Stop Killing Games: When Your Game Ceases to Exist

The first game I bought on Steam was The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. And I only bought it after searching extensively for the physical PC version. That's because, at first, I didn't trust Steam. I thought, "If this site shuts down, my game will disappear and I'll have wasted my money".

After buying the game and seeing that Steam hadn't disappeared, I gained confidence in the store. Being a digital game, the lower prices compared to physical games were more attractive (and physical versions of PC games were practically impossible to find). Buying on Steam seemed better and cheaper, and it became a habit.

However, what I, and perhaps many others, didn't foresee wasn't the possibility of the store disappearing, but rather the game disappearing. The publisher simply decides that the game will no longer be sold and that even those who bought it can no longer play it for reasons unknown. But this happened. The Crew, a racing game from Ubisoft, was simply removed from stores, and even those who bought it can no longer play it.

In response to the outrage from players (and buyers), Philippe Tremblay, Ubisoft's director of subscriptions, said that "players should get comfortable with the idea of ​​not owning the games". We didn't. Although players were outraged by this statement, there was very little we could do about it, and increasingly, games are being removed from stores and are no longer available for purchase nowadays.

But someone decided to do something. The Stop Killing Games movement. If you haven't heard of it, or don't know what it is, we'll explain its origin and their fight against the games industry in the name of preserving games, and if you have any questions, leave a comment.

Buying a game these days doesn't mean the same thing as it used to. Games are being removed from stores, often becoming inaccessible in some functions like multiplayer mode or, in the case of The Crew, not even single-player.

Now think: Is it fair for a game to disappear like that? How many thousands of games from the Java mobile phone era, like versions of Prince of Persia and Sonic Unleashed, or those Flash browser games are simply inaccessible today?

If we have libraries for the preservation of books, film libraries for the preservation of films, and music libraries for sheet music or songs, why not a game library? Why not a way to preserve games?

The need to preserve the history of games became very evident with the emergence of the Stop Killing Games, which appeared in 2024. After the case of The Crew, YouTuber Ross Scott launched the SKG movement, with the idea of ​​pressuring companies and governments to prevent this type of situation from continuing to happen.

The idea of ​​the movement was to raise the discussion about when you buy a game: are you really buying it or just paying for temporary access that can end at any moment?

The movement argues that if a game has been sold, it needs to continue functioning in some way, even after the company stops providing official support, and this can happen in several ways, such as allowing offline modes, releasing servers for the community, or even offering some kind of solution so that the game continues to exist.

This idea might seem obvious when you compare it to other everyday things, because nobody expects to buy a movie, a book, or any other product and simply lose access to it after a few years, but in the case of games, especially those that depend on a constant connection, this has become a relatively common practice.

And that's precisely what the movement is trying to change, bringing the discussion to the legal field and attempting to transform this expectation into something that companies need to respect.

From the companies' side, they argue that it becomes unfeasible to keep games on their servers forever, to keep servers running for games that no longer have a large number of accesses and players, or that licenses for music or specific models of items like cars or characters cost money to renew. Furthermore, they claim that maintaining access to old games prevents players from discovering and experiencing new games.

One of the most complicated points in this discussion is understanding that, in practice, many people never "bought" a digital game in the way they imagined, because what digital platforms sell most of the time is a license to use the game, not the game itself.

This means that you have access to the game as long as the company allows, but there’s no guarantee that it’ll remain available forever, which completely changes the relationship between the player and the product.

So much so that some changes have already begun to happen because of this discussion, as in the case of California, in the USA, where a law now requires stores to make it clear when you’re buying a license and not a definitive product, forcing companies to be more transparent in this type of information.

Steam has also started displaying this information. GOG, a store that has always been quite transparent in its policy that the game is yours, has reinforced this after the controversy; although this hasn’t resulted in an increase in sales, it has made it very clear that alternatives exist.

But in practice, this means that the "buy" button often doesn't mean exactly what it seems, and that's something many people have only just begun to realize.

The case of The Crew wasn’t isolated, and after it, several other examples began to appear, showing that this problem isn’t rare and can affect any type of game that depends on servers to function.

Anthem, a BioWare game that has faced numerous problems since its release and never achieved the success expected by the developer, had its servers shut down in January 2026, leaving the game completely unusable, even for those who bought it and still wanted to play. Fan servers maintain the experience, but the game is completely dead and is no longer sold.

At the same time, some companies began to react differently, as in the case of Splitgate, which changed its operation to allow players to host their own matches, preventing the game from disappearing completely when official support ended. This type of solution shows that alternatives exist, but they depend on the companies' willingness to happen.

This shows that it doesn't matter if the game was a success or not: if it depends on an online infrastructure and that infrastructure ceases to exist, the game simply stops working, reinforcing the idea that many of these titles are closer to a service than a product.

Not everyone liked the idea of ​​Stop Killing Games, especially large companies and industry associations, who argue that keeping all games running forever would be expensive and technically complicated.

The main justification is that servers cost money, require maintenance, and can pose risks, making it unfeasible to keep everything active indefinitely, especially in games that no longer have a large player base.

On the other hand, this justification doesn't convince everyone, because many players and even some developers point out that there are intermediate solutions, such as releasing tools to the community or creating offline modes, which wouldn't require the same level of investment.

There's also the issue of the artificial scarcity of digital games: after all, there's no limit to how many times a file can be duplicated and sold. So, there's no reason to stop selling something, except when you want to make it rare and therefore more expensive. Imagine if, in a few years, Ubisoft decides to release a new version of The Crew with offline access, without restoring access to those who already own the game?

They can say it's a limited edition and sell it at high prices, which would attract the attention of those who want to play the "game that no longer exists" and make this a new standard for the future. Making games disappear and then releasing them in limited editions at a much higher price.

This discussion shows that the problem isn’t only technical, but also one of priority and economics, because it involves deciding to what extent the company is responsible for something that’s already been sold and how much it can profit by making a game disappear and then reselling the same product repeatedly.

Another important point the movement raises is the idea that games aren’t just consumer products, but also part of the culture, and that losing access to them means losing a part of video game history.

This becomes even more evident when you look at older games, which often only continue to exist today because of communities dedicated to preserving these titles, since the companies themselves aren’t always interested in keeping this type of content available.

Preservation projects and digital archives show that there’s a real concern about this, because without this kind of effort, many games would simply disappear over time, whether due to lack of support, technical or legal problems.

An example is the website Myrient, which had 390 TB of old game files and was discontinued due to lack of donations, the cost of maintaining servers and hardware, as well as access from third-party sites that charged for resources that the site provided for free.

It's sad to see this vast and freely available collection of video games, meant for everyone to enjoy, being lost forever. When this happens, it's not just a game that's lost, but a part of the evolution of the medium itself.

The Stop Killing Games movement has achieved something that isn’t always easy: transforming a common complaint into a serious debate being discussed at the legislative level, with proposed laws and public hearings taking place in different parts of the world.

The fact that it has gathered more than a million signatures shows that this isn’t an isolated concern, but something that affects many people and has the potential to generate real changes in the way games are sold and maintained.

There are also other websites and institutions dedicated to keeping the history of video games alive, such as Game Preservation Society and the Video Game History Foundation, who seek to store and preserve old games.

It's not yet possible to know exactly how this will be resolved, because there's a complicated balance between what's viable for businesses and what's fair for consumers, but the mere fact that this discussion is happening is already an important step.

What Stop Killing Games exposes is a change that has been happening for some time, but that many people hadn't yet stopped to analyze carefully: the transformation of games into services, where access depends on factors that go beyond your will as a player.

The big issue here isn't just technical, nor just economic, but also one of expectation, because those who buy a game usually expect to be able to play whenever they want, and not have to worry about whether that access will disappear in the future.

In the end, the movement isn't asking for something absurd, but something that seems quite simple when put directly: ensuring that what you bought continues to exist in some way, even if the company has already moved on.

And perhaps it’s precisely this simplicity that makes the discussion so important, because it calls into question something basic, something that many people have always taken for granted, but which, in practice, never was.