Stop Killing Games Is Still Alive: What Happens Next?

From The Crew to Brussels

When Ubisoft switched off the servers for The Crew and left the game unplayable, it helped turn a long-running frustration among gamers into something much bigger.

The Stop Killing Games campaign argued that if people buy a videogame, publishers should not be able to make that purchase permanently unusable once support ends. What started as anger over one game eventually became the European Citizens’ Initiative Stop Destroying Videogames.

That campaign has now passed one major milestone. After verification, it collected 1,294,188 valid signatures across the European Union, enough to force the European Commission to formally consider the issue. Campaign organisers met EU officials in February 2026, appeared at a European Parliament hearing in April and saw the issue debated in Parliament in May.

For a campaign that began with frustrated players asking whether they actually owned the games they bought, that is a remarkable amount of political ground to cover.

The EU Has Not Given Campaigners Everything They Wanted

There has, however, been a setback.

In June, the European Commission said it was not currently prepared to introduce a legal requirement forcing publishers to leave videogames playable once commercial support ends. The Commission said existing consumer law already provides some protections and concluded that a new blanket obligation could not be proposed at this stage.

That sounds like a rejection, but it is not quite the end of the road.

The Commission has committed to beginning discussions with videogame companies and consumer representatives before the end of 2026, with the aim of developing an industry code of conduct for what happens when games reach the end of their commercial life. It is also reviewing how existing EU digital consumer protections apply to situations where digital products and services disappear.

So Stop Killing Games has not won the law it originally wanted.

But it has succeeded in making game preservation and digital ownership an issue European institutions can no longer simply ignore.

Sony Has Become the Next Big Battleground

The campaign has now moved into another important area.

In August, Stop Killing Games and game-preservation group DoesItPlay? announced their support for a Dutch collective legal action against Sony being brought by consumer organisation Stichting Massaschade & Consument.

The Dutch case is not specifically about Sony shutting down an individual game. Instead, it challenges Sony’s control over the digital PlayStation marketplace.

The organisation bringing the case alleges that PlayStation owners can only purchase digital games and in-game content through Sony’s own ecosystem, limiting competition and allowing prices to remain artificially high. Sony has not been found liable for those claims, and the case is still at an early stage.

Stop Killing Games supporting the action is significant because it broadens the conversation.

The campaign began by asking what happens when a publisher kills a game.

It is increasingly asking something bigger:

What does buying a game actually mean when the platform holder controls the shop, the licence and eventually whether that software remains available?

Then Sony Announced the End of New Physical Games

That question became considerably more important in July.

Sony has officially announced that from January 2028 it will stop producing physical discs for newly released PlayStation games. Games released before that date will continue to work from disc, but new titles will be distributed digitally through the PlayStation Store and digital products sold through retailers.

Sony says the move reflects the growing preference for digital media.

From a convenience point of view, that argument is easy to understand. Many players already buy digitally. Downloads are immediate, there is no disc to store and entire libraries can sit on one account.

But removing physical releases also removes something much more important than packaging.

A physical game can often be sold, lent, traded, bought second-hand or preserved independently of the original retailer. A digital licence does not necessarily give consumers those same freedoms.

That is why Sony’s 2028 announcement has become important to the Stop Killing Games debate. The issue is no longer only whether publishers should preserve individual games. It is whether players are becoming increasingly dependent on digital platforms whose terms, prices and availability they do not control.

The Sony Case Has Not Been Won

It is also important not to get ahead of the legal process.

The Dutch Sony case has not yet reached the stage where a court is deciding whether Sony actually abused its market position.

A hearing took place in Utrecht on 29 June 2026 dealing with preliminary legal questions, including whether the Dutch court has jurisdiction and whether Stichting Massaschade & Consument is entitled to bring the collective action.

The next significant deadline is 21 October 2026, when Sony and the consumer organisation can submit responses relating to recent Dutch Supreme Court decisions affecting collective actions. The court is then expected to make an interim ruling on jurisdiction, applicable law and whether the case can proceed.

That means the legal fight has only really begun.

Stop Killing Games has backed the challenge, but this is not yet a court victory over Sony.

The Argument Has Become Bigger Than One Dead Game

This may ultimately be the most important development.

When Stop Killing Games started, the issue was easy to understand. Someone bought The Crew. Ubisoft closed the servers. The game stopped working.

The argument now reaches much further.

What happens when physical games disappear?

Can a digital purchase really be called ownership if it cannot be transferred or resold in the same way?

What responsibilities should publishers have when online services close?

And how much control should one company have over the only digital shop available on its own console?

Those questions matter because the videogame industry is moving towards a future where physical ownership is becoming less common while digital dependence becomes normal.

Stop Killing Games has not achieved everything it wanted. The EU has stopped short of introducing the law campaigners asked for, and the Sony case may take years to resolve.

But the campaign has already changed the discussion.

The question is no longer simply whether companies should be allowed to switch off old games.

It is becoming something much more fundamental:

When we press “buy” on a digital game, what exactly have we bought?