Video Games Europe release a statement on Stop Killing Games

Video Games Europe, a trade association that represents a bunch of major game publishers, have issued a statement pushing back against Stop Killing Games. We just recently had the news that Stop Killing Games has been seeing a huge surge, so a lot more are taking notice of it.

VGE represents the likes of Activision Blizzard King, Bandai Namco, Epic Games, ESL FACEIT Group, Netflix, Nintendo, SEGA, Roblox, Ubisoft, Riot Games and many others.

Here's their full statement:

We appreciate the passion of our community; however, the decision to discontinue online services is multi-faceted, never taken lightly and must be an option for companies when an online experience is no longer commercially viable. We understand that it can be disappointing for players but, when it does happen, the industry ensures that players are given fair notice of the prospective changes in compliance with local consumer protection laws.

Private servers are not always a viable alternative option for players as the protections we put in place to secure players’ data, remove illegal content, and combat unsafe community content would not exist and would leave rights holders liable. In addition, many titles are designed from the ground-up to be online-only; in effect, these proposals would curtail developer choice by making these video games prohibitively expensive to create.

We welcome the opportunity to discuss our position with policy makers and those who have led the European Citizens Initiative in the coming months.

It's perhaps no surprise they're not in favour of it. It is their job to serve the interests of game publishers and other companies they're involved with.

The thing is, from a consumer point of view you are paying for something that can just be taken away whenever a publisher moves on from it. Stop Killing Games is not asking for publishers to infinitely support games, as shutting off their own direct support is not something that's trying to be stopped. But simply giving players an option to continue it themselves is the main argument.

Complicated though, since every store (yes, including GOG) are just giving you a license. You don't own the games you buy.

When it comes to private servers, I can somewhat understand what they're saying. They can be a minefield of legal issues, and with all the new regulations coming in from various countries like the UK's Online Safety Act, running a private server is getting a lot more complicated too. Because yes, games that have chat and interactions are in scope of it and regulations from other countries too.

This comes in around the same time as EA announcing that Anthem is going to be shutting down, with players no longer able to jump in from January 12 2026.