YouTuber Launches New Campaign To Stop Devs From Making Their Games Unplayable

"Stop Killing Games" wants to end the malicious practice.

By Shahmeer Sarfaraz April 6, 2024

The Stop Killing Games Campaign Could Bring A Positive Change In The Industry | Image Credit: Ubisoft

Story Highlights

A YouTuber has started a campaign to stop devs from ending their games after support ends.
It wants to end the bad practice and explore the legal gray area to bring about a change.
The campaign has started garnering support from gamers and other YouTubers in the scene.

The YouTuber Accursed Farms has launched a new campaign dubbed “Stop Killing Games” that wants to stop game devs from making their games unplayable after support ends. The campaign wants to get governments involved to prevent publishers from killing games bought by players after a certain time. It is hoped that applying pressure to game devs will bring about change and more awareness of the rampant issue.

Currently, game publishers are free to end support for games after a certain time—yes, even if players paid for them in the past. Arguably the biggest example of this is The Crew by Ubisoft. Support for the action-driving title will be ending on March 31, 2024, with the servers shutting down entirely. One of the campaign’s goals is to save the prominent game from shutting down.

The Campaign Wants To Tackle A Legal Gray Area

There are no concrete rules set by governments that can prevent game publishers from making their games unplayable intentionally. As a result, Stop Killing Games wants to take the issue out of the legal gray area by making regulators hold publishers responsible for such issues. Overall, the new campaign may bring about a positive shift in the industry over time.

The legality of this [ending support for games] practice is untested worldwide, and many governments do not have clear laws regarding these actions. It is our goal to have authorities examine this behavior and hopefully end it, as it is an assault on both consumer rights and preservation of media,” reads the official website.

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The concerns of the community are palpable as more and more games go online and become a license-based experience. Therefore, Stop Killing Games has already received quite a bit of support from much of the gaming industry, including fellow YouTubers.