The ‘Stop Killing Games’ petition has seen a rise in signatures with over 100,000 new signatures in the last 24 hours following the mass layoffs, studio closures, and project cancellations announced by Microsoft. The aim of the campaign created by Ross Scott is to challenge the legality of publishers ending support for games that customers purchased in full.
“’Stop Killing Games’ is a consumer movement started to challenge the legality of publishers destroying video games they have sold to customers,” read the petition description.
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“An increasing number of video games are sold effectively as goods – with no stated expiration date – but designed to be completely unplayable as soon as support from the publisher ends. This practice is a form of planned obsolescence and is not only detrimental to customers, but makes preservation effectively impossible. Furthermore, the legality of this practice is largely untested in many countries.”
The petition further noted that there has been an escalated complaint by consumers in the past year, with many of the complaints going to consumer agencies in France, Germany, and Australia. At the time of writing, 966,695 people have signed the Stop Killing Games petition—and counting.
The UK version of the petition had received over 124,000 signatures—and counting—at the time of writing. The UK parliament considers any petition that garners over 100,000 signatures for a debate.
Earlier in February, the parliament responded to a similar petition saying, “There are no plans to amend UK consumer law on disabling video games,” adding that, “Those selling games must comply with existing requirements in consumer law and we will continue to monitor this issue”.
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The deadline for signing the petition is July 31, 2025. However, we do not doubt that the Stop Killing Games petition will surpass its target. Within 20 minutes of monitoring the page, over 4,000 signatures were added to the counter.
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