When Ubisoft shut down the servers for its online racing game The Crew in 2024, players who had purchased the game lost access to it entirely. That decision prompted Ross Scott to found the Stop Killing Games campaign, which has since grown into a movement pushing governments to require some form of lasting access for games people buy.
According to Ars Technica, Scott has gathered millions of signatures on government petitions demanding legislative action. The campaign has already produced results. It triggered an official parliamentary debate and a response from the European Commission, and proposed legislation linked to the movement is currently working its way through the California legislature.
The core demand of the movement is straightforward. When someone buys a game, Scott and his supporters argue, that purchase should come with some guaranteed form of continued access, either through ongoing centralized server support or through the option for players to run their own servers after official support ends.
The problem the campaign addresses is familiar to most regular gamers. Online games that depend on centralized servers can become completely unplayable when those servers go offline, regardless of whether a player bought a physical disc or a digital copy. Separately, games that are delisted from digital storefronts can become impossible to purchase or download even if they were critically acclaimed titles.
Ars Technica Senior Gaming Editor Kyle Orland, who has documented many examples of games becoming inaccessible after server shutdowns, will host a live conversation with Scott on August 11 at 2:30 pm ET as part of the Ars Live series. The discussion will be available to watch on YouTube.
The conversation is expected to cover how the Stop Killing Games movement came together, what is driving gamers to support long-term preservation efforts and whether legislation can effectively solve the problem. Recent moves by major companies are shaping that debate. Sony's decision to stop selling PlayStation discs has added a new dimension to the argument over long-term game access, since disc-based games have traditionally been seen as more durable than digital purchases tied to platform storefronts.
Scott's campaign represents one of the more organized efforts to apply political pressure to the video game industry over ownership and preservation questions. The California legislation connected to the movement has not yet passed, and the outcome of European Commission discussions remains ongoing.
The Ars Live conversation with Scott is scheduled for August 11.
