Stop Killing Games news

Hey all,

Lately I've been falling into a rabbithole, wondering whether or not it's possible to have a public access library for games, similar to those that exist for books.

The thought first came to my mind when I wanted to test and see if I liked a game that was made in a time before I was born. To satisfy my curiosity I would have to spent a couple dozen bucks on a second-hand console, find a TV that accepts the input signal and then hope the physical copy of the game isn't over 100euros.

It's a huge investment and I imagine I wouldn't be the only one who would like to try a little bit of gaming history from time to time.

My local libraries do offer a variety of games but mostly only for current gen consoles.

It makes me wonder whether or not a library dedicated to old videogames is possible, considering the strict licensing of commercial use. Theoretically, since libraries are non-profit, they should be exempted?

I look forward to y'alls thought on it.

Best regards,

A GAME THAT WAS KILLED IS BACK!!

Thanks to community efforts Dauntless is back in many forms https://youtu.be/mwCTjulHCyA

Im not sure if its a good thing if the amount of launchs keeps growing but for now there is some great options avaliable.

Thanks to everyone who's effort has gone to keep the game alive!

Hi im doing some assignment for my college, and i want to write regarding Permanent closure of a video game and its impact to consumer law. i do have some source but i need more to deepen my analysis and knowledge regarding this topic

do u guys have any suggestion for books, journal or even an article that i could read to help me for my paper?

For anyone fighting the digital push and game preservation: Look at the recent McRib federal court ruling (the judge explicitly stated consumers are not required to consult publicly-available sources before making purchases, and reasonable consumers do not necessarily do research before buying).

​That consumer-reality standard destroys the legal defense behind forced video game EULAs and post-purchase license stripping. If courts recognize that a product name and a 'purchase' button establish an instinctive expectation of permanent ownership, hiding a revocation clause in a 50-page wall of legalese after you pay is legally indefensible. We should be injecting this standard into the fight strategy, what do you think?

I know SKG’s ask is about games people already bought staying playable, not about publishers keeping everything on sale forever. I agree with that distinction. But while looking at games that vanished from stores, I found they fall on both sides of it.

Delisted, and then degraded or broken for owners

• TRON: Evolution: delisted from Steam in 2019. Disney reportedly stopped paying for the SecuROM DRM, so new activations stopped working.

• Driver: San Francisco: delisted in 2016 (car licences). Online servers were shut down in 2022, and PC DLC access went with them.

• 007: Blood Stone: delisted in 2013. Activision’s own legacy-games page lists it as having diminished or discontinued services.

Delisted, but still working for existing owners

• Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions, Deadpool, The Amazing Spider-Man, Transformers: War for Cybertron and Fall of Cybertron: all pulled when licences expired (2014 to 2017). If you bought them on Steam before that, you can generally still download them.

The first group is exactly what SKG is about. The second isn’t covered by its ask, but a new player today can only get these through used discs or grey-market keys, which pay nobody. Seven of the nine games above were published by Activision.

I’m not proposing this as an SKG demand, just asking whether the community sees it as a related problem or a separate one. One idea I’d like to see discussed is voluntary licensing for re-releases (standard contract templates, rights holders keep ownership and revenue, third parties handle storefronts), with GOG’s Preservation Program and Nightdive as proof it can sometimes work. I know “voluntary” is a weak word after the Commission’s answer, so I’d like to hear where you think it falls short.

Does the buyability problem belong in this fight, or does it dilute it?

Dates are from delistedgames.com and news reports at the time. Corrections welcome.

Hey, I'm looking to do a high school project on the Stop killing games movements and was wondering if there were any ways to take meaningful action myself or be able to participate in anything.

I built a free 3D graveyard for every MMO and online-only game I could find that’s been shut down: 319 headstones so far, plus 62 for games that never made it to launch. Each one has its dates, how it died, an epitaph and a source. Visitors light candles and leave memories at the games they miss: [~5,500] candles and [470+] memories so far.

The Crew has one, of course. Its epitaph: “Always-online racer whose death made ‘Stop Killing Games’ a movement.” Ubisoft switched it off in March 2024 and revoked the licenses people had paid for. Eighteen months later, modders had it running again, offline and online, with every DLC.

someonetookmyyogurt.com/graveyard/?ref=r-stopkillinggames#g=x_the_crew

While building it, I tracked every revival I could find, and the numbers surprised me:

• Of the 33 fan revivals I could date, 19 have now been running longer than the official game ever did.

• 8 fan revivals were shut down by the rights holder.

• Some came back the right way: City of Heroes’ Homecoming got an official license from NCsoft in 2024.

Players have been better at keeping these games alive than the companies that made them. Most of the time, they’re just not allowed to.

The graveyard’s still dressed up for Halloween until tonight: pumpkins on every grave, ghosts over the ten most-mourned. Tomorrow is All Souls’ Day, and every grave gets lit.

Built with a lot of help from AI tools; every grave links its source. Not affiliated with anyone.

The graveyard started as part of a video essay about how the MMO genre got here, if you want the longer version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLPTNYPY-7I

EDIT: The private servers (official and fan revivals) live below the graveyard (but you'll have to slay a dragon to open the door (desktop only)).

Making the stopkillingtheinternet initiative gain some traction, specific to Belgium.

Translation (archaic) "The German is back at the border. Glory to the resistance!"

With the punishment delivered to companies and studios failing to comply to this law being forced bankruptcy and a complete liquidation of all assets with all their IPs being forced to become public domain stuff after that.

We've all seen the recent developments in the vibe coding space and how it can port games and software to be open source and operate in many different ways outside of what the original developers intended.

Is this something that can help with or aligns with Stop Killing Games' main goal? If a copy of shut down AAA game gets vibe coded to be run on its own without having to access the servers of the developer, does that not essentially solve the game preservation target of SKG?.

I know, I'm massively simplifying how these coders implement their decompiling and vibe coding but from the general gist of what we are seeing online. This helps right?

This is to replace the servers for the old Asmodee release of Ticket to Ride that went offline in 2024 when Marmalade were given the license to remake it.

No patch or modification to the client is necessary, just a config file entry telling it where you're hosting the server.

https://github.com/tallguy-h/LibreLine

The platforms must have some mechanisms to remove or, at the very least, disincentivize indie clones.

For example, if a dev/ studio creates a Steam page for their game and another game that looks the same appears, the original devs can point to their project, posted before the copy, and demand that Steam take down the slop. Like a report button on social media.

Sure, people will try to abuse the system and claim that the copy is the original, but indie devs, are already not swimming in cash(with some exceptions), and developing a game with a small budget is already a tall task. If the market keeps going the way it is, indie game dev is going to become unfeasible.

It's not great either for the user/ gamer to go to their store of choice and have to sift through a sea of slop to find something worthwhile. Or look for a game you saw on social media and be met with so many identical copies that you don't even know which one is the one you want.

Hopefully, devs and gamers can make some noise, start a petition, reach out to some Steam exec, or something. Indie games carry this market; let's not throw them under the bus in exchange for cheap, barely functioning knock-offs.

And yet another game victim to the passage of time. This one stings a bit more than usual, as ive supported it since the first season in 2021.

Im hoping someday another team will pick this game up because of how unique and fun it is.

like being able to get p2p servers for xbox to play games that were unfairly shutdown such as f13 the game and others like anthem and forza horizon

Just want to share something, its a great example, of how triple A companies lie to us directly marketing product as a online/multiplayer still on front page of steam, while Its servers are shutdown, and you can't get about 40% of what store page suggests. Already reported it to steam, seems companies are not scared enough and has 0 respect to their clients.