Stop Killing Games

Stop Killing Games (SKG) is a campaign intended to spread awareness regarding publishers revoking licenses for consumers and removing game functionality so that they are no longer in a playable state. The campaign was announced on 2 April 2024 by Accursed Farms, better known as Ross W. Scott, an American YouTuber and consumer activist who is best known for his Freeman's Mind series.

On 2 April 2024, Accursed Farms posted the video "The largest campaign ever to stop publishers destroying games".^[1] In the video, Ross Scott explains the issue with modern gaming, where video game publishers often take advantage of laws.

Ross W. Scott has a history of advocating for game preservation and decrying what he calls "war on ownership" for over 12 years.^[2]

On 16 April 2024, a UK Parliament petition titled "Require videogame publishers to keep games they have sold in a working state"^[3] began collecting signatures. The petition intended to create laws to prevent publishers from removing the ability to play games after purchase. The UK government answered on 2 May 2024, but the petitions committee requested Government to revise their response. The Government declined to do so. The petition was subsequently closed on 30 May 2024 due to the UK general elections,^[3] preventing further signatures. It reached 27,341 signatures and was originally scheduled to close on 16 October 2024.^[4]

On 14 January 2025, Lewis Evans created a petition titled "Prohibit publishers irrevocably disabling video games they have already sold"^[5] closely following the prematurely closed petition in 2024. It is yet to receive a government response and is due for one on January 30. Ross Scott published a video listing the events of the original petition, the government response and the creation of new petition.^[6]

On 3 February 2025, the UK Government responded to the Petition, "There are no plans to amend UK consumer law on disabling video games. Those selling games must comply with existing requirements in consumer law, and we will continue to monitor this issue."^[5] As of 2 July 2025, the petition reached the goal of 100,000 signatures to be considered for debate in the UK Parliament.

The Petition was debated by Parliament on 3 November 2025. The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, Stephanie Peacock, was the last speaker and provided the Government's position on the matter. The debate was adjourned without the Government having made any material changes from its view previously stated in February.^[5][7]

On 19 June 2024, "Stop Destroying Videogames" was registered as a European Citizens' Initiative by Daniel Ondruska.^[8] A month and a half later, on 31 July 2024, the initiative began collecting signatures. Accursed Farms posted the video "Europeans can save gaming!" later the same day, encouraging European citizens to sign the initiative.^[9]

About a week later, Thor of Pirate Software published a video covering SKG, with the intent to negatively criticize SKG.^[10] Ross from Accursed Farms attempted to contact Thor about having false assumptions of the campaign's objectives. Ross cited Pirate Software's video as the primary cause for signatures drying up on the European Citizens' Initiative petition. Ross stated that they did not initially make a response video directed at Thor, because "it might look like drama farming" for the campaign, but when the deadline started drawing near, Ross went through with making a response on 23 June 2025, as a last-ditch effort to save the campaign.^[11]

For a European citizens' initiative to be valid, it must obtain at least one million valid signatures and meet the minimum thresholds in at least seven European Union countries. The deadline of the initiative was on 31 July 2025. By 25 June 2025, it had reached over 500,000 signatures, and finally met its goal of 1,000,000 on 3 July 2025.^[12]

The collection of signatures ended 1 August 2025, with a total of 1,448,270 and 24 out of 27 state members crossing the minimum thresholds. In the following three months, the signatures will be verified and validated by all state members.

In an announcement from the initiative campaigners on 24 January 2026, the final count of verified signatures was 1,294,188.^[13]

On 4 July 2025, one day after the campaign reached 1,000,000 signatures, Video Games Europe, an industry lobby group, released an statement on Stop Killing Games^[14] on their website and published a five-page position paper^[15] against the campaign where it outlined perceived problems seen by the industry even though some of those perceived problems were already clarified by the lengthy FAQ section provided by the campaign.

Video Games Europe response was not only unsurprising but also expected since their board is composed from major publishers like Electronic Arts, Ubisoft, Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony, who see no problem in how the industry works today.

On 10 July 2025, Ubisoft's CEO, Yves Guillemot commented on the campaign during an investor meeting:

"We provide a service, but nothing is written in stone, and at some point the service may be discontinued. Nothing is eternal. And we do our best to make sure things go well for our players and buyers, because obviously support for old games cannot last forever."

On 21 July 2025, Ross Scott uploaded a video showcasing serious accusations made against the European initiative from an anonymous source.^[16] The accusations were relayed by the European Commission to Ross Scott and are:

1. False "No Funding" Declaration

2. Systematic Concealment of Major Contribution

In the video Ross demonstrated how the accusations had no ground to stand on, and the process of communication that happened with the European Commission to verify the correctness of the campaign before it even began in July 2024. The document with the accusations can be found here.^[17]

The European Commission hasn't moved against or in favor of the accused yet as of 10 November 2025.

Main article: Video game preservation

There are also efforts to restore older games, or to allow the gaming community to have access to the source code of the games themselves. In 2025, there were several developments by major publishers, such as Valve and EA. Valve released the source code of Team Fortress 2 in February.^[18][19] EA released the source code of classic command and conquer titles, also in February 2025.

• GOG.com
• Steam
• Valve
• EA
• Activision Blizzard