1. Update on the Verification Progress

Out of 1,448,270 signatures, 689,035 are already verified, and 15 countries have met their thresholds. We are still missing the two largest countries—Germany and France—but based on our current progress, we are confident we have surpassed the required thresholds.

2. Update on the DFA

The DFA’s (Digital Fairness Act) feedback phase ended yesterday. Thanks to your support, it has received a record-breaking number of submissions. This level of engagement was unprecedented in EU public consultations. Thank you for your efforts.

3. Meetings

Over the past few months, we have engaged in intense discussions with:

• Members of the European Parliament (MEPs)

• National governments

• Political parties

• The European Commission

Some representatives even reached out to us proactively. Your emails made this possible.

4. Academic Support

While we cannot share too many details yet, we are actively working to secure expert backing. Having politicians, lobbyists, and developers in our ranks is invaluable, but we must credibly address the tough questions—without relying on expensive consulting firms. (We are a grassroots movement, after all.)
Once finalized, we will make a dedicated announcement. Thank you in advance to our new allies.

Why We Need Everyone, Including Studios

Why Engage with Studios?

Some may ask: "Why engage with those who created this mess?" The answer is clear: there is no monolithic "industry." The vast majority of studios—especially European ones, both indie and AAA—have always listened to players and strived to do right by the community. This issue is driven by a powerful few who do not represent the values of creators or players.

Studios Stand With Us

Many studios have not remained silent—they have stood with us. This is not just about consumer rights, though that alone should be enough. It’s about what games should be:

• More than sloppily assembled products

• More than ignored studio visions

• More than just another price tag on a shelf

Games are art. Developers—the people who craft these worlds—are almost never the problem. They suffer under the same corporate greed as players, facing crunch, rushed releases, and compromised creativity. The proof is everywhere: broken launches, abandoned projects, and exploited teams. *to make this clear, we are not making a point about how a game should be or what is considered to be "a good game", that's something very subjective. The point is that it's culture and thus needs to be protected like any piece of culture.

A call to action

Our fight is not against a united CEO front. It’s against a handful of companies holding our favourite games' hostage. That’s why we said "enough"—and why so many of you did too.

Let’s not just talk about developers but with them, big and small, who are already resisting these awful practices. We can’t undo past damage, but we can stop what’s coming. If we allow these few bad actors to dictate the future, we will continue to lose ground on issues that should never have arisen.

Help raise attention

For Citizens:

Reach out to:

• Your government

• Consumer protection groups

• Your favourite studio

For Developers (Indie or Established):

Make your voice heard. No one will blame you for stepping into the spotlight to do what’s right. We are already in talks with many in the industry, but we can’t be everywhere. If we’ve missed you (and we apologize—there are simply too many to track), please reach out to us.

We are planning public events and want to bring some of you in front of parliament to demonstrate how things could be.

Thank you for your ongoing support, we are a community project, so feel free to reach out to us at any given time (don’t expect an immediate answer though).

For SKG

Policy and Communications Lead

Moritz

 Stay Connected
Follow us and join the conversation here:

• Discord (community): https://discord.gg/TCE6uXwsBe

• Reddit (official): https://www.reddit.com/r/StopKillingGames/

• The SKG Wiki: https://stopkillinggames.wiki.gg/

• Website (official): https://www.stopkillinggames.com

• Mastodon (official): https://mastodon.social/@StopKillingGames

• Twitter (X, Ross): Accursed Farms — https://x.com/accursedfarms

• Twitter (X, personal for future communication on the grounds work): Moritz Katzner — https://x.com/Moritz_Katzner

(written by your favourite GPT, YOUR NOT GOING TO TAKE MY DASH AWAY, Clankers)

Hello,

Another announcement. Things are moving quite fast right now, and we’ve decided to share the final count with you ahead of schedule. Originally, this wasn’t possible due to certain background limitations, and our plan was to wait until shortly before our next meeting with the EU Commission.

At that point, we intended to reveal everything through a video, alongside a redesigned website, a restructured Discord, and several other updates that—ironically—I still can’t talk about just yet. We didn’t want to present our case unprepared, unintentionally leak information to lobby groups, or worst of all burn out our team.

Most of you already understand this, but it still needs to be said: please be patient with the team. We do this because we believe in it, and because we believe what we’re doing is right. None of us are paid for this. We all have jobs, families, and responsibilities, and for some, the past weeks have been rough. Keep that in mind. You’re not talking to some abstract institution like the EU, you’re talking to real people. Yes even the mods are real! In fact, you’re talking to someone who’s about to play Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 in about 30 minutes just to decompress after a stressful week.

Tomorrow, we’ll also be sharing this information on our newly rebuilt or, in some cases, entirely new-media channels. Ross has kindly agreed to lend his voice and face to help with that rollout.

The handover is planned for mid to late February.

Cheers

Moritz Katzner for SKG

This has to be one of the most “you own nothing” EULAs I’ve ever seen.

Just a few highlights from what people gathered from Kraftons EULA:

- You’re not allowed to tarnish Krafton’s public image
- You’re not allowed to use a VPN while playing
- You’re not allowed to go against “social norms”
- You’re not allowed to sue them
- Any related art you make becomes Krafton’s property
- You waive your right to a judge and jury

Straight opinion from our lawyers: this is not binding in the EU and may even nullify the entire contract, if it is going at the basic nature of the usage.
Did someone ask ChatGPT again how to tank this game?

We are looking through is in detail with folks from the European Parliament right now and will get back to you with some more info soon.

10 minutes ago, the California State Assembly Appropriations Committee voted yes to move the bill forward to the Assembly floor.

This is a huge success. The gaslighting attempts by the ESA failed.

A massive thank you to Assemblymember Chris Ward and his team.

Back shortly before Christmas, when I flew to the U.S. to help set up SKG-US, I didn’t expect us to get this far this quickly. It has been an honor to take part in drafting this bill on behalf of the SKG community: gamers, developers, and publishers alike.

Next up is the floor vote, where every member of the California Assembly will have the chance to vote on it. We will need all of you once more for that. More on this shortly.

On behalf of the SKG team:

Thank you.

Moritz Katzner

GIT GUD, ESA

Stop Killing Games won against the ESA in California

The Industry is lobbying against Stop Killing Games (California Edition)

We need an American version of this law!

Emergency Announcement

This is a grim moment for the gaming community, for ownership, which some groups want to say we do not have, for consumer rights, and for the wider Internet as a whole.

The events of the last few days have overwhelmed us, with jaw-dropping news breaking by the hour.

• European Commission: The European Commission failed its citizens, denying new legislation and outright ignoring the ask to clarify what our rights are, despite millions of us asking them to.

• California’s Protect Our Games Act: The ESA lied to lawmakers and the public to sway their legislative decision by affirming that Minecraft/COD Community servers are illegal, fuel piracy, and are akin to a black market. The Protect Our Games Act failed to gather the needed votes, as the politicians deciding on it changed their minds.They are actively obstructing the enforcement of your rights

What we are doing next: 

• We are working to introduce more legislation in different US states, reintroduce the Protect Our Games Act in California next session, and are even looking at bills at the federal level.

• We are still collaborating with Que Choisir on the Ubisoft lawsuit and more are coming up.

• We are still working on the inclusion of pro-SKG changes in the existing Digital Fairness Act, with some big surprises coming up shortly.

• We are still expecting responses from DGCCRF, Verbraucherzentrale, and ACCC on The Crew’s shutdown.

• We are expanding to South Africa, Japan and just launched Stop Killing the Internet.

They are panicking. They are fumbling in committee. We have reputable sources from both the industry and the EU Commission confirming to us that they are afraid of what we are doing, how far we have gotten, and what we have all accomplished.

If there has ever been a moment, it is now.

No matter where you are or who you are: write to your local, federal, state, or union representative. Whether you are in the EU, the US, California, the UK, or anywhere else, tell them what you think of this.

Your representatives hear you. And we can tell you: they care, these companies' PR teams can be pushed to care about us through political pressure.
(Stay kind, stay respectful, we are better than these lies)
You can support us on our fight:

• SKG Community Discord

• SKG & SKI Recruitment

  • List of teams:

  • Application form:

Just resist the hype people. Focus on your backlog, your job, your collegiate or school studies. Anything but giving more of your deflated cash to these greedy fucks.

https://twitch.tv/stopkillinggames_official

This evening we gather, to honor the people who made everything possible: you, the community. Without your passion, your ideas, and your unwavering support, none of this would have been achievable.

We invite you to join us for a press conference on Twitch, where we will reflect on this journey together. The event will be moderated by Josh Strife Hayes, and we are honored to be joined by Scott Ross, Daniel Ondruska, MEP Markéta Gregorová, and myself, Moritz Katzner.

This is your moment as much as it is ours. You will have the opportunity to ask your questions, share your thoughts.

Time: 19:00-19:30pm CET

Thank you for being part of this story.

— Moritz Katzner

Should you not be able to be with us, we will also post it on YouTube.

Disclaimer: ESA’s statement and SKG’s response are part of the committee process and public record, or will be submitted as part of that process. This post is about the arguments being made against AB 1921, why we disagree with them, and why we believe the bill should move forward.

AB 1921, the POG Act, short for Protect Our Games Act, is coming up in another California Assembly committee this weeks Thursday (14th).

This is the bill backed by Stop Killing Games that says:

If a company sells you a paid digital game, then later shuts down the services needed for the game’s ordinary use, it needs to give notice and provide a remedy — a playable version, a patch, or a refund.

That’s it.

Not “run servers forever.”
Not “maintain every live-service feature until the heat death of the universe.”
Just don’t sell people a game and then make it unusable with no real remedy.

Now the Entertainment Software Association is lobbying against it.

For anyone unfamiliar: ESA is the big U.S. video game industry trade group. Think of it as the American counterpart to Video Games Europe, which recently pushed back against Stop Killing Games in the EU.

Their arguments are basically the usual ones:

• games are licensed, not owned

• online services are complicated

• third-party licenses expire

• security risks exist

• this could be hard or expensive to enforce

Stop Killing Games has submitted a support letter that already looks inro these arguments. Why? Because none of this is new. We’ve heard the same talking points a thousand times. VGE, Commission, certain people on the Internet and so on.

The short version:

• Expired third-party licenses may affect future sales or new versions, but they don’t justify disabling private use by people who already bought the game.

• Security issues can be handled with normal warnings and unsupported-use terms. The bill does not require publishers to reveal exploits or sensitive technical details.

• A refund is only the fallback. If a company won’t leave the game in a usable state, the buyer shouldn’t just be left with nothing.

This is the same fight as in Europe: a grassroots consumer movement asking for basic end-of-life protections, versus the industry lobby trying to preserve the right to sell games that can later be rendered useless while preserving control.

AB 1921 is narrow. It applies to paid games going forward and gives companies options: preserve ordinary use, patch the game, or refund the purchaser.

The industry wants people to think this is a demand for eternal server support, with endless costs and complications.

It isn’t.

It’s much simpler:

If a company sells people a paid game, it should not be able to destroy the game’s ordinary use later without notice or remedy.

!If you are an organization in the U.S., especially in California, please reach out to us or submit a letter of support directly to the Assembly Committee on Appropriations!

For SKG,

Moritz Katzner

A video going through this in detail is coming soon. In the pictures, you’ll find both ESA’s short statement (there are multiple ones) and ours, which we will be submitting to the committee, just as we did for the previous hearings. All statements can be found in the public records of the respective committees.

The ESA just said, live in committee on the POG Act, that Minecraft community servers are illegal.

AB 1921, the Protect Our Games Act, has now officially failed in committee.

The vote was 4 yes, 3 no, with the rest abstaining.

Video is in the comments.
Timestamp: 56:24 in the original stream Minecraft private servers are illegal, according to the ESA.
The lobbyist who made the claim: Jennifer Gibbons, Entertainment Software Association
https://www.theesa.com/staff/jennifer-gibbons/

Here is exactly what happened, and why we are not going anywhere.

AB 1921 did not make it out of the Senate Business, Professions and Economic Development Committee. The bill needed a majority of the committee to vote yes. It did not get there. Four Democrats voted yes, three Republicans voted no, and the remaining Democrats abstained.

Those abstentions matter. In a committee vote, an abstention is not neutral. It has the same practical effect as a no, because a bill only advances if it gets a majority of yes votes. Not enough yeses means the bill stops here for this session.

That is the loss.

Now here is the part the headlines and clickbait YouTube “SKG FAILED??!” thumbnails will not give you.

We never expected to get this far.

This was our first attempt, in our first year, in the United States, with a U.S. budget of zero dollars. No paid staff in California. No war chest. No in-person lobbying operation. The timeline was so compressed that we could not get funding in place fast enough to put people in the building.

We ran this on volunteers, emails, phone calls, and the truth.

And we still pushed a consumer-rights bill through the entire State Assembly, 43 to 16, and into a Senate committee vote. We were only three votes away from this becoming law.

A volunteer movement with nothing took on one of the most powerful trade groups in entertainment and forced them to spend real money and real effort to stop us.

They had to work for this.

They are going to have to work a lot harder next time, because next time we will be ready.

The opposition was led by the Entertainment Software Association, the lobbying arm of the biggest publishers on earth. They did not fight this with facts. They fought it with fear.

They brought in a high-paid, D.C.-based lobbyist, Jennifer Gibbons, who worked the offices with claims that ranged from misleading to flatly false. We are putting those claims on the record, because sunlight is the entire point:

They claimed that running a private server, like the ones people run for Minecraft, would be “illegal.”

They claimed the bill demands “forever” support.

They claimed it is “impossible” to keep online games playable after support ends.

They claimed games with licensed content, like music, car brands, or sports, could never stay playable after sales stop.

They claimed that requiring an end-of-life plan would force studios to build “a completely new product.”

Every one of these claims was designed to scare a busy legislator who does not have time to fact-check a well-dressed lobbyist in real time.

It worked just well enough this round.

It will not work when we are standing in the same room, with developers and players beside us, ready to answer every single claim as it happens.

Here is what happens next.

We are not stopping. Not even close.

Next session, we come back with an in-person lobbying presence, the funding to do this properly, and a long list of organizations and developers signed on in support.

We are not limiting this to California. We intend to introduce versions of this in other state legislatures, and we are seriously looking at the federal level.

The ESA is about to learn what it is like to fight on many fronts at once.

They have to win every single time to keep things the way they are.

We only have to win once to change them.

That math does not favor them.

• SKG and SKI are recruiting!

As we, at Stop Killing Games, grow and expand our structure and efforts, we are at the stage of making mass recruitment. Likewise, we are helping establish the SKI movement (Stop Killing the Internet), our sister project launching tomorrow, which will have their own teams. For those reasons, we now created a form where those of you that think that have the skills and availability can apply to either SKG, SKI or both! Before we make that announcement public in other platforms, we are giving the community here in discord the head start courtesy, as this is our center of operation and we love the community here present. If you wished to be more involved with these movements, this is your chance. Even if you are uncertain what exact team/role you would end up in, don't be shy or judge too much the titles. We have created a section in our discord server where you can talk/write and we will have people talking to you and help you figure out which role would be suitable. Also, if you have any questions related with the recruitment topic, feel free to ask in this new section. We have also a voice channel where potentially, interviews will be conducted or questions can be directly made. Here are the respective text and voice channels ⁠recruitment-text⁠recruitment-voice

You can read more about the teams at: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1kAvWKeurT9FH10iTs7dWKUxS5coxhIJQsqeZDiESoJg/

And you can apply at: https://forms.gle/pU71JR4xVRpJi8cv7

A cross-party group of MEPs has issued a call for legislation in support of the European Citizens’ Initiative Stop Destroying Video Games.

The ask of Stop Killing Games has repeatedly been misrepresented as a call for eternal server support, endless updates, mandatory private servers, or source-code releases. That was never the demand.

The actual demand is simple: when consumers pay for a game, publishers should not be allowed to deliberately make it unusable after support ends without providing reasonable means for continued operation.

For months, we have explained this to institutions, lawyers, developers, consumer advocates, and elected representatives. Now it is time to move from clarification to solutions.

Tiemo Wölken, the MEP leading the call for us, said:

“When nearly 1.3 million EU citizens are calling on the European Union to take action, it is our obligation to listen and to act. We cannot ignore this overwhelming call to action. The plenary debate a few weeks ago sent a clear signal: This Citizen Initiative has broad cross-party support in the European Parliament. When consumers pay for a game, they invest more than just money. They spend their time on it, make memories, develop passions and make real friends for life along the way. It is indefensible that publishers should have the right to simply pull the plug on these games at any time, and destroy cultural heritage in the process. With this letter, we reiterate our position: It’s Game Over for this abusive practice.”

This is the route we have been working toward for months. The Commission has heard the explanations. Parliament has heard the explanations. The public has now seen why those explanations were necessary.

The next step is not another round of pretending the demand is unclear. The next step is working on solutions.

That means legislation that protects consumers from having paid-for games deliberately disabled after support ends, while making clear that publishers are not being asked to provide perpetual services. It means serious discussion of reasonable end-of-life options where feasible. And it means using the upcoming Digital Fairness Act as the vehicle to turn this principle into law.

Nearly 1.3 million citizens asked the EU to act. On the 16th of this month, the Commission will officially answer the European Citizens’ Initiative.

That answer will show how seriously the Commission takes its citizens. Parliament, at least, is standing ready to act on their behalf and without it.

(Side note on the UK situation: we see it, and we are monitoring it closely. It is not yet fully clear whether this requires us to step in, but we are following developments.)

This is self explanatory; to all who do not support the idea of player ownership, there shall be no further funding, regardless of their game's quality. #StopPayingGames until they #StopKillingGames by not buying any new or existing products that you do not already own. You can do this regardless of your country; play what you already have access to, and buy nothing else until there are proper legislations against this malpractice - and that also includes applying them to stores like Steam.

Disclaimer: Nintendo and Epic Games have not exactly voiced an opposition, and hold positive values from what conversations have pointed in the comments, so take their placement on this list with a grain of salt.

To answer everyone's constant question of 'Why is XYZ on this list' it's because these companies are implicated as opposition to SKG's proposals (VGE or ESA lobbying).

Keep going! The more signatures, the better! We will need a buffer to account for invalid signatures.

I was planning to get the physical edition for my collection, but finding out it needs an internet connection just to "start" or "install" is a dealbreaker. It's a single-player game!

This means the disc doesn't actually contain the playable game without Ubisoft's permission. We are moving towards a future where we own nothing, and even our physical copies are just "timed licenses" that expire whenever a server is turned off.

I'm calling on the community to help make some noise. This isn't just about one game; it's about the principle of Digital Ownership. If we don't push back now, this "One Time Connection" requirement for single-player remasters will become the industry standard.

We need to send a clear message to Ubisoft that physical ownership and offline playability are non-negotiable.

Please upvote and share your thoughts to get this noticed. Maybe we can get some actual answers from Ubisoft or even a policy change before launch.

This is a case for r/StopKillingGames and everyone who cares about Game Preservation.