One person’s frustration that has started a larger conversation
On a Saturday night, one man leaves his 9-5 job. He’s put in a hard day’s work and is ready to go home for some rest and relaxation. He picks up some fast food on the way home so he doesn’t have to fiddle with making a meal. He walks through his front door, sets his keys on the table, and pulls up YouTube to watch something while he eats.
This man has some hobbies. He likes to golf with his dad every other Sunday. He plays some basketball at the local park when he has the time. However, his favorite by far is playing video games with his friends. He has a small circle of pals that have stuck together through the years by way of their love of fighting games. A game that the man and his friends fell in love with was MultiVersus, the Super Smash Bros lookalike that included some of their favorite Warner Bros characters: characters such as Batman, Iron Giant and Agent Smith. They would spend countless hours having fun by getting these characters to duke it out in makeshift tournaments across the multiverse.
The man’s plan was to watch a video or two about potential characters coming to the game, maybe a YouTuber explaining some new strategies he could impress his friends with, and then hop on the game for another fun night. Instead, what he saw when he typed MultiVersus in the search bar shocked him.Many of his favorite YouTubers were reporting that online services for the game him and his friends have fallen in love with would terminate May 30th, 2025. His heart sank. He was distraught. What would he and his friends play now? Of course, there were other fighting games, but they loved this one. How could this happen?
One man experienced a problem similar and knew that this wasn’t right. This man’s name is Ross Scott, a YouTuber under the username Accursed Farms with around 404,000 subscribers. He developed his channel by creating machinima videos (videos that use video games and other virtual worlds to tell stories.) His most popular of these is a series is Freeman’s Mind, a series utilizing the Half-Life game engine to tell stories of the game’s protagonist, Gordon Freeman, commenting on various aspects of the game’s world.
Scott uploaded a video on May 18th, 2016 announcing the creation of a new channel called Dead Game News, where he would report on developments around the topic of companies shutting off the servers for their games, rendering them unplayable. This channel continued for nearly two years before he began uploading videos to his main channel due to Dead Game News not garnering enough views for YouTube Partnership status.
He has continued to upload videos covering the topic of dead games since then, commenting on the vast amounts of games that have had their online services stopped and criticizing companies for participating in this bad practice.
On January 18th, 2024, Scott uploaded a video in his Dead Game News format to discuss the shutdown of The Crew, an open-world racing game published by Ubisoft. This video is where Scott begins discussing preliminary plans to begin fighting this practice of companies shutting off live services for games.
This is where the Stop Killing Games initiative begins to take form. Over the past year, Scott’s initiative has grown from the gripes of a disgruntled gamer to a resounding voice of over a million people coming together to criticize the business practices of these large production companies. All of these voices unite to demand that companies stop destroying the thing that have brought communities together and allowed people to find enjoyment and pleasure in the commodities they have put out.
“It has become too common place for publishers to push out a game, garner support and fans, and then collect money from those fans only to shut off access to the things people purchased”
Stop Killing Games’ goal overall is to “require video game publishers to implement end-of-life plans when shutting down games they have sold.” This is important because it would allow customers to continue to run the games without support from the publishing company. This plan takes many forms depending on the type of transaction that is occurring in terms of the game. For example, games that are completely free would not be impacted due to their being no exchange of currency. On the other hand, games with microtransactions would be required to have a playable state after ending online services so that the money that was spent on the content would not be rendered unusable.
The Stop Killing Games movement has come a long way from its humble beginnings. As of July 3rd, 2025, the European Citizens’ Initiative crossed the threshold needed for debate in European Commission. This striking development is a stark change seeing as how only about a month ago, Scott was worried that interest in the cause had slowed down due to only having 45% of the signatures needed.
This movement, like others, is not free from criticisms. The loudest of these are the one’s being lobbed from another YouTuber by the name of PirateSoftware, otherwise known as ‘Thor.’ PirateSoftware has made many comments about the movement, such as saying that movement wants to transition multiplayer online games into singleplayer and that the movement is too vague in its demands. Scott has uploaded a video responding to these claims in detail, debunking them by educating his audience about the specifics of what the movement is looking for and dispelling fears propagated by opponents.
In short, the Stop Killing Games movement is a much needed one. It has become too common place for publishers to push out a game, garner support and fans, and then collect money from those fans only to shut off access to the things people purchased. We live in an age where that is not something that is necessary due to the amount of resources these companies have access to that would allow them to either dedicate constant long-term servers or construct builds of games that allow people to access the game after online services have ended.
Another issue that comes up in this conversation is the efforts made by companies to stop fans from constructing their own servers and builds of their favorite games to keep their communities alive. Take Blizzard as an example. For the release of World of Warcraft: Classic in 2019, the only way to play a version of the game with no expansions was through a private server called Nostalrius. This private server ran patch 1.12 of the game, which allowed fans of the base game to play a version they felt was true to their desired experience. This server ran for over a year before Blizzard issued a cease and desist letter to the administrators of the server, leading to the server being shut down April 10th, 2016. After an outcry of support for the private server and meetings with the team behind Nostalrius, Blizzard eventually caved to the desired of fans and created their official legacy server.
What it comes down to is an issue of greed and maintaining profit. These companies don’t see these games as products for their customers to enjoy and love. They are seen as opportunities to make money and nothing else. Once a company sees that a game is no longer making them money (or not making them enough money), they shut down access and go after anyone who tries to keep the game alive in any way.
Currently, the Stop Killing Games movement is focused on making changes in European countries. This is because the avenues that can be taken in the European Parliament are the most realistic due to strong consumer protection laws.
If you would like to support the Stop Killing Games movement, consider signing the petition if you are from a European country. If not, you can also share the petition on social media or any place you believe will help bring attention to the cause.
Visit Stop Killing Games to read more and sign the petition
https://www.stopkillinggames.com
Pingback: Past Present Conversations: Stop Killing Games
Pingback: A Shout Can Lead to an Avalanche