Blog post by Stephen Wyber
Stop Killing Games is just the 14th European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) in as many years to have received the over 1 million signatures necessary to trigger an obligation for the European Commission to provide a response.
Unfortunately, the response is a limp one, which can be summarised as ‘because because’, or in more words, ‘we can’t change the law because we can’t change the law’. For an institution that is all about making and changing laws, this is curious.
The Commission’s response does, however, increase the pressure to look again at copyright laws themselves in order to ensure that they support the EU’s wider consumer protection goals. In this, the gaming community will find strong allies in libraries, universities, and similar institutions.
This is for two reasons. Firstly, libraries and archives have also lost the right to preserve many video games (and other digital content) under EU copyright law: the Copyright in the Digital Single Market (CDSM) requires permanence as the criterion for preservation, thus removing most licensed content from the scope of the exception. Secondly, these institutions are also increasingly calling with growing urgency for protections against unfair terms in contracts for copyright works.
You Keep Using That Word ‘Buy’. I Do Not Think It Means What You Think It Means
The ECI’s origin lies in the frustration that gamers have at seeing the games that they had legitimately bought simply stop working and disappear one day, without any effort to ensure that they can remain functional.
There may be different reasons behind this, but a main driver, from the point of view of the ECI’s leaders, was the desire to push gamers to buy new versions of games. Similar to steps to stop servicing older phones in order to boost sales of newer ones, this is arguably an example of technological ‘ensh*ttification’.
The word ‘buy’ is important here. It is still typically used when it comes to digital products and services, and brings with it the idea of ownership forever, as it did with physical goods. However, the shift to digital has undermined this, with forever ownership replaced by a much more precarious type of temporarily licensed access that depends entirely on the goodwill of the seller. Gamers who ‘bought’ games are finding that the word ‘buy’ is entirely ill-suited to what they are experiencing.
The challenge is a familiar one for libraries. The concepts of ‘acquisition’ and ‘collection’ are essential to the way these institutions fulfil their missions. Many library laws establish that a core function of libraries is to build a diverse (permanent) collection, in all relevant formats, that reflects their communities and their needs, guided only by professional principles. Beyond this, key activities such as lending, resource-sharing and preservation depend to a large extent on the ability of institutions to own materials outright, or at least to have solid guarantees enabling these essential tasks.
Without this, not only is the principle set out in library laws undermined, but these key activities can only take place in the space left for them by publishers and other rightholders, for as long as these industrial actors see fit. Experience has shown that this does not provide much of a guarantee.
So change the law
The Commission’s response to the ECI focuses rather on dialogue, taking a soft approach to both promoting better practice among games companies, and highlighting possibilities for gamers themselves to claim refunds when games are prematurely made unplayable.
Even ahead of the Commission’s response, the Initiative’s leads had already published an open letter, highlighting concerns about the mischaracterisation of the campaign’s demands, and the Commission’s seeming trust in major industry players’ readiness to play fair.
This feels very similar to the report published by the Commission last year, which focused on the challenges around remote access and the challenges that digitalisation presents regarding use of university, library and cultural heritage collections. The Report presents overwhelming evidence that the status quo is not working. However, the recommendations (which were independent, but there has been no sign of the Commission disagreeing with these) are also all about soft law and dialogue. The failure of the Licences for Europe process last decade should give rise to caution about how effective such initiatives can be.
There appear then to be two paths ahead. One is to turn to the Parliament and Member States in the context of the upcoming Digital Fairness Act, and to push for them to introduce amendments to whatever the Commission proposes. For Knowledge Rights 21 (KR21), a key aspect would be to ensure also that legal protections against unfair contract terms also extend to libraries and their host institutions.
The second is to take the Commission’s response to its logical conclusion, and focus on intellectual property laws, and in particular copyright to solve the many problems related to licensing and digital obsolescence. Because far from being an immovable object, there is indeed already the prospect of reform in the pipeline, with a consultation open until 25 June.
We strongly encourage libraries, universities, research organisations, library allies, and all those who care about the rights of gamers and library users alike to highlight that this is an opportunity to do better, and to show that copyright rules can work to support consumer, research, culture and wider policy goals.
22 June 2026
