Stop Killing Games just changed everything

Added: 2026-05-05

[00:00:00]There's something a lot of us have come to realize in the last year or so. We don't really own the things we buy, do we? At any moment, the games you buy and play can be decided on a whim by a publisher that it's no longer worth supporting, and they can just simply turn it off. The servers go down, your access disappears, and that game that you paid for, yeah, you didn't own it anyway. So, why are you mad? Stop being mad. We specifically told you that this would happen. Well, not really, but it was in the fine print if you care to read that, which we know you don't, but you should have. But you see, this stupidity then gave rise to stop Killing Games. In case you don't know what that even is, stop killing games is a movement that was started by Ross Scott, a YouTuber who goes by Aursed Farms Online. So, Ross believed the fact that so many games could be unceremoniously cut down and removed was kind of a big deal, which uh yeah, I agree with that, too. and he went ahead to start this movement to bring in laws so that companies couldn't just screw you over whenever they felt like it. Then the whole pirate software thing happened where he rallied against Ross Scott believing the movement was a bad idea which then sparked a ton of backlash his way in case you saw that. And then Ross promised that he would eventually go to European Parliament and present his case as to why this is a problem that needs new laws and fixes. Well, that day has come, guys. And Ross was just at the European Union recently where he spoke openly in front of elected officials about this very topic finally. Here's some footage on screen of Ross at the EU. As you can see, he was not only in front of Parliament, but he was also live streaming the event and giving his thoughts postering as well. Here's the opening part of Ross Scott's presentation where he lays out exactly what he believes stop Killing Games stands for, why it needs to be taken seriously, and how the games industry has ignored the pleas of players for so long. So, please watch this.

[00:01:46]>> I am the founder of the Stop Killing Games Consumer Movement, which has many shared goals with the initiative. I'd like to clarify what it means to destroy a video game. Second slide. 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.

[00:02:10]The way this practice works is first a publisher sells a copy of a video game.

[00:02:13]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.

[00:02:25]Then, after an undisclosed length of time, the publisher disables all existing copies of the game, but keeps the customer's money. The publisher also enacts countermeasures to ensure repairing the game 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. Besides destroying the game, this practice is also subverting customer expectations.

[00:02:48]Most video games can work indefinitely, which has been the customer standard for half a century, including ones that connect to the internet. Alternately, 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're referring to do no such thing.

[00:03:05]They almost always contain terms stating they can end at any time for any reason.

[00:03:09]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.

[00:03:16]>> Ross makes a compelling argument and I fully stand behind him with what he's saying because yes, there does need to be laws in place because if you pay for something, you should have access to it otherwise that slope will get so slippery that nothing will get better for any of us. Ross at one point brings up the idea that this concept of buying something and not owning it is foreign to most other industries. Like if you buy a car, you physically have that.

[00:03:39]Once you pay it off, it's yours to keep.

[00:03:40]No one can take it away from you. Well, I mean, they can steal it, but you get the idea. Same goes with your fridge, your TV, your couch, that's yours. You bought it and that's all yours to have forever and do whatever you want with it. Yet, with games, it's not. You just don't own it. Even if you buy the game physically, the disc itself half the time is really nothing more than a disc that must be inserted to access the digital version of that game. Anyways, this practice on Nintendo Switch 1 and 2, for example, is very rampant. The idea of the key card, right? That's literally what that is. If Nintendo were to ban you for whatever reason, right?

[00:04:13]Your key card can't be used on your Switch anymore, and that's kind of insane. But as Ross Scott's presentation, the response has been nothing short of extraordinary to it. As PC Gamer reported here, all the members of Parliament that were present for Ross' speech responded very positively to what he had to say, which that is an absolute win for all of us because it means that not only is Ross onto something here, but that the European Union's elected officials also agree that yeah, you know what, you guys are kind of right. The game company shouldn't be allowed to just bully you around like this. Daniel Androska as seen here is mentioned who is a consultant that supports stop killing games as well and states that what Ross Scott and the movement want is not unreasonable. And as Daniel says there below, the fact that games that were made 20 years ago are still playable.

[00:04:58]Yet games that were made not only 3 years ago aren't playable is a big reason why this sort of thing needs to become a law. At one point during Ross Scott's presentation, he brings up Concord, a game we all know that is still considered one of the biggest flops in gaming history. Allegedly, the development of that game was somehow $400 million. I don't know, man. That's what it was. But anyway, the game didn't resonate. Obviously, it got erased by Sony PlayStation, and everyone who bought the game digitally or physically could no longer access the game. Now, sure, yes, Concord didn't reach an audience. But either way, the fact that it's just ceased to exist is kind of the point. The same could also be said about Highguard, a game that was the final announcement trailer of the Game Awards 2025, only to release in January 2026.

[00:05:39]And then by March, it was also effectively erased and taken offline forever by Wildlife Entertainment after again not having a big enough audience.

[00:05:47]The same also happened with Anthem as well. That game, which came out in 2017, I think anyways, if I remember correctly, also had its service taken down forever, too. That game could have been sold as a single player offline game, but instead Boware and EA just erased the game from existence, too. All of this happens because of what Daniel Androska, that consultant, said. This is not a design decision. In fact, it's just a business one instead. So, companies have no problem killing off games that don't do well, no matter how small the audience is. The actual statistics, however, are very, very scary when you have the raw data in front of you. So, Ross Scott during his presentation shows a slide, as you can see here, where he details the video games that require an online internet connection in order to be played. As you can see, of those games that were surveyed from a volunteer study on the left, there are 636 games that had multiplayer modes. Besides their single player modes were not available due to companies killing them off essentially with only 4.6% of the games in that survey being still playable today. On the right there is just as crazy. Full games that require online to function.

[00:06:50]93.5% of those games have also been erased from existence as well. That very small pie of games in that 6.5% bracket.

[00:06:58]Those are your games like your Fortnites, your Call of Duties, your Battlefields. You get the idea. And that 93.5% that's your concords, your high guards, your battlebbors, your anthems, and much much more. And at the bottom there, as they state, many, many companies have attributed to the blood bath themselves from Activision, Electronic Arts all the way to Sony and more. Yes, this is a big problem because this is what the AAA industry wants to be normalized, but frankly, this cannot be. So, of the games that Roscott includes in his statistics, that is a total of 1,097 games. It means of that that 1,038 of those games are offline, unplayable, and erased today. That is a 94.62% kill rate of games that have been removed and erased from players collections because these games have not met whatever standards these companies are pushing for these days. I want you to understand how brutal and widespread this problem really is. When you actually look at the data, it means that when it comes to online games at least, or games that just require online connection to some degree, which is a lot of games by the way, that only I guess you could say the best are surviving, which you may think is a good idea. Sure. Yeah. I guess if we were like maybe or like in the animal kingdom, I guess, but uh we're not obviously. This also means that if only barely 6% of these games are surviving the way that they are now, it just means that every game in that space is now just going to copy what that six or so percent are doing now. Meaning that there's not going to be any innovation.

[00:08:25]There's no risks taken and everything just ends up being and feeling the exact same. This is why every game that has came and went is like a hero shooter or something, right? or an extraction shooter even cuz it worked for Overwatch, Arc Raiders, whatever, Escape from Tarov, which is in that small percentage, but it didn't work many times after that, which proves my point.

[00:08:43]It just kills innovation. You're just going to keep getting the microwaved reheated leftovers over and over until you finally eat it, I guess. But if some of those games could survive and live on to some capacity, it would allow for more experimentation cuz it wouldn't be the end. A good example of how to do an endoflife plan for a game is Splitgate.

[00:09:02]The original one I mean as seen here on Steam, Splitgate 1 will live on through peer-to-peer servers, meaning people who want to play the game, they still can.

[00:09:10]Otherwise, the game would just be deleted like everything else has. This should exist for more games, whether you play them personally or not. The point is that people still do play these sorts of games, and that's the point. Variety is a spice of life, after all. That's not really what the AAA publishers want, which is why this movement exists the way that it does. Another very good point brought up by Ross Scott in his presentation is that during that end of life plan that games go through, it's oftentimes included in the game's development budget initially as well.

[00:09:38]While the truth is the actual end of life plan is much smaller in cost.

[00:09:42]According to what Ross Scott says than companies claim it to be, Ross even claims based on what he's been told by the various development studios that he's spoken to behind the scenes that these endof life costs are faulty and oftentimes disingenuous. because the costs presented to keep these games online to be played are claiming that they need to keep core features online that are not actually needed in an offline version of these games. For example, let's say like a cash shop, right? You could factor that as a system that is needed for an always online connection, which I guess it technically is. And therefore, the publishers could then say, well, we can't keep, let's say, I don't know, High Guard alive, right? because we need to pay X amount for online features to exist like the cash shop. But that wouldn't be needed for an end-of-life peer-to-peer server.

[00:10:27]But they would still use that as justification to just not give you what you want either way. And again, this is rampant. So games are being axed and erased for reasons that quite frankly make little sense the more that you think about it, which again is the point. It's not really about doing what's right, but really what is easier for many of these companies, which in this case is erasing over 96% of games that are made because they weren't the next Fortnite or whatever else. This is why the presentation going as well as it did, is a really good sign cuz it means that Ross Scott can actually get the support needed to enact these laws into reality finally. As seen here as well, members of parliament like Anna Kavazini, I probably said that wrong and more all said that they are responding very very well to what stop killing games is all about because this is not a political issue or we need to break it down like left versus right or something else. This just benefits everyone regardless of who or where you are in the world. Okay? If you play games, if you enjoy playing games, especially older ones, and maybe you want to play that weird niche little title 10 years from now, then this movement and these laws, they benefit you as well, too. We should all be positive and give our full support to this because there's nothing that's being said here that is neither unreasonable nor wrong. All Ross Scott wants is for AAA game publishers and the like to respect your time, money, and worth. And I think that's a noble cause.

[00:11:47]We could do with more positive news like this. I got to be honest cuz I love to see things like this take shape. We do need consumer protection laws in place cuz games are expensive to make. I know, but they're also expensive to buy, too.

[00:11:58]A new game in Canada, where I'm from, can range anywhere from $70 to $90 a pop, depending on the game, of course, never mind a deluxe edition, which will run you into the $100 plus range easily.

[00:12:08]So, Stop Killing Games also has another person to thank as well, which is Morates Katzner. He's the guy you're seeing sitting with Ross talking to him in both the postpresentation and he's also the guy to the side of Ross during his initial speech in the suit with a sllicked back hair. Katzner is also very passionate about stop killing games and he is working closely with Ross to ensure that this becomes a law as well as Katsner said here during the post show as it reads here. It's important to understand that this hearing was our first step into the public into the legislative process and that the committee is still reviewing stop Killing Gains' submission, but every single member of European Parliament present for the hearing expressed support for the initiative and that for the purposes of the hearing, it was mission achieved. So great news, guys.

[00:12:50]That's absolutely great news. This is what we want to see. Real momentum and shakeups. I'm glad that I shared that stop killing games survey and all that last year. I'm glad that everyone who watched my videos in Europe at least hopefully signed that petition because look at what you guys just did. You guys really just moved something very important forward. So, I thank each and every one of you who watches my content, especially last year when this movement first started that signed that petition cuz now we are seeing real change finally. And remember, it's because of movements like this that have also led to companies like Ubisoft getting sued as well. A reminder is seen here also from PC Gamer. Ubisoft is currently getting sued over the crew because this lawsuit here is kind of the catalyst for why this was all happening. If you remember, same idea. Ubisoft elicited the crew, players lost access to the game, all of their monetized purchases, everything. And people got really mad.

[00:13:37]They launched a lawsuit claiming that Ubisoft can't do what they're doing, even though Ubisoft said that they can shut down their games at any moment when they wish to. And now, voila. Stop killing games kind of got burnt out of that whole mess. So, in a lot of ways, what Ubisoft represented was the hubris of what these companies believed that they could get away with, which is why we need to push back in any way that we can. Otherwise, what Ubisoft did would just be the tip of the iceberg with what these companies could do in the future.

[00:14:01]Eurogamer also reported on this as well, and there's a part in Ross Scott's presentation where he flat out states that the industry is trying to have it both ways with neither of the downsides.

[00:14:11]There is a part in Ross' presentation where he states that what AAA publishers have done to their games is essentially scamming people out of their money. I'm going to let Ross explain it himself.

[00:14:21]Here's what he said.

[00:14:21]>> 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. Publishers know that if customers were informed exactly when they plan to disable their games, that would reduce sales since the longevity of a game affects how much customers are willing to pay. The industry is trying to have it both ways.

[00:14:46]Finding ways to say they're selling you a game that they're not selling you. So, as you heard, what Ross said is right, because what these publishers are doing is selling you something while knowing full well that they actually are going to pull that rug from under you in due time. Meaning, the entire transaction is by definition a scam. It's not consumer friendly. It's actually predatory because it means your purchase always had an expiry date, which games in general, as we all know, used to never have, right? You can still go play Super Mario World on your Super Nintendo or Final Fantasy 7 on your PlayStation 1.

[00:15:19]As long as you have those discs or the cartridge in Mario's case, yeah, you're good to go. But the fact that this is not the same now, it proves that the new normal is not being done to service you.

[00:15:29]If anything, this new normal exists to make your experience as miserable and as predatory as possible. And that is not good. Which is why it's great that this exists. And like I said, Ross Scott explains that because of all of this.

[00:15:42]The AAA publishers want to have this both ways. I'll let Ross explain what he means again. So, please listen to this.

[00:15:48]This creates confusion for everyone involved and is part of why it's taken customers so long to get exposure on this practice. The legality is also unsettled. Earlier, members of parliament assisted us in asking questions uh to the EU Commission about how legal the terms and game license agreements were, especially being able to terminate them at any time for any reason. The commission stated, "Directive 9313 prohibits unfair terms causing a significant imbalance in the party's rights and obligations to the detriment of consumers." The commission 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 the French company Ubisoft for disabling the game The Crew.

[00:16:33]>> Ross then further goes into detail how the point of stop killing games is to welcome any solution presented by the European Union to fasttrack this into law so he can not only protect consumers but also the integrity of video games as an art form. Again, I'll let Ross explain it himself. So, please listen to this. The main point I hope that 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 and are very open to how that that is achieved. 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. And I think Ross is right. Again, he's being noble by doing this because nothing presented here seems unreasonable. Essentially, what Ross is asking is he wants games to be treated the same way that everything else is pretty much. The fact that it isn't, that's why it's such a problem.

[00:17:35]And I think nothing he asks for is really unreasonable here, especially considering how publishers try to mock up the so-called price they'll have to pay by disingenuely claiming that certain services must be kept alive to achieve a workable offline version when they clearly don't. But this is why for a long long time this issue sat in the background like it always has. Games have been increasingly required to have those online connections even for single player features, right? even for content you've already downloaded too.

[00:18:06]Publishers are leaning on those license terms. The EULAS's, for example, in order to justify what they're doing, they're trying to say that you're not buying a product, right? You're instead buying a license, a license that they can revoke, a license that can also expire, a license that is tied to servers that they control. And that's why it falls apart in logical conversation, cuz it doesn't feel like your license ended. It feels like something that you owned was just taken away because they could. That's why the crew shutting down was that spark, right? That lit this movement in the first place. Because the question then became, well, how many more games are just like one shutdown away from disappearing forever, too? While Ubisoft opposed stop killing games, other industry groups like the ESA or Entertainment Software Association, they have also tried to claim that if laws existed that pushed publishers to preserve games after end of service, too, it would instead only drive up the development costs, they would create legal complications, as they put it, and limit how games are being designed and supported in the future. So, from the perspective of the ESA and the AAA publishers, this wasn't about taking your games away. Instead, to them, it was all about maintaining flexibility to adapt in the changing market for them.

[00:19:19]But from the perspective of a player who supports the games, it doesn't look that way at all. Right? Can we agree on that one? All it really means is that a company wants the right to sell you a product today and then have the right to take it away from you tomorrow with no legal repercussion and no downsides. And that is the heart of this issue, isn't it? Right. The publishers, they want control, while players like you and me, we want our ownership. And that's where these two ideas collide the way that they do. And the more games adhere to always online systems or the live service models or these subscriptionbased ecosystems even that are pretty much everywhere now, the less permanent any purchase that you make in the future objectively becomes. Like you can't deny that. It's just the truth.

[00:20:03]And that is when people start noticing the difference, right? So removing all the politics from the equation here, ultimately what Stop Killing Games is doing is morally right and just. All they're asking is if you sell us a game, it should remain playable. And that this fight is not about one game or any publisher, but the future of digital ownership as a whole. Because if Stop Killing Games were to lose, it would mean that every game is temporary. Every purchase that you make is just going to be conditional. Like that's what it's going to be. and that every experience that you have right now can be revoked whenever they want to. But with how things are going instead right now, it actually means that publishers have to think about how their games are being built, how they sell them to you and advertise them and what ownership actually means now in like 2026 and beyond. And for years, maybe we accepted that tradeoff cuz most of us didn't even know that it existed, right? It was all convenience, I guess, over control really. But that is now going in the direction of the consumer, which is great to see because once people start realizing something can be taken away from them, they're going to ask a simple question, right? Why was it then sold to them in the first place if this was always going to be the outcome then? And depending on how the industry wants to answer that question, the future of gaming could look very, very different.

[00:21:21]But let me know what you think. As always, I fully support Stop Killing Games and I hope that you will too.

[00:21:26]Shout out to Ross Scott for doing that.

[00:21:28]what he's doing and all that. And let's keep up the good fight, everybody. Games are art to me and they should be treated as such. So now, let's remind these greedy publishers who's really in control, shall we? Thanks for watching.

[00:21:38]As always, I'll update you guys further if more happens on this. Subscribe if you'd like to and see you next time everybody.