3w ago

Stop Killing Games Petition to UK Relaunched

petition.parliament.uk Petition: Prohibit publishers irrevocably disabling video games they have already sold

The government should update consumer law to prohibit publishers from disabling video games (and related game assets / features) they have already sold without recourse for customers to retain or repair them. We seek this as a statutory consumer right.

The original petition failed due to two issues:

UK government misinterpreted what the petition is about and didn't really answered to what was being asked
early general elections canceled all ongoing petitions at the time

This attempt has a new, reworded petition to, hopefully, make it simple and clear enough to avoid any additional problems.

There are two thresholds for UK petitions:

10 000 signatures: official government response
100 000 signatures: petition will be considered for debate in Parliament

Here is a video from Ross Scott (the main organizer of the Stop Killing Games initiative) about this update.

34 comments

Can't wait for PirateGames to shit on this one too and be a great big Blizzard shill again.
- Dude you don't get it, the AAA devs will literally go bankrupt if they have to waste a fraction of their profits to do the bare minimum!!! Why won't anyone think of the children?????
  
  That's the funny thing about all of this it wouldn't cost the company a single penny. All they'd have to do is open source their code that's it.

If you haven't, You can also vote on european one, it has 40% of required signatures.
- I wish some big-name YT/Twitch personality helped raise awareness for the petition. It's ending in a few months and if nothing changes, I don't see it reaching the required signatures in time.
  
  Does Ross/Accursed Farms, the person who started this movement, not count?
  
  It's not going to get the signatures because the average person does not care about this. I play a lot of games and even I don't care. If you don't like the game, don't buy it. Why does there need to be regulation to stop me from buying it too?

Identity is a many-layered thing, and I'd never describe myself as British unless very specifically prompted to do so, but I can at least sign that. 5,071 let's go!

One of the big problems about the original petition was that it had a focus on gaming. But this is a problem in the entire software industry, and as much as gaming is probably the more serious concern for the majority of people, it is considered by the government to be somewhat unimportant. Corporate software though has a more mature image, and so is more likely to be considered.
Any software that is sold by a company should be open sourced if the company chooses to end support. Either because the company goes out of business or because they just decide it's no longer profitable to continue updating the software, and yes, this does include older versions of iOS.
A rising tide and all that.
- These petitions are limited in scope for a reason - this is a small initiative and the goal is to focus on one part of the market which started the whole thing (the initiative, not the software killing issue), as well as to limit the number of big companies that could be affected (the potential opposition).
  Sure, ideally this would expand on all software but you have to start somewhere, especially when you're just a bunch of randos with little knowledge about law and no funds to turn it into a serious lobbying movement - one that could both get the political attention and was able to defend its stance from corporations.

I just want Blur to be revived. I know modded online servers exist for PC, but it would great to have it on consoles and play 4P splitscreen

It failed because it was USA, you might have better luck in EU
- I don't think there were much if any attempts to make a petition in the US. If I recall correctly, Ross spoke with a lawyer who told him the chances for a positive outcome are close to null which is why he decided to focus on other markets - mainly: Australia, Brazil, Canada, EU, France and UK.
  The failed petition mentioned was in UK, just like this one, but was canceled due to early elections. EU petition is still going, with a little bit over 6 months left, while Australian and Canadian ones closed last year. There was also a push to contact the local consumer protection agencies in Australia, France and Germany since they seem to have the tools to look into the issue as well.
- I know UK left the EU, but I wasn't aware they had joined USA.
  
  God, what an awful thought
  
  There's actually some truth to that, believe it or not

34 comments