Action against killing games achieved an important milestone, and its biggest opponent is facing more problems
The „Stop Killing Video Games” initiative has surpassed the threshold of 1.4 million signatures, which means that the document will almost certainly have to be addressed by the European Commission.
2
The Stop Killing Games campaign, aimed at preventing the "killing" of games by publishers and developers, has crossed an important threshold. The person behind the initiative, Ross Scott, announced that over 1.4 million signatures have been gathered for the citizens' initiative. Thus, the players reached another important milestone.
This means that it's almost certain that the EU institutions will have to deal with this issue. Ross Scott is worried that some of these signatures might be the result of using bots, so he's still encouraging people to keep signing. However, the risk of something like that blocking the action is now very low. In reality, the threshold is 1 million signatures, and the organizers set an additional target of 1.4 million just in case some of the support declarations are invalidated during the verification process by the member countries.
Just because they've crossed the threshold doesn't mean the organizers have won the campaign yet. Ross Scott warns that lobbyists associated with companies in the gaming industry opposing Stop Killing Games are planning actions to discredit the initiative and deter members of the European Parliament from supporting it.
If you haven't had a chance to join the action so far, you still have some time to do so. You can still sign the petition until July 31st.
The goal of the initiative is to demand that publishers leave video games in a playable state. It's mainly about different titles that rely on connecting to publishers' servers, which become useless once they are shut down.
The action was inspired by the decision to "kill off" The Crew. After the shutdown of its servers, Ubisoft blocked the option to play even in single-player mode, and then later revoked the license for the game from the players.
Pirate Software Problems
During the signature collection phase, one of the biggest opponents of the action was the YouTuber PirateSoftware. Ultimately, however, his exaggerated criticism allegedly benefited the initiative, greatly helping in its promotion and thus achieving the required support.
The consequences for Jason "Pirate Software" Hall are very negative. YouTube filled up with videos criticizing him and the YouTuber clearly can't handle this criticism. He lost a lot of subscribers and started banning people on his Discord channel who tried to convince him that he was wrong, even if they did it in a calm and polite way. Hall said that these internet users are "poisoning the discussion" and then started banning people who were reacting to his posts with what he felt were inappropriate emojis (mostly the middle finger). Moreover, there have been accusations that PirateSoftware is artificially inflating his stream results with the help of his colleagues, which may go against Twitch's rules.
- Game publishers responded after the Stop Killing Games campaign crossed the 1 million signature mark
- „If buying a game is not a purchase, then pirating them is not theft.” Minecraft creator joined campaign against „killing” games
- “A game, once sold, belongs to the customer.” Vice President of European Parliament speaks out about Stop Killing Games campaign
2
Author: Adrian Werner
A true veteran of the Gamepressure newsroom, writing continuously since 2009 and still not having enough. He caught the gaming bug thanks to playing on his friend's ZX Spectrum. Then he switched to his own Commodore 64, and after a short adventure with 16-bit consoles, he forever entrusted his heart to PC games. A fan of niche productions, especially adventure games, RPGs and games of the immersive sim genre, as well as a mod enthusiast. Apart from games, he devourers stories in every form - books, series, movies, and comics.
Latest News
- Dawn of War 4 will dare what no predecessor has. For the first time, you can command a Primarch
- Netflix buys Warner Bros., potentially upgrading its gaming ambitions with new studios and IP
- Puzzled by “Someone who directs an orchestra” in Cookie Jam? Let’s solve it together
- Answer to “Place where bees are kept” in Cookie Jam
- Can’t crack “Rich dairy delight” in Cookie Jam. Here’s the answer