1 million gamers sign petition making it illegal to 'kill' multiplayer games

The Stop Killing Games movement has hit its target goal of one million petition signatures, following endorsements from big YouTube channels.

Stop Killing Games is an initiative aimed at preserving video games after publishers decide to turn off the lights and shutter the servers. It’ll essentially protect consumers from expiring digital content such as online game servers.

If you’ve ever really enjoyed playing an online video game, it can suck when the publisher eventually decides to take the servers offline. After that, there’s no way of ever playing it again.

I say this as pretty much the only person who actually really enjoyed Resident Evil Re:Verse. Yeah that’s right, Capcom, I already miss it!

The aim of Stop Killing Games is to have this issue debated in the UK and EU parliaments, which have a stronger focus on protecting consumer rights compared to the US.

The movement was originally started by Ross Scott of Accursed Farms. To get involved, users simply have to sign a petition, and once it crosses a certain threshold, it’ll be presented in parliament for a debate.

The UK parliament requires 100,000 signatures, while the EU petition needs to hit a million. Fortunately for Stop Killing Games, both petitions smashed their goal following endorsements from popular YouTubers such as PewDiePie and Jacksepticeye.

“The site says we have cleared 1 million signatures!” Scott wrote on 3rd July. “I hate being like this, but there’s a chance a significant number of them aren’t real. That means we have to keep signing in overdrive mode to make up for them! I’ll have a video on this later today.”

What comes next is the petition will be debated in both UK and EU parliaments with the goal of amending laws to protect consumer rights related to digital content.

Of course, it’s important to keep in mind that just because the issue is being debated in parliament, this doesn’t mean laws will change. The debate could just conclude that the law does not need changing, and will keep it as is.

However, it’s good that the issue has reached enough ears for it to even be considered for a parliamentary debate. A date for the debate is due to be given in the next couple of days, at which point we’ll know when the issue will be discussed by governments of the UK and Europe.