Stop Killing Games

This week’s post is unusual in that the subject isn’t strictly about my work, although it is connected to what I do in a roundabout way and it is very important, not only ot me but to us all as consumers. Let me explain.

I have been an avid fan of computer and video games since I was young, and I still play games regularly. Growing up, my dream job was making music for games. Therefore, when I got the opportunity to score a very ambitious indie game as a 15-year-old, it was literally a dream come true. Even though I have since shifted my focus to other musical expressions, I am still eyeing the games industry from time to time.

As a long-time fan and consumer of games, I am one of many who have noticed disconcerting trends in modern games. It used to be that you purchased a game, got it on one or several discs, installed it on your computer and could start playing immediately. However, game publishers are increasingly mandating things like logging onto their online services every time you want to play, or at the very least to “activate” your copy of the game before playing the first time – or on regular occasions.

Some publishers and distributors use so-called “launchers”: separate front-end programmes from which you can install and launch multiple games. Two of the largest front-ends – Steam and Epic Store – require you use them to launch their games (unless you use more or less complicated workarounds).

All of this adds up to you not actually owning what you have purchased, even though you have been sold something under the impression that you do. Instead of having a proof of purchase like a license key, the publisher or distributor controls your current and future ability to play your game, in the form of a remote server that they can at any time decide to shut down, rendering your game unplayable and your money wasted. This is not hyperbole or an overblown scare; there are several examples of these things happening, many of them recent.

There is currently an ongoing EU petition, a European Citizens’ Initiative, Stop Killing Games, with the objective to push European leaders to prohibit this practice in the future to prevent the accidental loss of – or conscious denial of access to – computer and video games. If you are a citizen in one of the European Union member states, you can and should sign the petition sometime within the next two weeks. The last day of the petition is July 31st.

I am happy and proud to have a small but growing and, from what I can tell, fairly diverse readership to this blog. You may not be a game fan like me, but I strongly encourage you to sign the petition anyway. If computer and video games can be regulated like this, it increases the possibility to regulate other software as well, which we all could benefit from.

This growing anti-consumer behaviour needs to be stopped. Game industry lobbyists have already started muddying the waters with weak and weaselly counter-arguments instead of engaging in good-faith discussion. As is too often the case, money talks, and it will take a genuine effort from us as informed and engaged consumers to drown it out.

In next week’s post, I will go into a little more detail on how this behaviour from software developers and publishers affects creative professionals and how this petition, even though it is specifically targeted at games, could benefit everyone in the long run. But please, if you are an EU citizen, I urge you not to put off signing the petition – it won’t take more than a few minutes of your time to sign it and it needs all the signatures it can get. Even though the number of signatures has already passed the one-million threshold, some of those signatures may end up invalidated in the final tally, so the more signatures it gets, the better.

Thank you.