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Let’s look at the core of the “Stop Killing Games” petition.

The main argument here is straightforward: when a game company sells you a game, they should make sure it stays playable forever. At the very least, if they stop supporting it officially, the company should give players a way to keep playing it, like releasing an offline version or letting people run their own servers, especially after official support stops.

So How Did This Start?

The movement started after Ubisoft, a French gaming company, shut down support for “The Crew,” an online-only racing game that remained playable until 31 March 2024. The Crew launched in 2014 and has a player base of roughly 12 million. Ubisoft stated that they are continuing to provide new content and support for The Crew 2 and the recently launched The Crew Motorfest.

The Movement Itself

The movement encourages gamers to vote on petitions to force developers to provide ways to play games after the end of support. The movement started in the summer of 2024 and within the first month gathered over 350,000 signatures. While the initiative gained a lot of signatures at the start, it quickly lost momentum; the next month it had only moved to 450,000. To bring this petition in front of the European Parliament required 1 million signatures via a European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI). But 31 July was getting close as it was the deadline for the ECI. It suddenly blew up as the movement reached popular people like: Notch, PewDiePie, and Asmongold. By 3 July 2025, the petition reached its 1 million signatures, and not even three weeks later it hit 1.4 million signatures. After the deadline was over, the review process began and is expected to take about three months. Once complete, the petition will be delivered to the European Commission, marking the start of the legislative phase in which the Commission and Parliament must decide how to respond.

What Are the Potential Solutions?

Of course, companies can’t always keep servers running forever. But there could be solutions such as adding an offline mode or giving players the ability to host their own private servers.

Offline mode:
For multiplayer titles, developers could introduce an offline mode where human opponents are replaced with AI-controlled bots. This would allow the core gameplay to remain functional without relying on central servers.

Player-hosted servers:
Another solution is to enable players to host their own private servers. Companies could release the necessary server software, perhaps for a one-time fee or through a licensed model. This would empower gaming communities to keep their favourite titles alive independently. The emergence of third-party servers could also fill this role, ensuring long-term accessibility.

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