The European Commission released their full position now on the Stop Destroying Videogames initiative, and it's not the response many will have been hoping for.
As a reminder on what Stop Destroying Videogames is all about - the idea behind it was to stop game publishers just completely removing your ability to access games you've purchased when shutting servers down. It's all part of the wider Stop Killing Games movement.
In the statement the European Commission mentioned they "cannot propose a legal obligation to keep video games playable after they stop being provided commercially". Why? They say that's thanks to "existing intellectual property rights" as "rights holders enjoy exclusive rights over their creations" and that "In addition to copyright, other intellectual property rights may also be relevant as they may protect different visual and technological aspects of a video game".
They say that existing EU consumer law "already provides for important safeguards protecting the economic interests of consumers", and note that video game publishers have to inform about "the duration and the conditions for terminating the contract before the consumers signs up for the video game".
That's not completely the end of it though, they do plan to "initiate an exchange with the video game industry and consumer representatives with the aim to draw up an industry code of conduct on managing video games' ‘end of life'" and work directly with consumer organisations and authorities to "raise awareness about the applicable rights that protect consumers, including on safeguards protecting the economic interests of consumers".
Sounds like they might be boosting actual enforcement of the existing consumer rules, to have some publishers rethink how long their games are online for. But still, a bit of a kick in the teeth for anyone hoping for actual real change from this.
Source: European Commission
With this result, it clearly opens the doors for other countries to point to this so they don't have to do anything either. Realistically though, it can be quite a complicated situation. One I've written about numerous times before. Servers behind the scenes can be incredibly complex, especially when it comes to games that have DLC and micro-transactions. And then you have to add to that the licensing on music and other things. Plus various other things I'm not thinking of right now.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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Under EU consumer law consumers must be informed about the duration and conditions of a video game’s lifespan.Last edited by coolitic on 16 Jun 2026 at 3:19 pm UTC
If the supply is stopped earlier than the contract states, players should be reimbursed.
The Commission is basically just a mouth piece for lobby propaganda. It has never been any different and would have been a true miracle if there was any other result.
Thankfully, we don't really need to care because the SKG Initiative (and the EU parliament majority behind it) will simply latch onto and modify the Digital Fairness Act to include the initiatives goals instead:
Ross explains this fairly well:
https://youtu.be/CgoODQFrPgw?t=668 (timestamped)
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