Stop Killing Games Initiative Passes 1.3 Million Valid Signatures, Now Awaiting Reply From European Union
With a final total of almost 1.3 million valid signatures, the Stop Killing Games EU petition – or the Stop Destroying Videogames European Citizens’ Initiative, as it has since been re-named – has earned itself a compulsory review by and response from the European Union’s governing Commissions court.
Per the Initiative’s official website, of its 1.45 million total signatories, 1,294,188 of them were found to be valid, with nearly every EU member state having not only met their minimum required thresholds for petition consideration (as based on population size and other factors), and those that surpassed it doing so by anywhere from 120% to 480%.
According to the governing body, the Stop Destroying Videogames European Citizens’ Intiative will be “the 14th valid initiative that will be examined by the Commission”, which the board “is required to start an examination process and issue a reply to within 6 months.”
“The organisers of the initiative call on the Commission to introduce a requirement for publishers selling or licensing videogames in the EU to leave such games in a functional state, so as to prevent publishers from remotely disabling videogames.”
“The Commission has until 27 July 2026 to present its official reply, outlining the actions it intends to take, if any. The Commission will meet the organisers to discuss the initiative in detail in the coming weeks. A public hearing will then be organised by the European Parliament,” the European Commission concludes.
Sharing these numbers to Reddit’s /r/Stop Killing Games community, campaign director general Moritz Katzner explained that while he could not provide significant details on the matter “due to certain background limitations”, he could confirm that “the handover [for the petition] is planned for mid- to late-February”, as well as his intent to create a dedicated Stop Killing Games YouTube channel.
Asked by a Reddit user as to how the campaign’s 89.36% validity rate stacked up to other EC initiatives, Katzner replied “I’d say we’re definitely in the top three when it comes to low rates of failed signatures.”
“We’re sitting at around 10%, while the best-performing initiatives tend to fall in the 10-15% range, which puts us firmly in the upper bracket. Some initiatives see failure rates as high as 20-25% and still manage to get over the line, but it’s worth noting that the overall sample size is quite small, only 11 initiatives.”
First launched in 2023 after Ubisoft announced that the servers for 2014’s The Crew would be going offline, due to “upcoming server infrastructure and licensing constraints,” the original Stop Killing Games campaign was limited specifically to the UK, where it ultimately fell flat to there being “no requirement in UK law compelling software companies and providers to support older versions of their operating systems, software or connected products.”
Eventually re-launched on the EU level, the petition encountered a significant number of roadblocks, including a disinformation campaign from YouTuber PirateSoftware and a ‘lack of funding’ lawsuit from the larger industry, before ultimately reaching its current point of success.
Ultimately, the ball regarding the Stop Killing Games petition now sits in the EU’s court – and whether or not they’ll make the shot remains to be seen.
