Stop Killing Games was a gigantic consumer movement centered around the preservation of video games, and its massive popularity inspired similar movements. Stop Destroying Videogames (doesn’t have the same kick, does it?) is another campaign focusing on the same issue, and according to the European Citizens Initiative, it has reached over 1.4 million signatures. More importantly, 689,035 of those signatures are now fully verified, and most EU countries involved have met their verification thresholds.
What These Movements Mean For Sports Games
For anyone who’s not familiar, the original Stop Killing Games movement was somewhat sparked by the shutdown of Ubisoft’s The Crew. The shutdown was swift and ruthless, with Ubisoft even removing the game from some players’ libraries. The Crew was an always-online racing game, meaning that when servers were pulled, the game was entirely unplayable.
As a result, Ubisoft faced severe community backlash and even legal action, according to Polygon. Fortunately, movements like Stop Killing Games and the overall criticism did work. While the original game is still unplayable, The Crew 2 now has an offline mode. Ubisoft says that saves will be separated for offline and online, but you can export your online progress and import it to start an offline save.
This is a major win for game preservation, but it should be the standard. Any game that launches with a single-player-focused mode should not rely on an online connection. It’s impressive that Ubisoft, one of the publishers that has been the biggest perpetrator of these sorts of issues, is addressing the problem.
Sports games should be the easiest to preserve since their core appeal lies in replayability and legacy content. Unfortunately, we know that’s not the case. Companies like 2K, EA, and Ubisoft love to push releases that replace, rather than coexist, with previous entries. Movements like Stop Killing Games and Stop Destroying Videogames are reminders that these are cycles we don’t have to accept.
