Furious at the shutdown of an online racing game, The Crew, gamers worldwide are teaming up to get the EU to regulate this notoriously lawless corner of the entertainment industry and make sure online games aren’t abruptly pulled offline.
A consultation for the upcoming EU Digital Fairness Act (DFA), which will focus on online consumer protection, is getting a lot of attention from angry video gamers. They see it as a vehicle to get the EU to force the industry to keep online video games playable once developers stops supporting them.
The movement of online gamers, called Stop Killing Games, started last year after The Crew, which could only be played online, was shut down despite being marketed without an expiry date when it was launched back in 2014.
Fast forward to this summer and the Commission kicked-off a public consultation on 17 July for its upcoming DFA proposal. In the two weeks since then, this EU request for views from citizens and businesses has collected almost 3,000 responses, which is highly unusual for such a wonky process.
The overwhelming response is, however, no accident. The consultation caught the attention of this existing movement of angry gamers who are triggered by the prospect of the EU coming up with standards to protect consumers online. They want the new rules to also safeguard the longevity of the online games they purchase.
Keen not to let this (possibly forlorn) hope slip from view this week, gamers have organised a mass response via the social media platform Reddit.
Ready player EU
A shortcut to explaining all the fuss is the Stop Killing Games campaign, which has been channeling gamer rage over beloved titles being withdrawn from the market by profit-focused games developers.
The issue, per the initiative, is that online games become “unplayable” as soon as support from their publisher ends. This is because servers are switched off since maintaining them is no longer profitable. The practice remains largely unregulated worldwide.
The pro-gamer campaign, which has been coordinating consumer responses internationally, recently crossed the 1 million signatures threshold to qualify for a Commission response under the European Citizens Initiative, as we reported previously.
But Stop Killing Games didn’t stop there. The initiative’s organiser, Ross Scott, launched a Reddit thread three days ago to ask signatories to fill the Commission’s DFA consultation too, and press the EU for rules that safeguard the purchase of online video games.
“We have a new option that could get a new law introduced,” proclaims Scott in a YouTube video at the top of the Reddit thread. The video goes on to urge gamers “to start protecting games you’ve already paid for.”
“We are asking for video game publishers to leave copies of video games they have sold to customers in a reasonably working state once they end support without requiring any further intervention from them,” Scott explained to Euractiv. “There are additional nuances, but that’s ou[r] primary ask,” he added.
His call-to-action appears to have worked – the Commission’s feedback page shows that numerous citizens have already filled out the consultation, with several more months for it to roll.
“I would like to express my support for the Stop Killing Games initiative and urge lawmakers to consider it as a relevant and worthy cause that aligns with the core goals of the Digital Fairness Act,” opines one response.
“It is very annoying to have games you bought with your own money taken away,” points out another.
Still, some gamers are divided on whether the DFA will address their concerns. “It seems this piece of legislature [DFA] is about regulating markets themselves rather than the products being sold,” noted one Reddit user.
The ball is now in the Commission’s court.
(nl, jp)