Ubisoft was confronted at a recent shareholder meeting about its stance on Stop Killing Games, a popular petition calling for regulation that will stop modern games from being made inaccessible after support has ended.
Stop Killing Games is challenging lawmakers to introduce legislation that would stop publishers from being able to “destroy” video games they have sold to consumers. The movement was, in part, motivated by last year’s shutdown of Ubisoft’s The Crew.
The Crew’s shutdown sparked a backlash from players, including legal action, and led to launch offline modes for The Crew 2 and The Crew: Motorfest.
At a recent annual meeting highlighted by Game File, Ubisoft CEO On The Crew, Guillemot noted that Ubisoft launched a two-week promotion in September 2024, that offered the sequel for just €1/$1 across multiple online marketplaces, and also announced plans to make the game available offline in the future. “So this is an issue that we’ve been dealing with,” he said. “But this kind of issue is not specific to Ubisoft. All video game publishers are faced with that issue. “You provide a service, but nothing is written in stone and at some point the service may be discontinued. Nothing is eternal. And we are doing our best to make sure that things go well for all players and buyers, because obviously support for all games cannot last forever. “But that’s an issue that we’re working on. That’s something that the industry at large is working on, to minimize impact on players. But clearly that’s something you need to factor in. “The lifespan of a piece of software, whenever there’s a service component, eventually services may be discontinued, because eventually the software may become obsolete over time. A lot of tools become obsolete 10 or 15 years down the line. They’re no longer available. And that is why we release a new version. And so we have version two and then version three. But clearly this is a far-reaching issue, and we are working on it.” A petition launched by Stop Killing Games aimed at the EU has gained nearly 1.4 million signatures at the time of writing, which has prompted lobbying group Video Games Europe to respond.
