“Do not be discouraged by this answer whatsoever.”
Disappointment ripples across the Stop Killing Games movement today after the European Commission delivered its verdict on the recent parliamentary hearings around online game preservation, and how the EU intends to help – or not – the movement going forward.
This week’s verdict relates to the Stop Destroying Videogames citizens’ initiative, organised by the Stop Killing Games movement, which was a petition aimed at convincing the EU to establish a new legal framework to guard against game companies suddenly switching games off that people had paid for.
This particularly concerns games that can’t exist without multiplayer – think EA BioWare’s Anthem, Sony’s Concord, and Ubisoft’s The Crew. They are full-priced games rendered unplayable by the closure of their online services.
The petition was recently debated in European Parliament, and it seemed to be a very positive hearing for Stop Destroying Videogames. But following that hearing, and one other follow-up hearing, the European Commission has now said it won’t seek to change legal legislature. “The Commission considers that at this stage it cannot propose a legal obligation to keep video games playable after they stop being provided commercially,” its statement read.
“Under EU copyright law, rights holders enjoy exclusive rights over their creations,” the statement said. The Commission added that EU consumer law already provides “important” safeguards with regard to protecting consumers.
However, the Commission did concede that: “Video game providers must inform consumers about the duration and the conditions for terminating the contract before the consumers signs up for the video game,” which is one of the protections the Stop Destroying Videogames petition wanted. How this will be enforced, though, is unclear.
The Commission said it would talk with the games industry and with consumer representatives, “with the aim to draw up an industry code of conduct on managing video games’ ‘end of life'”. This was another of the Stop Destroying Videogames initiative’s goals – early transparency about what happens when a live service game is turned off.
The Commission also pledged to continue to raise awareness about the rights that consumers currently have, and it sounds as though there’s a hope that in doing so, this will “incentivise the providers to offer video games with longer lifespans and explore solutions for meeting consumer expectations”.
So there are some concessions to the Stop Destroying Videogames initiative, but it’s the refusal to change the European legislature – and only to reinforce what’s already there – which is being seen as a setback.
“The EU Commission has come out with their answer and unfortunately, it’s about what I expected” -Ross Scott
“The EU Commission has come out with their answer and unfortunately, it’s about what I expected,” Stop Killing Games founder Ross Scott said during a livestreamed press conference, after the verdict was delivered. “They’re not going to propose new legislation.
“Their general message is…let’s just kick this to the courts; if there’s a problem, the courts will handle it because there’s existing laws on the books that cover it. The problem there is nobody knows what the law is. This practice has been going on at least since 2010 or 2013, depending on how you want to manage it, and the law still doesn’t have an answer for this.”
Nevertheless, Scott wasn’t dismayed by the verdict and urged followers of the movement not to be either. “I am so glad we’re making in-roads in parliament,” Scott said. “Do not be discouraged by this answer whatsoever. It’s what we were anticipating and unfortunately it’s exactly what happened.
“We can still go ahead and get amended into the Digital Fairness Act. We have majority support in Parliament – everything’s still on course to go through with that. This is just exposing the EU Commission [as being] a roadblock on this.”
It’s a bump in the road for Stop Killing Games after what had seemed like a crowd-pleasing hearing in EU Parliament earlier in the year. But the movement isn’t just concentrated on Europe. In the US, a Protect Our Games Act, again propelled by Stop Killing Games, recently passed a crucial vote in California.
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