game has been "destroyed."

"When we say a game has been destroyed, what we mean is a publisher has permanently disabled all copies of it that have been sold so no one can ever play them again. It would be like removing every single copy of a book or film in existence, effectively erasing it from the culture."

Scott walked the parliamentarians through the mechanics of how this practice works in the industry.

"First, a publisher sells a copy of a video game. However, it has been designed so that it must connect to the publisher in order to function. This acts as a potential kill switch. The customer is also given no information when the game will stop working even though the publisher has decided to assume that responsibility. Then after an undisclosed length of time, the publisher disables all existing copies of the game but keeps the customer's money, to ensure repairing the game is almost impossible, even for experienced software professionals. From this point onward, no customer can ever run the purchase again."

Scott then addressed how this behavior fundamentally subverts customer expectations.

"Most video games can work indefinitely, which has been the customer standard for half a century, including ones that connect to the internet. Alternatively, a small number of video games operate as subscription services, but those inform the customer exactly when their access ends at the time of payment. The games we are referring to do no such thing. They almost always contain terms they can end at any time for any reason. What this means is customers have no real protections when they buy games like these. They are unable to keep them and they are not informed when they will end."

He drew comparisons to other industries to illustrate how unacceptable this would be anywhere else.

"If you bought a book in a store, the publisher cannot come into your home and take back your book at will. If you bought an insurance policy, you would be informed when that policy ends, not that the seller could end it at any time for any reason, but still keep your money. The games being sold this way are operating similar to scams. Publishers know customers expect video games to last, so they sell these in the same way as ones that can work forever as a one-time purchase with no expiry date, then price them the same."

On the legal situation, Scott noted that earlier parliamentary engagement had already prompted questions to the EU Commission about the legality of terms in game license agreements.

"The commission stated that a directive prohibits unfair terms causing a significant imbalance in the party's rights and obligations to the detriment of consumers, and also recommended consumers file complaints with businesses across member states through the European Consumer Centers Network. In 2024, we had volunteers across the majority of EU countries submitting complaints against Ubisoft for disabling The Crew. The responses we received from the ECC network were extremely inconsistent. Some officials said there was nothing they could do. Others said the company was required to run the game indefinitely, which is unrealistic. But the majority stated there was no clear regulation on this practice."

Scott also shared findings from an internal study.

"We have formed an amateur study examining over 1,100 video games that require a connection to the publisher. The majority of these have been deliberately disabled by the publisher with many still at risk of being destroyed. Under the strictest interpretation of what it means to disable a game, the study found that out of over 400 titles, publishers disabled a customer's purchase 93.5% of the time when ending support."

He closed by emphasizing who this campaign is really for.

"This may seem obvious, but based on interviews and feedback, we found the majority of game developers do not support having games they have worked on destroyed. They can spend years of their lives creating them, but they are often not the ones making these business decisions and sometimes even sign non-disclosure agreements so they cannot voice their opinion on the matter. The main point I hope does not get lost in this hearing is this initiative welcomes any solution that will solve the problem of video games being destroyed on this scale. We want this to be as easy and as practical as possible for all parties involved. We are not even asking publishers to change their business or monetization models, only that once they end support, they do so in a responsible way. Our only goal is to prohibit this destructive practice and thus obtain basic protections for consumers and the medium as a whole."

General Director of Stop Killing Games, Moritz-Maximilian Katzner, then took on the industry's proposed counter-measures.

"I would like to address a huge issue that we faced during the campaign, especially the start of the campaign: the fact that the whole discussion is very unclear because the technical solutions are so difficult and there is also a lot of pushback by the industry. I would like to raise some proposals we have seen from the industry to masquerade as proposals but are simply unrelated to our issue. Some examples of these are clear labeling, minimum support times, and voluntary end-of-life plans. These are not solutions, nor are these even compromises. They do nothing to fix the problem of games being destroyed in its essence."

Katzner explained why each of these proposals falls short.

"As far as labeling goes, most customers are aware of the problem, but each game is a unique creative and technical work. There is no substitute for each one any more than a book or piece of music can be substituted for another. Their uniqueness is the entire appeal. So customers can feel cornered into license agreements they would otherwise never agree to because they have no other option if they wish to experience the game. As for minimum support times, this is unrelated to our issue. The same goes for notices of when a game is being shut down. We have no problem with publishers ending support at all, anytime they wish. We only ask that they do so in a responsible and reasonable way. Finally, the option of voluntary end-of-life plans is quite literally the state we are in now. While we appreciate when this does happen, our research shows it happens only about four to six percent of the time."

He also addressed a statement from Video Games Europe, the EU lobby group representing companies like EA, Ubisoft, and Roblox.

"A statement made by the European lobby group Video Games Europe claimed one of the reasons for disabling customer purchases is that they represent competition to official versions. I translate this: it is a business model to shut down the game to get players to play their next game, except we are exclusively talking about games where official versions are disabled. In other words, the industry is claiming that customers playing old games could reduce sales for new games, thus they should be free to disable their purchase. Not only do we disagree with this reasoning, but we find this entire stance extremely customer hostile and unacceptable in regards to what the European Union outlines as its purpose and its track record of protecting its consumers."

"There is no monolithic industry. It is the big publishers for the most part, and even there, CD Projekt, creators of Cyberpunk, are a large exception to this issue. We have exhausted all other avenues for trying to get this problem solved. Hence why we are here today. It is our sincere hope that the honorable members and the commission are going to be able to find reasonable solutions for all parties involved."

Professor Alberto Hidalgo Cerezo, a PhD in law and Jean Monnet Professor specializing in consumer law harmonization and digital consumers, structured his contribution around three core points. First, the need for consumer protection rebalancing in the digital single market.

"We are addressing what we consider an unfair practice. When a game is functional, it should not cease to function as a result of a deliberate and avoidable decision. This raises concerns of planned digital obsolescence, where products are rendered unusable despite remaining technically viable. Under the current framework, national authorities are reaching divergent solutions which undermines legal certainty for EU consumers and fragments the digital single market. In the lack of action, we may end up reaching incompatible solutions among the 27 countries. There is thus a clear need for harmonizing rules, a common European approach necessary to ensure fairness and consistency."

Second, he invoked the EU's identity as a global leader in consumer protection.

"Nowadays, it is almost impossible to develop as a full citizen without being a consumer, even more a digital consumer. Primary EU law remains constant in securing a high level of protection for consumers. For instance, the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, Article 38: union policies shall ensure a high level of consumer protection. Article 12 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU: consumer protection requirements shall be taken into account in defining and implementing other union policies and activities. This is a call from primary EU law that we should not miss."

Third, he presented a real example from an actual End User License Agreement.

"As proof of the problem, here is a real case. User license agreement, company Zenimax Bethesda, game Fallout 76, Clause 7, Termination: 'Zenimax may terminate this end user license agreement at any time for any reason. Upon termination by Zenimax for any reason, all licenses granted in this agreement with respect to the game shall immediately terminate and you must immediately: one, permanently destroy all copies of the game in your possession and two, remove the game client from your hard drive.' We believe this practice is unfair for European consumers and incompatible with the aforementioned articles from primary EU law. Therefore, we are kindly asking your honors to stop this kind of unfair practice."

Marcin Barczyk, attorney at law and president of the Intellectual Property and New Technology section of the Krakow Bar Association, rounded out the opening statements with a direct appeal.

"The European Union has a long-standing tradition of advocating for consumer rights. That is why on behalf of 1.29 million EU citizens, I ask you to grant both consumers and the cultural heritage in the form of video games the protection they deserve."

Members of the European Parliament Respond

The MEP responses ranged from pointed legal questions to personal anecdotes, and the overall tone in the room was notably supportive of the initiative.

Axel Voss, member of the Legal Affairs Committee, raised questions about legal feasibility from a copyright perspective.

"From a legal point of view, we are talking about video games as complex goods which are protected by EU copyright law, and therefore there are various different legal levels which connect them with third parties as well. The main question is how can we ensure continued existence of these goods? How does that square with rights holders who have the exclusive right to decide how and for how long their products should be available? On what legal basis within copyright law could this type of requirement be established, or are we only talking about legislation covering consumer protection? And how should we address the situation where continued availability is no longer possible because licenses have run out, for example for music or other embedded content? I think these questions are really important in order to ensure that every approach is legally founded and can also be implemented in practice."

P. Arias Echeverria of IMCO offered personal context alongside her support for the initiative.

"From the point of view of the internal market and consumer rights, I think this is an issue that needs to be investigated. Congratulations to those who conducted this initiative and the success. You do not collect almost 1.3 million signatures every day. I have five children, and my five children play video games. I do understand that this is a problem that needs to be checked through. We need to have clear, transparent rules, and we need impact valuations. I would like to raise the point about fragmentation of the market in terms of solutions which may be introduced by different member states. From my parliamentary group and in terms of the internal market, we are aware of the problem and we are going to monitor it very carefully."

Marion Walsmann, vice chair of JURI, praised the campaign's achievement and zeroed in on the core legal question.

"Well done first and foremost to the initiators of this. Over a million signatures is proof of the huge European interest and the importance of this matter for consumers. We need a rule at European level which will clarify the fundamental question of whether a digital purchase only gives you a fleeting right of use or whether it is something more substantial. My question is related to the high offline purchase costs raised by industry, which they say chokes innovation and could be too much of a financial burden. How do we go about addressing that?"

Rene Repasi, a JURI member who previously led work on the Right to Repair legislation, raised some genuinely interesting alternative legal frameworks.

"I was responsible for the legislation on the right to repair and it was just mentioned that the right to repair is not the right approach to the issue at hand. Hence, I would also rephrase it: whether we do not need, in particular for software and digital content, something like a right to resurrect, in a situation where repair cannot be done, where licensing terms have to be looked at once they are basically expiring because a game is dead, and whether we then let it resurrect and have neglected software reactivated."

He also raised the question of guarantee periods.

"Consumer protection law in the EU knows a two-year minimum guarantee period, but that will not help here. We have member states like the Netherlands that have an internal guarantee period for the functioning of a product. When we are revising consumer protection rules and looking at minimum guarantee periods, whether the matter could also be addressed by a longer or even eternal guarantee period for such products."

"I like the comparison that you made with books and how we would basically react as citizens if something comparable happened to printed products. Do we not need for video games something like a Project Gutenberg, something like a public library in which video games are provided as open access as a public service, and from that moment on we do not look at it anymore from a private angle but a public service angle? That is also changing our ways of how to regulate."

Piotr Muller of IMCO declared straightforward support before broadening the discussion.

"Technology is developing ever faster. Digital services are changing very quickly. It is not only about video game producers. It is also about streaming platforms which are not always fair in their behavior either. Someone buys a product, they should be able to know about all of the guarantees they have for what they bought. Something quite controversial I would like to comment on briefly: I was thinking about trade with digital instances and whether it is possible on the platforms. If someone sells a product, they can also trade with their license. I know the platforms do not want that because it would mean a further secondary market for these licenses."

Nikola Minchev, IMCO vice chair, raised two pointed questions directly at the Commission.

"On the 31st of March 2026, the French consumer organization UFC-Que Choisir brought a legal action against Ubisoft following the closure of the servers of its online racing game The Crew. This unilateral decision rendered the game completely unusable, depriving consumers of any use of a game that they had already purchased without ever having been informed of any expiration date. Will the commission consider supporting the case on the side of the consumer organization and support a referral to the Court of Justice of the European Union to ask for clarifications on the Unfair Contract Terms Directive, which the commission previously identified as unclear in situations where a game is unilaterally rendered unusable by the publisher? Furthermore, will the commission commit to addressing the issue raised by the Stop Destroying Video Games ECI through the Digital Fairness Act later this year? And if not, what assurances can the commission give that this issue will be addressed through legislative action?"

Catarina Vieira of the Committee on International Trade delivered the most stylistically distinctive contribution of the hearing, packing her remarks with video game references from start to finish.

"It is dangerous to go alone into the digital future without clear consumer protections. The truth is that the way we own media has shifted into something that is very sus. Too often, citizens buy a game only to find out that the cake is a lie. You buy a game you hope to cherish for years, but then one day it is suddenly gone. When the publisher pulls the plug, we realize that our princess is in another castle. Our liberty, our libraries, are emptied. Currently players are forced to see the purchases they made completely vanish. We should not have to endure and survive a marketplace where our purchases, which are often masterpieces that bring so much joy, are treated as disposable. We cannot allow digital preservation to take an arrow to the knee. A petition was started to address all of these issues and it is super effective. Let us congratulate over one million citizens who signed it with one clear message to the EU: do not be sorry, be better. It is time to finish the fight. We must ensure that even when companies move on, the virtual worlds we paid for remain still alive. Let us praise the sun on a new era of digital rights so that for the gamer of the future, it is not simply game over."

Leila Chaibi of IMCO was equally direct in her backing.

"The left supports this initiative one hundred percent. We feel very clearly that we need a response to the deplorable acts of people who simply aim at maximizing their profits on the backs of the players, the consumers, and the developers. The fact of destroying a video game is a disgrace for the consumer and the player who pays around 80 euros each time a video game comes out. Add to that all of the microtransactions as well. It is a disgrace also for the developers who have worked for years and see it evaporate forever because of a purely accounting decision. Generally speaking, it is not because games are bad that editors close them down. Some of them are part of our cultural heritage. What would be a playable state for a video game? And should we not have a requirement to pay back virtual objects purchased inside the video game if they are removed or closed down?"

L. Sieper was refreshingly candid in opening his remarks as a gamer before speaking as an MEP.

"Let me maybe be the first MEP here to speak as a gamer that I have been for 20 years. I have been through it all that you described. I have seen the good side of it when it was a community that saved Mount and Blade: Napoleonic Wars. And I have been through the bad side of it when I bought The Crew a few months before they just turned it down. To illustrate the point one last time, I think The Crew is the perfect example. Just imagine you buy a car, a modern car. Every modern car has software. And after two, three, five, or ten years, the car company decides to turn it off, and you can no longer start the engine. A very good colleague of mine said you have to stand for what is right because it is right, even if you are not affected personally. I am even affected personally. So I ask all my colleagues to support this very important initiative."

Peter Agius tied the discussion to the real financial stakes for families.

"I have heard in the same committee rooms a hundred times that what counts online should count offline, or the contrary. And from the presentations and even from the commission's response, it is clear that we are speaking about unfair contract terms, misleading advertising, producer responsibility, and right to repair. I also have three teenagers at home, all of them are gamers. There is also a point of return on investments here. My kids spend 20 to 30, sometimes 60 euros to buy a game, then they spend money on a loot box, then they spend money to get the shield to fight the trolls better, and so on. Basically, if this game is interrupted, these guys have a real stake. So let us find a way of of course promoting the industry and its welfare, because we are interested in that, but also finding a good way of protecting the right to stop destroying video games."

Ruotolo expanded the discussion to include child safety and game regulation more broadly.

"Today we are discussing online video games and therefore also the need to create a safe digital environment for our young people. Europe has certainly made some important steps in the right direction over the last few years, but not all online video games fully fall within the European legislative framework. We are calling for clear standards also in this sector, security from the design level, accessible instruments and automatic protections for minors. Think of the European classification system for video games. For years it has been helping families and users find guidance on content with clear, transparent classifications. But it is not enough. We need to strengthen it, update it, and bring it in line with developments in online video games. We also have to intervene on business models which exploit the youngest, forcing prices up with pay-to-win or pay-to-progress mechanics that are close to gambling-type methods. It is not acceptable. In the culture committee, we think that we should ban these damaging aspects for minors."

Katarina Bali directed two questions squarely at the Commission.

"The Digital Fairness Act was mentioned. Is there a need to tackle the issues that we have heard about today, or do you feel that existing legislation covers it as the experts seem to be saying? And the second question is: is the Commission going to do something about premium in-game purchases?"

The Organizers Answer the Hard Questions

When the copyright and intellectual property dimensions were raised, Professor Cerezo offered a clarifying framework.

"This is a typical confusion on the topic. An IP rights holder is free to commercialize their IP for as long as they want. This is related to making reproduction, distribution, communication to the public, and so on. The consumer is not affected, as the consumer does not make reproductions, distribution, or communication to the public. He just paid the full price and plays the game. That is all. He does not use IP rights. IP law is not absolute. Article 12 states consumer protection requirements shall be taken into account in defining and implementing other union policies and activities, and that includes IP as well. We are only asking to not destroy a consumer keeping his or her own copy open. The game does not hurt IP rights given the fact that he paid the full price for the game in the first place, fulfilling the very goal of IP, which is making profit."

On the question of high costs for offline patches and the risk of curbing innovation, Ondruska was direct.

"We are not asking to preserve games retroactively. What we are asking for primarily is game preservation going forward. We are asking publishers to start with the design process, to design a game not to be basically switched off and become part of planned obsolescence. Games that were developed 20 years ago still function. Games that were developed three years ago do not. It is a design decision. It is a business decision. And in terms of curbing innovation, if you have a golden goose and someone tries to regulate it, you will always say this will curb my innovation, just as it was for example with USB-C and Apple, or with seat belts in cars before seat belts were introduced. The whole industry in the 1960s and 70s was screaming that this would curb their innovation and be a huge problem, and then regulation arrived and we started having seatbelts and airbags in our cars. We are not trying to engage their business model or create issues for them. They will get their money, they can keep monetizing however they want. Just please, once you stop supporting the video game, do not destroy it. That can be part of the design process."

Ross Scott added economic detail on that point.

"When planned for from the beginning, the cost can be very small. The game Concord is actually an excellent example because it is publicly stated that at least 370 million euros were spent developing that game and it did not include an end-of-life plan like what we are seeking. Most of the cost for developing games tends to come from other areas like art assets or marketing. Sometimes industry estimates of how much this would cost can be faulty because they are expecting the game to retain every last feature it had while it was being supported. Many of those features can be retired and do not even make sense for a game that is no longer being supported, like administration, anti-cheat measures, or account management. There can be hundreds of what are known as microservices associated with these that can be disabled and the customer still has the core game. So that should be taken into account when figuring out the potential cost. The companies have already been paid once for the working game, so that should be factored into the budgeting."

On the right to repair and right to resurrect proposals raised by Repasi, Scott acknowledged the ideas warmly but clarified the limits of that approach.

"The right to repair is a little bit of a different issue, though certainly welcome. There are deliberate countermeasures to prevent repair, so it is almost a small miracle when it does happen, even from extremely experienced software professionals. However, if there were repair instructions, that would be very welcome. I think we would even consider that a viable alternative to what we are asking if it were practical to resurrect the game that way. For how long a game should work: the customer standard is indefinitely, as long as they keep the game in good working order on their end. We are not trying to hold any publishers responsible for updates that break things that were not their doing. As far as we are concerned, they could end support the next day, but as long as the game is not destroyed, we would find that acceptable."

He also addressed the idea of pursuing remedies purely through existing court processes.

"If we are doing this through the courts, through legal action, that still does not get to the heart of the matter of the game itself being destroyed. We are not really after refunds and compensation. Those are secondary measures for when the game itself cannot be reinstated. We just want the game preserved. So doing it through the existing framework does not quite get us there."

Ondruska added the scale argument in the most concrete terms possible.

"Doing this individually for every game in every court, can you imagine? That is why we are asking for regulation and harmonization on a European level so that we have the same playing field. UFC-Que Choisir was mentioned, the legal action in France. That was one game, thousands of players, and it took several years. Can you imagine this done ten thousand times in courts? This is not a viable way forward, and that is why we are sitting here."

Cerezo reinforced the legal barriers from the consumer side.

"Sadly, we as consumers do not have remedies of our own. End user license agreements prohibit any action. And consumers do not even have the right to repair their games. It is not included in the directive as it is right now."

Barczyk addressed the broader IP and consumer law question with a pointed analogy.

"Consumers in the European Union who purchase digital versions of video games cannot benefit from the same level of consumer protection as those who purchase physical copies. The problem is that the distribution of physical copies of video games basically does not exist anymore. Even if an individual purchases a disc copy, it often does not contain the entire video game and requires a connection to the publisher's server. Since we all agree that we live in an era in which digital content is distributed digitally without a tangible medium, we must also agree that consumers who purchase digital content such as video games must be protected the same, or at least a similar way, as consumers who purchased a physical copy ten, fifteen, or twenty years ago. As the Court of Justice of the European Union stated, most recently in a case from November 2016, copyright must adapt to new economic developments, and this means nothing less than an obligation to interpret provisions of EU law in a dynamic, progressive manner. The facts are that consumers are left without adequate protection when it comes to the digital distribution of video games, and society faces the risk of permanently losing cultural heritage in the form of video games. And the law is created in this very room."

On microtransactions and in-game purchases, Katzner acknowledged it as part of the same broader problem.

"If I buy a game for 60 euros, and I know some friends who put a lot of money into skins and other content, I made a commercial transaction. Yes, it needs to be addressed. It is part of the issue. We have free-to-play games where people have put in 2,000 euros into skins, and just shutting that down and taking that away is ridiculous. We at first did not actually look at microtransactions, but the California State Assembly brought them into a bill we have been working on. There is definitely room to add these things properly and find a good definition, maybe not just what the product is, but whether there is a commercial transaction going on. That would be an angle to address the issue."

Cerezo also flagged that legislative work on related issues is already moving in member states.

"The Spanish Congress is working on a project of law regarding loot boxes, and the current focus is to restrict the commercialization of loot boxes to minors."

The Commission's Position and What Comes Next

The European Commission representative offered a measured response to close the hearing. The Commission acknowledged that consumers are not entirely without protections under existing law but admitted that the specific issue on the table requires deeper examination. The representative confirmed that the Commission's team is actively reviewing different options and that the Digital Fairness Act, expected by the end of 2026, is being prepared in parallel as a potential vehicle for addressing these concerns.

On the UFC-Que Choisir case against Ubisoft in France, the Commission clarified that because it is a national case, it follows French national legal proceedings distinct from the ECI process, and the Commission does not intend to become a party to it.

From a copyright perspective, the Commission acknowledged the complexity openly. There is no provision in current EU law for mandatory licensing imposed on video game developers, who retain full contractual freedom over the commercial exploitation of their works. The existing DSM Directive includes a provision for works that are no longer commercially available, which allows licensing to cultural heritage institutions, but the Commission noted that such institutions rarely hold video games and that meeting the conditions of the relevant articles may be difficult. The Commission confirmed that a review of the DSM Directive is currently underway and committed to giving the issue serious consideration, with a full response expected in July.

The hearing concluded with the PETI Committee spokesperson thanking all participants for a focused and constructive discussion, describing the initiative as one that "highlights a real concern for millions, and as far as we understand from the presentations, probably hundreds of millions of European citizens." The chair expressed confidence that the insights shared would inform ongoing parliamentary work and give the European Commission a clear picture of how seriously citizens take this issue, encouraging all parties to maintain constructive dialogue ahead of the Commission's July deadline.